My dear Sister Michelle, what year do we have this Christmas?

How the Nazis Stole Christmas | Features | Fortean Times /Photo: Alex Tomlinson / Thank you!/

My dear American Sister Michelle,

imagine: A dark and cold night in a well-known and often-visited European town, modern and with no doubt of the new Millennium. Walking home, you can suddenly hear the rhythmic sound of marching boots coming down the main street (at daytime a busy, multi-cultural shopping-area with lots of traffic, buses and subway-train-stations). And the light of torches is suddenly dancing up and down the walls of the quiet, gray houses.

Than another sound hits your ear: loud men-voices, half singing, half hollering. And as you start to understand the words (the melody sounded somehow familiar to you anyway – but that, no, that just can not be…!!!), you freeze dead - feeling for an instant like lot’s wife, who took a forbidden glimpse back into the flaming inferno.

“Die Fahne hoch, die Reihen stolz geschlossen…SA marschiert!!!.“ They are singing it with pride – just like in the movies - no doubt, and with confidence - and they are marching towards the building of the Department of Internal Affairs, just a little down the road…

Now, tell me, Michelle, what do you think - what year do we write?

Sorry, I can’t spare it out, not on you, my American Sister – and not on me, who has been living here all my life: It’s not a cold December-night in 1934, here in Germanys Capital Berlin. It was last night, Friday the 3rd of December 2010.

The note in the news was short this morning, something like:

“…and by the way: A group of Neo-Nazis marched down Alt-Moabit last night, with torches and paroles like “Out with the foreigners!”, singing “SA marschiert” and other songs from the time of the Third Reich…”

Well, if you think, that this is, what’s happening here anyway all the time, I can assure you: No, that is not so!

There is a permanent threat against people that don’t seem to “belong” here, but that is happening much more under the surface. Officially everybody is very concerned about Xenophobia. The politicians never get tired to assure everybody that everything is fine here in Germany. They will make sure, they say, that the society will take care of the very few who – still or again – keep hanging on to the old propaganda and the old times.

And it seems to be true: If someone in Germany lifts up the arm to high or in wrong intentions in the public, if someone yells ”Heil Hitler!” after a beer-full evening, he indeed will be prosecuted. And off course there are demonstrations (also from Nazis - we are a Democracy just like the US, who thought us how...!), but they must be registered ahead and there is always a lot of police, press and anti-demonstrators around.

I wonder what our politicians will say now after that "silent" march last night - maybe nothing at all. They are lucky anyway, because it didn’t happen around the Reichstag-area close to Brandenburg Gate, where there are always tourists, diplomats and people who are (money-wise) concerned about what is happening in good old Berlin. These poor German politicians are so busy nowadays, busy with these new times: like Wikileaks and recent terror-threats to the City. To my hometown Berlin, that is looking so bright with all that snow and the pretty Christmas-illuminations everywhere…

So it is well possible that nobody will have much time to take care of business here in Berlin. Why should anybody care much about a few old-fashioned torches, down the road of the Department of Internal Affairs. Someone mean could say: "That's good old tradition in that area!" And the scene with these singing people on these dark streets did look a little like the Christkindl-Market downtown anyway: simply nice somehow – traditional songs to sing along and many, many old-fashioned real lights... 

How the Nazis Stole Christmas | Features | Fortean Times/Photo: Davd Sutton/Alex Tomlinson /Thanks!

Merry Christmas from one capital to the other, dear Sister Michelle! Enjoy your season with your lovely family, give everybody a big hug from me.

And please: Don’t you all forget

your Sister in Berlin

P.S. I know you all have so nice seasons-habits, too! 

Photo from Frosty the klansman.

Thank you very much to the photographer AlexTomlinson (Fortean Times, UK), the following writers (who tell from their memories), and to the editor and author of Fortean Times, UK, David Sutton. I have looked for the right pictures and stories for hours - and you really got it! Thanks also to Wayne! Have a good Christmastime!

How the Nazis Stole Christmas | Features | Fortean Times


Weihnachten 1934 - Leseratte

Zeitgut Verlag Berlin: Unvergessene Weihnachten/Leseprobe 

Frosty the klansman.