Christmas in Germany: A Cultural History

by Joe Perry

Overview

For poets, priests, and politicians—and especially ordinary Germans—in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the image of the loving nuclear family gathered around the Christmas tree symbolized the unity of the nation at large. German Christmas was supposedly organic, a product of the winter solstice rituals of pagan "Teutonic" tribes, the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and the age-old customs that defined German character. Yet, as Joe Perry argues, Germans also used these annual celebrations to contest the deepest values that held the German community together: faith, family, and love, certainly, but also civic responsibility, material prosperity, and national belonging.

This richly illustrated volume explores the invention, evolution, and politicization of Germany's favorite national holiday. According to Perry, Christmas played a crucial role in public politics, as revealed in the militarization of "War Christmas" during World War I and World War II, the Nazification of Christmas by the Third Reich, and the political manipulation of Christmas during the Cold War. Perry offers a close analysis of the impact of consumer culture on popular celebration and the conflicts created as religious, commercial, and political authorities sought to control the holiday's meaning. By unpacking the intimate links between domestic celebration, popular piety, consumer desires, and political ideology, Perry concludes that family festivity was central in the making and remaking of public national identities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469622132
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	12/01/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Joe Perry is associate professor of modern German and European history at Georgia State University.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Covering nearly two centuries of German history, Joe Perry analyzes the ways various groups constructed and contested the Christmas holiday, a central element of modern German experience and identity. This is an outstanding work, impressive in its scope and breadth, the depth and range of its research, and the richness and relevance of its analysis. It is crisply written, absorbing, and exhaustively researched.—Paul Lerner, author of Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1939

Perry's work is original, comprehensively researched, and a major contribution to understanding the central importance of the evolution of a consumer culture in modern Germany. The scholarship is sound, impressive, and provocative.—Rudy Koshar, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Editorial Reviews

Rich with illustrations and the use of German primary sources, this book will be loved by German history buffs and broader cultural historians—a welcome addition to academic collections. Extensive notes and a lengthy biography will aid any researcher in this subject area.—Library Journal

Excellent cultural history. . . . There is much to enthral, surprise and shock in this meticulously researched work, which reveals both the genuine beauty and darker shadows cast by the Tannenbaum and the somber echoes contained within sweet renditions of 'Silent Night.'—Times Literary Supplement

This richly illustrated volume explores the invention, evolution, and politicization of Germany's favorite national holiday. . . .—Lone Star Book Review

Written in a rich yet clear and comprehensible language, splendidly illustrated with materials from the corresponding eras, it is delightful reading for professional historians, students, and non-academic enthusiasts of history alike.—Journal of NC Association of Historians

This book will be of immediate interest to German scholars. As an example of an unusually insightful, inventive, and rigorous cultural history, it deserves a wider audience. Compellingly written, jargon-free, and thoroughly researched . . . Christmas in Germany is a fascinating contribution to modern German and contemporary cultural history.—American Historical Review

A fine study, well researched, well organized, easy to follow, and thorough. . . . It belongs in the university or seminary library and definitely on the shelves of those doing research on Christmas, on religious holidays, and on nineteenth- and twentieth-century German Christianity.—Church History

A solidly researched history of cultural transition. . . . An extraordinarily well-articulated, nuanced, and consequential account of a culture that even non-Germans recognize as having a special, mythic relation to the modern Christmas.—Journal of Interdisciplinary History

This book could be read and enjoyed for personal pleasure [and] it would work well in cultural studies, history, and folklore classes, and would not only function as a rich resource itself, but also an example of research methodology for students.—Western Folklore

From the Publisher

American Christmas traditions include many borrowed from Germany, including such mainstays as the Christmas tree and the carol "Silent Night." Here, Perry (modern German & European history, Univ. of Georgia) takes the cultural history of Christmas in Germany through the last 200 years. He doesn't simply describe well-known German traditions but delves into the political circumstances—for example, the nationalism—that came newly to shape the 19th-century German Christmas celebration, giving us much of what we consider Christmas to be today. Perry also covers both the Christmas truce of 1914 in World War I and the handling of Christmas during the Third Reich with the advent of Volksweihnachten ("people's Christmas"). VERDICT Rich with illustrations and the use of German primary sources, this book will be loved by German history buffs and broader cultural historians—a welcome addition to academic collections. Extensive notes and a lengthy bibliography will aid any researcher in this subject area.—Holly Hebert, Rochester Coll. Lib., Rochester Hills, MI

Library Journal