Academic scholarship on Antiquity in National Socialist Germany became a subject of necessary scrutiny relatively early after the Second World War and was considered a critical part of what would later be called German Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past). This is especially true of research on Sparta. The role of Sparta in the military elite schools of Prussia and the Third Reich was not explored in the process, most probably because these institutions were not to be sanitised for a re-civilised future Germany but were, as hotbeds of German militarism, to be abandoned entirely. R.'s interest in the topic is not primarily political. Instead, it is rooted in a broader interest in Sparta's long and winding road through modernity and Sparta's potential as a representation of modern thought in different societies. Central to the book, which is based on R.'s doctoral research, are two case studies that inquire into the role of an idealised ancient Sparta in shaping two elite education institutions and their pupils – the explicitly military-oriented Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, which trained boys from the age of ten for officer careers, and the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (Napolas), which aimed to form a general elite for the future of National Socialist Germany.

In the introductory chapter R. surveys the literature and primary sources and deliberates on methodological issues inherent to interpreting her more problematic source material, like cadet-school fiction, memoirs and her personal correspondence with around 60 former Napola pupils. The second part of the introduction establishes the view that the Prussian military advocated a distinct version of the Spartan paradigm that was rooted in a more general German philhellenism but eventually isolated itself from it (and from the scholarship on the topic), a paradigm that represented the Spartans as fearless warriors and a self-dependent people and therefore as worthy of emulation by Prussian soldiers. It is this form of the Spartan trope, R. argues convincingly, that is detectable in the discourses about the cadet corps both outside and within the institutions.

Chapters 2 to 7 are devoted to the relation between the Spartan trope and the cadet schools from the eighteenth century to their disbandment in 1920 (in conformity to the Treaty of Versailles) and thereafter in the ex-cadets' old boy network up to the 1990s. R. shows that the cadet schools were referred to as Spartan (or even ‘Neu-Sparta’) in political contexts (e.g. Reichstag debates) as well as in general public discourse (e.g. children's career guides, newspaper articles). P. Von Szczepański's widely read novel Spartanerjünglinge (‘Spartan Youths’) depicting the life of a young cadet played an important role in the propagation of the topos in public. But while the political appropriation of a Spartan-style military education changed with the general political climate and was an early target of leftist criticism, the former cadets' personal appropriation of their ‘Spartan’ education remained astonishingly stable. R. explains this discovery in two steps. First, she shows that the textbooks used in the cadet schools depicted ancient Sparta in a way that allowed pupils to view their own lives in the cadet schools as similar to those of young Spartans in training, with resemblances ranging from food deprivation and constant supervision by authorities and older cadets to exposure to extreme heat and cold. Most of the information provided in the textbooks originates from Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus and Xenophon's Constitution of Sparta; incommensurabilities such as Spartan pederasty are not mentioned. Second, R. argues cogently that identifying with the role model of a Spartan youth helped especially the new cadets bear the hardships of daily life in the cadet corps, which was marked not only by a strict hierarchy but also by frequent physical bullying. She points to evidence showing that it was the endurance of physical pain in particular (beatings, needles stuck in the flesh, holding heated pen nibs to the skin, etc.) that was considered ‘Spartan’ among cadets. Coined to describe these trials, the verb ‘spartanern’ (‘to spartan’) illustrates – despite being a hapax legomenon – the close psychological link to the Spartan trope that elucidates why some ex-cadets went on referring to themselves as Spartanerjünglinge long after graduation. R. applies E. Goffman's concept of a ‘total institution’ to the cadet corps (and Napolas) and concludes within this framework ‘that spartanern formed an important – if not crucial – part of the “rationalisation process” which enabled both cadets and staff to justify the mortifications … which the boys had to endure’ (p. 117).

Chapters 8 and 9 explore the political, institutional and personal appropriation of Sparta in Nazi Germany's Napolas. As R. points out, the political heads of the institution (Reich Education Minister Bernhard Rust and the inspectors of the Napolas, Joachim Haupt and August Heißmeyer) did indeed see Sparta as an example of the kind of communal education that the Napolas aimed to achieve. Her analysis of history textbooks reveals how ancient Sparta was adjusted to fit the ruling ideology. For example, the enslavement of Messenia is portrayed as the rightful task of a superior people. Spartan marriage customs and the abandoning of unfit children are explained as endeavours to maintain racial ‘purity’, which is consequently depicted as the main reason for Sparta's superior military abilities. Inapplicable elements of the agôgê are left out or even replaced by National Socialist practices. The self-sacrifice of 300 Spartans at Thermopylae is stressed as exemplary.

Concerning the Napolas' everyday life and teaching, R.'s evidence demonstrates that the Spartan example was not advocated by all teachers and principals alike, but rather was heavily emphasised in some schools and nonexistent in others. Her study of the personal appropriation of Sparta is based for the most part – but not exclusively – on her personal correspondence with former Napola pupils and shows that they felt their school lives to be ‘Spartan’ and (to varying degrees) conceived of themselves as ‘Spartan youths’. R. focuses on the similarities between the Sparta appropriations in the Prussian cadet schools and those at the Napolas, identifying the racial ideology and the increased emphasis on Thermopylaen self-sacrifice as major differences, which leads her to suggest that, as in the cadet schools, ‘ideas of Sparta were used … to assist in the “rationalisation” process which was involved in adapting to life at a total – and, in this case totalitarian – institution’ (p. 231). An additional difference may be pointed out. The cadets' identification as ‘Spartanerjünglinge’ seems to have been much more closely linked to actual attendance at the institutions than is observable in the case of the Napolas. The prerogative of being ‘Spartan’ was granted to the cadets by their peers and teachers and by public opinion as a result of their having received the cadet corps' hardening education, which also distinguished them as a military elite. In National Socialist Germany on the other hand the idea of Sparta was merely applied to the whole people and widely invoked. Especially under the then prevalent premise of an assumed racial kinship between ‘Aryan’ Spartans and ‘Germanic’ peoples the Spartan trope loses its capacity to describe a distinct elite within German society. But this remark is by no means intended to detract from the overall quality of the book. Based on a considerable number of primary sources (all of which are quoted in English translation) R.'s work is a valuable contribution to the research on the mirage spartiate and its transformation in modern societies, as well as to the history of educational institutions.