THE teaching of history in secondary schools continues to be dominated by Hitler, the Government’s curriculum authority said yesterday.

Pupils learnt about little else in GCSE courses except the fate of Nazi Germany and of Henry VIII and his wives, according to the annual report of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA).

“There has been a gradual narrowing and ‘Hitlerisation’ of post-14 history. The option choices made by schools and colleges in GCSE and AS/A level mean that the content of post-14 history continues to be dominated by topics such as the Tudors and the 20th- century dictatorships,” the QCA said.

The subject was so poorly taught in primary schools that more than 40 per cent of pupils had “negative perceptions” of history by the time they arrived at secondary school. The QCA has issued guidance on teaching postwar German history to provide “a more balanced understanding of 20th-century Germany”.

Ken Boston, the QCA’s chief executive, said: “The past 60 years have seen great events in Germany — the Cold War, the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, reunification — and great achievements that too few English children are taught. Schools in England need to spend time teaching what happened in Germany after 1945.”

Thomas Matussek, the outgoing German Ambassador to London, had said that Britons were obsessed with Nazism.

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