In Germany the students are taught about WWII extensively. About every school year either WWII, Hitler's rise to power (why could a democratic society enable a dictator come to power) or the holocaust (what lead to the murder of millions of jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals etc.) The history of anti-semitism is shown from the middle ages to the modern times.

The concept of propaganda is analyzed, Riefenstahl, Goebbels, the film industry, the "Gleichschaltung" of every single organization...

So there is no taboo. Documentaries about the concentration camps are watched, usually a concentration camp is visited (if one is close by).

In later years the focus is very much on Hitler's rise to power, the concept of fascism and to an extent whether it could happen again today. In a way the focus is on implementing the idea of "who forgets is doomed to repeat".

The war crimes of the Wehrmacht and SS are touched as well as the war crimes of the Allies (to a lesser extent).

Im Swiss and not German or Austrian but I know many people from Germany who went to school during the same time as me.

Generally the subject is repeated over and over again. The reason for this is that you learn about it in history, and maybe ethics class and then you do it again in german litrature. So the message is really clear, we have to remember, and it has to never happen again.

I have heard studends complain that their is not enougth diversity. Each teacher sees it as his duty to talk about these subject and you end up with very simular discussions each time.

The subject is very much not taboo, rather everybody tries to show that he knows about the subject. Not knowing is a sign of huge ingorance, far more so then not knowing about the French Revolution (something that is very prominent in History classes as well).

Their is also a sort of pride that they are so open with the subject. They learn that other nations lie about that sort of stuff and think its great that they are not like that.

Now that I know much more then back then, the stuff we learn is a bit stylised and oversimplified, and often just not up to date but not more so then in any other history class.

Austrian here, like the others above posted we learn extensively about the 2nd world war in our history classes as well as our german classes. A lot is interactive as well, like trips to former KZs, talking to our grandparents (which was the only way that i discovered that the father of my grandma fought at stalingrad, survived the fight and subsequently the russian imprisonment as well) talking to holocaust survivors and a lot of movies. An important part (though it may depend on the teacher) is why there was a war in the first place, so we talked a lot about the first world war, nationalism and austrofacsism, even more than about the second world war itself. Especially as an Austrian it is difficult to think if I wouldn't have welcomed Nazi germany as well, when thinking about hyperinflation, no jobs and seeing that german was the more successful dictatorship, and being leftist myself that was truly concerning (man, i miss these kind of discussions).

Buuut especially austria does have a difficult legacy concerning the whole thing.Thanks to the first victim declaration, we didnt have the same clarification and rehabilitation process as germany, which lead to another whole set of problems. ps: it really depends which kind of school you are attending, the AHS and some BHS are doing a great job at that, but other schooltypes arent that dedicated (the austrian schoolsystem is overly complex and very confusing, please check the wiki for more details about it - being on the mobile i have only limited accessibility), so in most cases every austrian does have a different experience, except for -> Hitler = bad + do not start another world war, 2 are quite enough ;-)