The Third Wave (experiment)

The Third Wave was an experimental social campaign made by California high school history teacher Ron Jones in 1967. This experiment was to explain to the student how the German population could have accepted the actions of the Nazi regime during the rise of the Third Reich and the Second World War.

Jones taught his students about Nazi Germany during his senior level Contemporary World History class. He found it difficult to explain to his students how the German population could accept the actions of the Nazis. He decided to make a fake social movement as an example of the appeal of fascism. Over the course of 5 days (or nine, according to student Sherry Toulsey), Jones, a member of the SDS, Cubberley United Student Movement sponsor and Black Panthers supporter – started a series of exercises in his classroom mainly focusing on discipline and community. This was intended to model certain characteristics of the Nazi movement.

The experiment had started getting out of control, as the movement started growing outside of his class and began to number in the hundreds. He convinced the students to attend a rally where he claimed that the classroom project was part of a nationwide movement, and that the announcement of a Third Wave presidential candidate would be televised. When the students arrived, they were shown with a blank channel. Jones told his students the true nature of the movement as an experiment in fascism, and showed them a short film discussing the actions of Nazi Germany.

This project was turned into an American film, The Wave, in 1981, and a very praised German film, Die Welle, in 2008.

Background

The experiment started at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, during the first week of April, 1967. Jones decided to show them after finding it hard to tell the students how the German people could have ignored the Holocaust. Jones started a movement called "The Third Wave" and told his students that the movement wanted to end democracy. The idea that democracy focuses on individuals was seen as a drawback, and Jones focused this main point of the movement in its motto: "Strength through discipline, strength through community, strength through action, strength through pride."

The experiment was not well documented, being briefly mentioned in two issues of the Cubberley High School student newspaper, The Cubberley Catamount. Another issue of the paper has a longer description of the experiment when it was finished. Jones wrote a detailed recollection about nine years after. Articles from other authors followed, some featuring an interview with Jones and the students involved.