Many of the changes made under Hitler, put in place to remove the influence of the Jewish-born baby Jesus, are still in use today, much to the alarm of modern Germans. The swastika-shaped baking trays and wrapping paper adorned with Nazi symbols have long gone, but traces of the Third Reich Christmas can still be found in the subtly rewritten lyrics of favourite carols.
The discoveries have been highlighted by a new exhibition at the National Socialism Documentation Centre in Cologne.
“I always thought that Unto Us a Time Has Come was a song about wandering through winter snow,” said Heidi Bertelson, 42, a lawyer who visited the exhibit told Times. “I didn’t realise that Christ had been excised.”
The Nazi version, which removed the religious references and replaced them with images of snowy fields, remains in some song books and is sung in many households.
The same goes for carols referring to Virgin Birth and lullabies that invoke the Baby Jesus.
The rewriting was supervised by the chief Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg and Heinrich Himmler led the way in de-Christing Christmas.
Their plan was to remove the emotional ties of the Church and merge Christmas into a Julfest, a celebration of winter and light which drew on pagan traditions.
“The most important celebration in the calendar did not match their racist credo so they had to push out the Christian elements,” said Judith Breuer, who helped her mother, Rita, pull together the exhibition.
Rita started trawling flea markets in the 1970s in search of her childhood Christmas and turned up boxes of Nazi-era Christmas decorations complete with swastikas and grenades.
“After the Nazis had gone you could still find textbooks on Christmas that use exactly the same phrasing,” she told The Times.
Remember,though, that the Swastika is much older than Hitler. I travelled to India a few years ago and was a little surprised when seeing them adorning homes, post cards, religious temples, etc.
ReplyDeleteI remember mentioning to a young hindu friend that the swastika has become a symbol of hate and intolerance in the west and she looked at me with the most incredulous uncomprehending stare... and I understood just how completely her ancient religious symbol of perpetual peace had been stolen and corrupted by the Nazis.
Ha! Guess I should have clicked on the 'Christmas wrapping' link before opening my big trap!
ReplyDelete2Yotte/
ReplyDeletesee yr PM and I forgot to say that Jeez THAT MOD album is smokin'
Regards/