[Sharon]

Hitler’s officers and cadets celebrating Christmas, 1941

These images are chilling, bordering on surreal: as World War II raged on December 18, 1941, Adolf Hitler presided over a Christmas party in Munich, Germany.

The photos that have been preserved are in color no less, and contain all sorts of Nazi symbols mixed with traditional decor like ornaments and tinsel dangling from a giant Tannenbaum and festive candles. The images were taken by one of Hitler's personal photographers Hugo Jaeger.

[Weatherly]

Well if that's not heart warming. I bet they couldn't wait to see what was coming out of the oven!

[Photoplay]

Originally Posted by Weatherly ↗

Well if that's not heart warming. I bet they couldn't wait to see what was coming out of the oven!

[Blewvane]

Originally Posted by Weatherly ↗

Well if that's not heart warming. I bet they couldn't wait to see what was coming out of the oven!

[oldnorseman]

By the time the mashed potatoes reached the end of the table the war would be over.

[Sharon]

[30564U]

Oh...tannenbaum.

[DJSmurf2010]

Hitler at Hogwarts...

[commondenom]

looks like a big german sausage party to me...

[kellyhound]

the ones that couldn't make it or had an excuse were probably executed later on.

After taking power in 1933, Nazi ideologues initially renamed the christmas festival Julfest, and propagated its Germanic origins as the celebration of the winter solstice. These ideologists also claimed that the Christian elements of th

e holiday had been superimposed upon ancient Germanic traditions. They argued that Christmas Eve originally had nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ, but instead celebrated the winter solstice and the ‘rebirth of the sun’, that the swastika was an ancient symbol of the sun, and that Santa Claus was a Christian 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. Other changes were made to the manger, which was replaced by a Christmas garden containing wooden toy deer and rabbits; Mary and Jesus were also depicted as a blonde mother and child.

The Christmas tree was also changed. The traditional names of the tree, Christbaum or Weihnachtsbaum, was renamed in the press as fir tree, light tree or Jul tree.

The star on the top of the tree was sometimes replaced with a swastika, a Germanic “sun wheel” or a Sig rune. During the height of the movement, an attempt was made to remove the association of the coming of Jesus and replace it with the coming of Adolf Hitler, referred to as the “Saviour Führer”.

Christmas carols were also updated. The words to “Silent Night” were amended so that it made no reference to God, Christ and religion. Words were also changed to the hymn “Unto Us a Time Has Come” so as to remove references to Jesus. The modified version of the hymn was in use for several more years in post-war Germany.

Shop catalogues containing children’s toys made available during the holiday season regularly featured toy tanks, fighter planes and machine guns.

As a sign of appreciation, Heinrich Himmler frequently gave SS members a Julleuchter (“Yule lantern”), a kind of ornate Germanic candlestick, some of which were made at Dachau concentration camp. Housewives were prompted to bake biscuits in the shape of birds, wheels and swastikas for their children.