During Christmas in Germany, you will hear many silent nights and Don Nambaum-two Christmas carols from which they originate. But in the third Reich, you’re more likely to hear a hymn called “Song Night” than a hymn about Silent Night. The popular hymn, which features motherhood, renewal and holiday fires, seems to fit the rest of the Christmas song. As in Nazi Germany, it was an elaborate fake, part of a Nazi songwriter’s attempt to apply Adolf Hitler’s hateful ideology to Christmas. In the 1930 s and 1940 s, the Nazis tried to transform Germany’s popular Christmas tradition into Nazi tradition. Although Hitler’s attempt to create a state religion failed, his party’s attempt to redefine religious celebrations was more successful. To do so, they use ideology and propaganda to align the festival with the anti-Semitic values of the national socialists.
Christmas itself is a problem. After all, Jesus was Jewish, and anti-Semitism and the goal of eliminating Jews and Jews were at the heart of Nazi thinking. When it comes to Germany, this becomes a problem. The country is not only a devout Christian, but also a place of many Christmas traditions, such as calendars, Christmas trees and markets. The Nazis knew that it was impossible to eradicate Christianity completely, so they decided to remodel it in their own image. Historian (gerry bowler) says at first the Nazis simply tried to take over Christmas as a party ritual. They inserted Nazi images, even Nazi officials, into Christmas scenes and Christmas parties. They also tried to establish positive links between the Nazis and the winter, and in a colder month they carried out enormous welfare activities. Hitler’s youth and the party’s official youth group, the German Girls, helped collect coats and money for the Depression-affected party members and poor Germans. But as the years passed, the Germans continued to celebrate Christian Christmas, and Nazi tactics evolved. To distract the Germans from their long-standing Christian tradition, the Nazis increasingly focused on German pagan believers. They emphasized the role that pagan rituals might play in the modern Christmas tradition. In the idealized version of the Nazi fictional past, the Germanic tribes had ethnically pure rituals that could be rebuilt during the Nazi era. The most important thing is to celebrate the Winter Solstice. The Nazis tried to move the date of Christmas to a supreme place and dressed up as large performances and community bonfires, said to have been held prior to Christian ceremonies. They also tried to redefine Saint Nicholas as the ancient Germanic Vatan. As the years passed, the Nazis tried to take over Christmas.
The Nazis rewrote the lyrics of Silent Night to eliminate all attempts at religion or Christ. They provide the children with a calendar full of propaganda and militarism. They even tried to rewrite Handel’s Messiah. Mothers are encouraged to bake cross-whip biscuits. Even familiar stars, more than millions of Christmas trees, were replaced by a sunshine that didn’t look like David’s star. The traditional Christmas celebration became a protest against Nazism. Historian Joe Perry (joe perry) wrote: “singing a Christmas carol every day, or baking a holiday cookie, is clearly plain, either political dissent or support for national socialism.” As wartime poverty and bombing became more and more terrible, many Germans no longer cared about Christmas at all. Berliners, says Perry, have made a commitment to national socialism. In the cold winter of 1944 and 1944, the terrible joke was: “think realistically-give the coffin.” Despite their attempts to take over the Christmas tradition, only one tradition survived the end of the third Reich: the night of the High Reich. In 1945, the song was banned as a Nazi propaganda, but at least in the 1950s, some families continued to sing. Today, the song still exists in Germany’s neo-Nazi and far-right extremist performances, a chilling reminder that, although the Nazis lost their first war at Christmas, it may one day be played again.
