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Christmas in Nazi Germany

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Christmas presents for the poor in 1935

The celebration of Christmas in Nazi Germany was allowed. The Jewish origins of Jesus and the commemoration of his birth as the Jewish Messiah was troubling for some members of the more fanatical members of the Nazi Party and their racial beliefs. Between 1933 and 1945, some government officials began a small movement that attempted to bring the civil celebrations of the Christian religious holiday into line with Nazi ideology by focusing more on cultural pre-Christian aspects of the festival. However, these were not very successful and the celebrations of Christmas remained Christian in nature.

Background

Christianity had long been the main faith of the Germanic peoples, dating to the missionary work of Columbanus and St. Boniface in the 6th–8th centuries.[1] TheNazi Party wanted to change the subjective consciousness of the German people—their attitudes, values and mentalities in order to acheive the party's main goal to create the perfect Volksgemeinschaft or 'People's Community', .[2] According to the American journalist Shirer, "under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler—backed by Hitler— the Nazi regime intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists."[3] Other scholars have maintained that no such plan existed.

Some members of the Nazi Party promoted 'Positive Christianity', an apostate version of Christianity created in January 1920 by official Nazi ideologue, theorist and intellectual Alfred Rosenberg. Positive Christianity rejected and purged all of traditional Christianity’s Jewish elements, like the Hebrew names in the Bible, The Old Testament, and parts of The New Testament. It also rejected other parts of traditional Christianity, such as the Virgin Birth and Apostle’s Creed, as well as the Jewish/Semitic origins of Jesus Christ. Instead, in Positive Christianity, Jesus Christ was a great ethnic Germanic fighter, who was fathered by a Roman soldier, and grew up to fight against the Jewish people and their materialistic spirit, and in the end, was crucified for his bravery.

Hitler had a falling out with Alfred Rosenberg and declared it not to be the official stance of the Nazi party, and quit the religion himself in late-1941. Positive Christianity itself was not exclusively Christian and was open to non-theists and even promoted Wotan in Rosenberg's Myth of the 20th Century.[4]

Early Nazi celebrations of Christmas occurred in 1921 when Adolf Hitler made a speech in a beer hall in Munich to 4000 supporters. Undercover police reporters wrote that the crowd cheered when Hitler condemned "the cowardly Jews for breaking the world-liberator on the cross", swearing he was "not to rest until the Jews... lay shattered on the ground." The crowd then sang carols and nationalist hymns around a Christmas tree, with gifts being donated to working-class attendees of the speech.[5] After taking power in 1933, some radical Nazi ideologues initially wanted to focus more on the Germanic origins winter solstice celebrations rather than Germany's long-held Christmas traditions. But for the majority of Germans, the Christian traditions of these celebrations remained the basis of the holiday.[6]

Christmas in the Nazi regime

Some fanatical Nazi ideologists began a movement to shift civil Christmas celebrations to concentrate more on the Germanic Pre-Christian elements of the festival. Some even claimed that the Christian elements of the holiday had been superimposed upon ancient Germanic traditions.[7] They argued that Christmas Eve originally had nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ, but was more Pagan in nature and in reality celebrated the winter solstice and the 'rebirth of the sun',[7] that the swastika was an ancient symbol of the sun, and that Santa Claus was a reinvention of the Germanic god Odin. Accordingly, holiday posters were made to depict Odin as the "Christmas or Solstice man", riding a white charger, sporting a thick grey beard and wearing a slouch hat, carrying a sack full of gifts. The traditional crèche was replaced by a garden containing wooden toy deer and rabbits; Mary and Jesus were depicted as a blonde mother and child.[7]

The decorations of the Christmas tree was also changed and during the height of the movement, the star on the top of the tree was sometimes replaced with a swastika, a Germanic sun wheel or a sig rune, and swastika-shaped tree lights.[7][8][9][7]

After Adolf Hitler's rise to power, shop catalogues containing children's toys made available during the holiday season began featuring and selling chocolate SS and Wehrmacht soldiers, toy tanks, fighter planes and machine guns.[9] As a sign of appreciation, Heinrich Himmler frequently gave SS members a Julleuchter ("Yule lantern"), an ancient kind of ornate Germanic candlestick, some of which were made at Dachau concentration camp.[7][10] Housewives were prompted to bake biscuits in the shape of birds, wheels and swastikas for their children.

German Volkssturm soldiers in Christmas 1944, East Prussia

When war began in 1939 the movement lessened as the Hitler government wanted to place more concentration on the war effort.[7] In 1944 civil celebrations of Christmas marked the festival as a day of remembrance for Germany's war dead.

Opposition

While the movement of rebranding of Christmas remained relatively small, at times it was reported that it did provoke hostility by a minority. Files from the National Socialist Women's League reported, "that tensions flared when propagandists pressed too hard to sideline religious observance, leading to "much doubt and discontent.'"[5] The clergy were among those opposed to the redefining of Christmas. Reports say that in Düsseldorf the clergy used Christmas to promote women's clubs and encourage membership; the Catholic clergy threatened any woman who joined the National Socialist Women's League with excommunication; and some religious women boycotted Christmas events organised by National Socialist Women's League.[5]

See also

References

Dutton, Donald G. (2007). The Psychology of Genocide, Massacres, and Extreme Violence. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group.

  • "Photos from a Nazi [Hitler's] Christmas Party (Dec 1, 1941)". Life magazine. Slideshow. Dec 1, 2013.
  1. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Germany : Religion; web 23 May 2013
  2. ^ Ian Kershaw; The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation; 4th Edn; Oxford University Press; New York; 2000"; pp. 173–74
  3. ^ William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; p. 240
  4. ^ from Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1969). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. 1. New York: Howard Fertig. p. 402.
  5. ^ a b c Perry, Joe (December 22, 2015). "How the Nazis co-opted Christmas". The Conversation. Retrieved December 25, 2015.
  6. ^ Christmas: Not such a holy night under the Nazis; DW Online; by Faith Thomas; 24/12/09
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Paterson, Tony (21 December 2009). "How the Nazis stole Christmas". The Independent. London. Retrieved 21 December 2009.
  8. ^ Boyes, Roger (17 November 2009). "How the Nazis tried to take Christ out of Christmas". The Times. Retrieved 21 December 2009.
  9. ^ a b Morrison, Rebecca K. (22 December 2010). "Did the Germans invent Christmas?". The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  10. ^ Smith, David Gordon (13 November 2009). "Swastikas and Tinsel: How the Nazis Stole Christmas". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 23 December 2009.
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