1939: The Christmas Carol under Nazism

Christmas carols, widespread in Austria and bound up with tradition, oral heritage and religiosity, presented a huge challenge to Nazi ideologues. It was, after all, their aim to minimise the influence of religion—and the Catholic Church in particular—on the population. Just as the annual cycle of festivities of the church year was to be replaced gradually by festivals and holidays reinterpreted for Nazism, e.g. Julfest, the party also looked for ideologically suitable substitutes for Advent and Christmas carols.

A prime example of this is Hans Baumann’s song Hohe Nacht der klaren Sterne [Exalted Night of the Clear Stars]. Intended as a substitute for Silent Night, it contains no mention of the Christmas Story from the Gospel of Luke. Instead it pays homage to the fire lit at the winter solstice (a replacement for Christmas) and finally—in the last verse—to (German) mothers, in whom beats “the heart of the world”.

However, since it was not possible to replace a population’s entire tradition of Christmas songs with completely new repertoire, another strategy was to rewrite the lyrics to well-known songs. Some appeared in the Salzburger Musikblätter, a sheet music series published by Voggenreiter between 1939 and 1942. In the shepherd’s song Gott griass enk, Leitln [God Greet You, People], “Bethlehem’s realm” became  the “silent night”, the “holy land” became the “faraway land”, and the “Saviour, a small child” the “wondrous small child”. In Still, Still, Still [Hush, Hush, Hush], a Nativity song from Salzburg, suddenly it is no longer Mary who sings the baby to sleep, but “the mothers”. This is less harmless than it appears at first glance, given the status of the mother as a role model in Nazism.

The two-pronged approach of replacing carols and rewriting song lyrics also left traces in postwar Austria. For example, several songbooks published after 1945 included both Exalted Night of the Clear Stars and Silent Night. Today, rewritten lyrics dating from the Nazi period are still used in place of the original religious texts. One example is the well-known song Es ist für uns eine Zeit angekommen [Unto Us a Time Has Come], where a “field of gleaming snow” has replaced the “Saviour Jesus Christ.”