Abstract ›Wholeness‹ is a topic in educational theory since the Baroque age. In 19th century political concepts of ›wholeness‹ came into being. The article asks what happened to educational theories that were bound to concepts like ›volk‹, ›race‹, ›nation‹ or ›the world‹. Those theories appeared before, during and after World War I. The topics were ›war‹ and ›peace‹ and the rhetorics of wholeness were used on both sides. Because of that, educational theory should abandon the suggestive language of wholeness.