The conversation
How the Nazis Co-opted Christmas
In 1921, at a brewery in Munich, the newly appointed leader of the Nazi party Adolf Hitler delivered a Christmas address to a lively crowd. According to undercover police observers, 4,000 supporters cheered when Hitler condemned “the cowardly Jews for breaking the world liberator on the cross” and vowed “not to rest until the Jews … were shattered on the floor.” Later, the crowd sang Christmas carols and nationalist hymns around a Christmas tree. Working class participants received gifts of charity. For Germans in the 1920s and 1930s, this combination of observance of family holidays, nationalist propaganda and anti-Semitism was not uncommon. As the Nazi party grew in size and scope – and finally came to power in 1933 – committed propagandists worked to “Nazify” Christmas even more. Redefining family traditions and designing new symbols and rituals, they hoped to channel the main principles of National Socialism through the popular holiday. Given the state’s control over public life, it is not surprising that Nazi officials have succeeded in promoting and propagating their version of Christmas through repeated radio broadcasts and reports. But under any totalitarian regime, there can be a great disparity between public and private life, between the rituals of the town square and those of the house. In my research, I was interested in how Nazi symbols and rituals penetrated private family festivities – out of sight of party leaders. Although some Germans resisted the violent and politicized appropriation of Germany’s favorite holiday, many actually adopted a Nazi holiday that evoked the family’s place in the “racial state”, free from Jews and other outsiders. Redefining ChristmasOne of the most striking features of private celebration in the Nazi period was the redefinition of Christmas as a Nordic Neopagan celebration. Rather than focusing on the religious origins of the holiday, the Nazi version celebrated the supposed heritage of the Aryan race, the label the Nazis gave to the “racially acceptable” members of the German racial state. According to Nazi intellectuals, the estimated holiday traditions were based on the winter solstice rituals practiced by “Germanic” tribes before the arrival of Christianity. Lighting candles on the Christmas tree, for example, was reminiscent of the pagan wishes for a “return of light” after the shortest day of the year. Scholars call attention to the manipulative function of these and other invented traditions. But there is no reason to suppose that they were unpopular. Since the 1860s, German historians, theologians, and popular writers have argued that observances of German holidays were reminiscent of pre-Christian pagan rituals and popular folk superstitions. Therefore, as these ideas and traditions had a long history, Nazi propagandists easily managed to launch Christmas as a celebration of pagan German nationalism. A vast state apparatus (centered on the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment) ensured that a Nazi holiday dominated public space and celebration in the Third Reich. But two aspects of the Nazi version of Christmas were relatively new. First, because Nazi ideologues saw organized religion as an enemy of the totalitarian state, propagandists sought to lessen the emphasis – or eliminate completely – the Christian aspects of the holiday. Official celebrations may mention a supreme being, but most prominently feature the solstice and “light” rituals that are supposed to have captured the pagan origins of the holiday. Second, as Hitler’s 1921 speech suggests, the Nazi celebration evoked racial purity and anti-Semitism. Before the Nazis seized power in 1933, ugly and open attacks on German Jews typified the holiday propaganda. Blatant anti-Semitism more or less disappeared after 1933, when the regime sought to stabilize its control over a population tired of political struggles, although Nazi celebrations still excluded those deemed “unfit” by the regime. Countless media images of German families invariably blond and blue eyes gathered around the Christmas tree helped to normalize ideologies of racial purity. Even so, open anti-Semitism emerged at Christmas time. Many would boycott department stores owned by Jews. And the cover of a 1935 Christmas catalog by mail, which depicted a blonde mother wrapping Christmas presents, included a sticker assuring customers that “the department store was occupied by an Aryan!” It is a small, almost banal example. But he talks a lot. In Nazi Germany, even buying a gift could naturalize anti-Semitism and reinforce the “social death” of Jews in the Third Reich. The message was clear: only “Aryans” could participate in the celebration. Taking ‘Christ’ out of Christmas According to