Children spend so much time learning about the Nazis at school that they are ignorant of British history, Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, believes. As a result, he has ordered a review of the history curriculum.

In recent years pupils have tended to repeat the same periods of history - particularly the Second World War or Soviet Russia - at each stage of their education, to such an extent that it has been called the "Hitlerisation of history".

Mr Clarke considers the trend "a serious criticism that we have to address". He wants children to have a sense of the broader sweep of history and the context of particular events.

It is the first time that the Government has acknowledged concerns that the history curriculum is leaving children with little or no sense of the history of their own country. The Prince of Wales and prominent historians such as Dr David Starkey are among those who have criticised the way that history is taught.

Thomas Matussek, the German ambassador to Britain, recently blamed history lessons in British schools for perpetuating anti-German feelings because they concentrated on Adolf Hitler and ignored recent German history.

He said: "There are incidents of physical and verbal abuse on German visitors and students in Britain, with young people calling them Nazis: that leads us to question why. History teachers tell us that students are choosing to study that period and along with the media, we see an emphasis on those 12 years of German history and relatively less on contemporary Germany or pre-1933 Germany.

"Some of the backward-looking perceptions of our country have to do with these history lessons, so we do appreciate anything that will look at what can be done."

Schools could now be put under pressure to return to traditional history teaching, with more time spent on key events and characters in British history. In an interview with BBC History magazine to be published on Tuesday, Mr Clarke, who took history A-level, was asked if students' excessive concentration on a few topics such as the Nazis was failing to develop their broader sense of history.

He responded: "A lot of people - people I respect - say that there is not enough of a sense of a timeline in history, so that pupils have too much detailed study of particular eras and not enough of a sense of context for what happened.

"That's not simply an appeal to go back to dates and kings and queens and that sort of thing but it is saying that by the time they are 14, children should have a pretty good appreciation of the history of this country, of Europe, and the context within which things happened. I will ask the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to look at these matters."

Unlike every other country in Europe, history is only compulsory in British schools until the age of 14. Children are supposed to cover British history from the Middle Ages to the 20th century in addition to key events and figures in European and world history. About 220,000 candidates take history GCSE every year out of 600,000. Fewer than 40,000 students continue to A-level.

There are dozens of syllabuses to choose from but, according to the Office for Standards in Education annual report, Hitler's Germany dominated most teaching. The report said schools were failing to develop pupils' lasting knowledge of the subject and a sense of chronology of events.

In a recent survey, 30 per cent of 11 to 18-year-olds thought that Oliver Cromwell fought at the Battle of Hastings and a similar number could not name the century for the First World War. Fewer than half of the 200 children questioned knew that Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar was the Victory.

Teachers blame the Government for putting pressure on schools to improve examination results, forcing them to choose the "safe option" and study the periods pupils are already familiar with. They claim that attempts to cover more history have been frustrated by the cost of replacing textbooks and time constraints.

Harry Dickinson, a professor of British history at Edinburgh University and the vice-president of the Royal Historical Society, said: "We are in danger of losing thousands of years of history and that is a terrible prospect. A child might go from ancient Egypt to the Tudors to the Second World War without having a clue about what happened in between."

The obsession with modern history is spreading to universities, too, he believes. "There are so many PhD students wanting to study 20th-century history and some new universities do not study anything before 1800," he said.

Christine Counsell, a lecturer in education at Cambridge University and the deputy president of the Historical Association, welcomed Mr Clarke's announcement but said that schools were being forced to reduce the history timetable because of government policy. She said: "No history teacher, however talented, can gallop through a huge amount of content in just one hour a week.

"Schools are being encouraged to start pupils on GCSE courses at a younger age. This could mean that some pupils only have two years of compulsory history at secondary school. That would be a scandal."

A spokesman for the Department of Education and Skills said: "The key issue is that by the time children are 14, they should have a good understanding of the history of this country and how events followed on from each other. It is important that we have the right balance between knowledge of this country's history and of Europe and the wider world."

Earlier this year, Mr Clarke angered historians when he appeared to question the validity of studying medieval history. He later denied the news reports, describing them as "ludicrous".

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