The Classics Confidential folks chat with Helen Roche, who is looking at how the Nazis incorporated/interpreted Spartan ideas in their own education system:
Classics Confidential: Helen Roche
quidquid bene dictum est ab ullo, meum est
rogueclassicism 
Thanks for this posting. I wish people would stop using that term “militarism” which was coined as a smear. Traditional European culture was a “Warrior” culture. The Doric Greeks were not only a warrior culture but also a philosophical culture. Western philosophy was born out of this warrior culture.
The essence of a man is to be a Warrior. Do you call Japanese Samurai Culture “militaristic” or “warrior”. Both cultures were high cultures.
If you listen, she says that NS _perceived_ Sparta as ‘militaristic’ which seems reasonable. Would the NS have really thought of militarism as a smear? Somehow I’m not sure that they would…
When Lord Baden Powell started the Boy Scout Program, many attacked the program as “militaristic”. If you read many progressives, they attack societies, ideas, as “militaristic”. It is tag that one should revolt from. They use the term as a pejorative.
I was an Eagle Scout and a former US Marine and so I have a love of the warrior culture. I’ve heard plenty of times this “militaristic” used against Sparta as a quality in which Sparta is to be dismissed.