National Socialist theorists, women – especially mothers – were crucial to strengthening the links between private life and the “new spirit” of the German racial state. Daily celebratory acts – wrapping gifts, decorating the house, cooking “German” festive foods and organizing family celebrations – were linked to a cult of sentimental “Nordic” nationalism. Pro-agandists proclaimed that as “priestess” and “protector of the home and the home”, the German mother could use Christmas to “bring the spirit of the German home back to life.” Holiday editions of women’s magazines, books Nazi Christmas carols and Nazi Christmas carols dyed conventional family customs with the regime’s ideology. This type of ideological manipulation took on everyday forms. Mothers and children were encouraged to make homemade decorations in the shape of “Odin’s Wheel of the Sun” and to bake festive circle-shaped cookies (a symbol of fertility) The ritual of lighting candles on the Christmas tree was said to create an atmosphere of “pagan demonic magic” that would include the Star of Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus in feelings of “Germanity” “Family singing synthesized the porous boundaries between private and official forms of celebration. The propagandists tirelessly promoted several Nazified Christmas songs, which replaced Christian themes with racial ideologies of the regime. Exalted night of the bright stars, the most famous Nazi Christmas song, was reprinted in Nazi songbooks, broadcast on radio programs, performed at numerous public celebrations – and sung at home. In fact, Noite Exaltada became so familiar that it could still be sung in the 1950s as part of a common family holiday (and, apparently, as part of some public performances today!). While the melody of the song imitates a traditional song, the lyrics deny the Christian origins of the holiday. Verses of stars, light and an eternal mother suggest a world redeemed by faith in National Socialism – not Jesus. Conflict or consensus among the German public? We will never know exactly how many German families sang Exalted Night or baked Christmas cookies in the shape of a Germanic solar wheel. But we have some records of the popular response to the Nazi holiday, mainly from official sources. For example, the “activity reports” of the National Socialist Women’s League (NSF) show that the redefinition of Christmas has created some disagreements between members. NSF files note that tensions increased when propagandists pushed hard to avoid religious observance, leading to “many doubts and discontent”. Religious traditions often clashed with ideological goals: was it acceptable for “convinced National Socialists” to celebrate Christmas with Christian songs and nativity plays? How could Nazi believers observe a Nazi holiday when stores mainly sold conventional holiday products and rarely stocked Nazi Christmas books? Meanwhile, German clerics openly resisted Nazi attempts to take Christ out of Christmas. In Düsseldorf, clergy used Christmas to encourage women to join their respective women’s clubs. The Catholic clergy threatened to excommunicate the women who joined the NSF. Elsewhere, women of faith boycotted NSF Christmas parties and charitable initiatives. Still, such a dissent never really challenged the main principles of the Nazi holiday. Public opinion reports compiled by the Nazi secret police used to comment on the popularity of Nazi Christmas festivities. Already in World War II, when the impending defeat increasingly discredited the Nazi holiday, the secret police reported that complaints about official policies dissolved in a general “Christmas atmosphere”. Despite conflicts over Christianity, many Germans accepted the Nazification of Christmas. The return to the colorful and pleasant pagan “Germanic” traditions promised to revitalize the family celebration. Not least, observing a Nazi holiday symbolized racial purity and national belonging. “Aryans” could celebrate German Christmas. The Jews could not. The Nazification of the family celebration, therefore, revealed the paradoxical and contested terrain of private life in the Third Reich. The seemingly trivial and everyday decision to sing a particular Christmas song or bake a Christmas cookie has become an act of political dissent or an expression of support for national socialism. This article was republished from The Conversation, a non-profit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. Read more: * Hitler at home: How the Nazi PR machine remade the Führer’s domestic image and deceived the world * How Charles Dickens redeemed the spirit of Christmas * Can astronomy explain the biblical Star of Bethlehem? Joe Perry received funding from the German Academic Exchange Service and Georgia State University.