It was developed in the frame of a 1976 conference held in the southern German town of Beutelsbach to reanimate the exchange of different didactic schools after a period of deep conflicts.
It is not permissible to catch pupils unprepared or unaware - by whatever means - for the sake of imparting desirable opinions and to hinder them from `forming an independent judgment’.
Indoctrination is incompatible with the role of a teacher in a democratic society and the universally accepted objective of making pupils capable of independent judgment (Mündigkeit).
In affirming this second basic principle, it becomes clear why the personal standpoint of teachers, the intellectual and theoretical views they represent and their political opinions are relatively uninteresting.
This is different from the situation in England and Wales where sections 406 and 407 of the Education Act 1994 explicitly require a local authority to forbid political indoctrination and to secure a balanced presentation of opposing views.