The Christmas song by a Nazi poet loyal to the regime named Hermann Claudius can still be found in the Protestant hymn book today. Now discussing removing it with the next release.
A participant in a Protestant service
Christianity and its customs were a thorn in the side of the National Socialists. Shouldn't Jesus Christ be celebrated as the bringer of salvation, but the “Führer” Adolf Hitler. The hopes of the Germans should rest on him alone during the Christmas season. So the regime made every effort to replace the Christian Christmas with a national-socialist Christmas cult oriented towards the people.
Christmas carols also came into the focus of the National Socialists. All ties of the Christian faith to Judaism should be erased. During the Nazi era, even the lyrics of popular Christmas carols were rewritten. From “Es ist ein Ros aussprungen” – standard repertoire on Christmas Eve – Jewish names like Jesse or Isaiah disappeared, whole lines were completely exchanged. Songs like “Taughter Zion, rejoice” or “Born in Bethlehem” were banned altogether.
New Christmas carols during the Nazi dictatorship
Completely new Christmas carols were also composed during the Nazi era, including the heavily propagated song “Hohe Nacht der Klaren Sternen” (“High Night of the Clear Stars”). This was continued to be sung in the post-war period by performers such as the German pop singer Heino. The originally Christian content of the Swiss carol singer's song “A time has arrived for us” has now almost completely fallen into oblivion – in contrast to the rewriting from the Nazi era, in which a winter hike is described.
The newly written Christmas carols from the Nazi era also include the piece “Do you still know how it happened” by the poet Hermann Claudius (1878-1980), who was loyal to the regime. He wrote the song in 1939. It is still in the evangelical hymn book and is still sung in numerous congregations at Christmas time because of its simple but beautiful melody. In contrast to many other Christmas carols from the Nazi era, which were full of bombast and pathos, the lyrics of the song are unobtrusive.
The Evangelical Hymn Book
Problematic author, unproblematic text
In fact, the musicologist Udo Wennemuth noted in the “Songbook for the Evangelical Hymn Book” that the text for “Do you still know how it happened” was created at the suggestion of a Christian publisher who did not want to accept the “liturgical undermining” of Christmas. In the course of his career, however, Claudius Hermann also wrote lines like “Lord, help the Führer that his work is yours”. Even after the end of the Nazi dictatorship, according to Christa Kirschbaum, regional church music director of the Hessen-Nassau regional church, he did not attract attention through self-criticism. Therefore, she would find it inappropriate to continue singing “Do you remember how it happened” in the service.
Ansgar Franz, professor at the seminar for practical theology at the University of Mainz, sees it differently, because it is not the song that is burdened, “but the author”. A distinction should be made here: “The song does not represent the Nazi view of Christmas.” Franz assumes that there are no incriminated songs in the Christian hymn books, “although there may be authors who failed to keep the necessary distance from the regime during the National Socialist era.”
The hymn book is being revised< /h2>
Franz is convinced in the DW interview: “In the Christian hymnals there is not a single 'incriminated' song (understood as a song that spreads National Socialist, i.e. racist, xenophobic content, even if subcutaneously) .” And he asks the question: “But now, with every song that is considered 'good', to investigate whether the author was politically and theologically correct? Does that make sense? How far should that go? (…) I'm very much in favor of it, thoroughly To examine songs, but how far should an examination of the authors go?”
Experts from Germany and Austria are currently working on a revision of the evangelical hymnal introduced in the 1990s. Christa Kirschbaum is also a member of the commission that decides on its content. According to Kirschbaum, it is still unclear whether the Christmas carol from 1939 will be found there again.