Posted on 11/17/2009 2:06:10 PM PST by Charlespg
Nazi Germany celebrated Christmas without Christ with the help of swastika tree baubles, 'Germanic' cookies and a host of manufactured traditions, a new exhibition has shown.
The way the celebration was gradually taken over and exploited for propaganda purposes by Hitler's Nazis is detailed in a new exhibition.
Rita Breuer has spent years scouring flea markets for old German Christmas ornaments.
She and her daughter Judith developed a fascination with the way Christmas was used by the atheist Nazis, who tried to turn it into a pagan winter solstice celebration.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Now where Have I heard this before
(MAJOR SARCASM)
And, the Daily Mail shows how easy it is to accomplish with their headline.
Good catch!
There was an article on this person yesterday (I think) posted here from Der Spiegel, IIRC.
In it there was a blurb about how the Nazis came up with the myth that Christmas was a pagan Germanic holiday in order to scrub it of Christianity (and Judaism) and that there was no record of pre-Nazi mythos.
Curious if anyone knows if the “common knowledge” assertion that most Christmas traditions are acutally pagan soltice traditions is based on any references previous to the 1930s? The Nazis were an industrious bunch, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of things we take for granted today were propoganda creations.
I don’t know either way, but I hear the “Christians stole Christmas from the pagans” line ad nauseum during this time of year, and nobody ever provides any references - could it be a false assertion?
yes and no, They are some pagan elements to Christmas but they are some Christen elements as well
the Democrats running the City of Pittsburgh took a stab a few years back at renaming Christmas as “Sparkle Season”.
(they don’t anymore, too much community blowback). Alas,
Highmark still controls the big tree downtown and calls it the “Unity Tree”.
Christians didn’t “steal” traditions from the Pagans. When Pagans converted to Christianity, they retained many of their old traditions, and the Church/rulers approved of certain Pagan practices and made them official. After all, Jesus came to take away our sins, not our parties.
And if you're really into the Christian meaning, keep the "Mass" in Christmas as well.
See you at Mass, everyone!
This is a complicated topic. I'll see if I can post more on it later, but for now:
First of all, we can pretty much completely throw out the baloney about it being BASED on a pagan holiday "Yule" or anything from the British Isles. Why? Because we know from The Philocalian calendar of 354 that December 25th was being celebrated as Christmas in the Roman world at the time. In the SAME calendar is a reference to the "birthday of the unconquered" which some people think refers to the cult of Sol Invictus. That may or may not be the case. Sol Invictus is a late cult that comes well after Christianity was introduced. It was therefore certainly possible (but of course pagan-philes never want to consider THIS possibility)--that they stole the date from Christians.
But the point is, there's no clear indication which was first. They both appear on that day at the same time in 354. Now there are earlier references to the day of Christmas in Christian literature, but on all kinds of different days. There is also a reference to the date of Christmas having been determined from an examination of the census records at Rome, and it was kept as a feast day by the Roman Church for a long time. This cannot be dismissed out of hand. The Romans kept good records and it well could have survived in the imperial archives that long. Also, it is interesting that though there were all kinds of dates floating around in the late Empire for Christ's birth, the December 25th one spread very fast and supplanted all the rest. One theory for why that happened is that people thought it was a more accurate date. Whether that's true or not is difficult to say.
By the way, here is a link to the actual calendar of 354.
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/chronography_of_354_12_depositions_martyrs.htm
Look up at the top and you’ll see:
VIII kal. Ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae.
“The Eighth of Kalends, January, Christ was born in Bethehem in Judaea”. Eight days before the Kalends of January gives our December 25th.
Now here’s the pagan reference:
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/chronography_of_354_06_calendar.htm
N. Invicti (birthday of the Unconquered). It doesn’t say Unconquered Sun, although that’s what most scholars think it wants to say. The writer may have been deliberately vague in not saying exactly who it referred to (perhaps to admit a Christian meaning? Who knows.)
You know what really chaps the atheist’s rear end? Tell them the ‘X’ in ‘Xmas’ is a little cross.
It was weird at first but eventually my mind made the correction.
ping!
Only members of the Christian church can take Christ out of Christmas. When you look at liberal Christian denominations, you will see that they first took Christ out of the church, and then they took it out of Christmas.
If I want to shorten it, I use “XPMass”.
Chi Rho Mass.
Makes the moonbats a bit dizzy
Wow! Very interesting stuff.
Thanks for taking the time to post.
I grew up over there and we spelt it X-mas or Christmas. The X was from the Greek word meaning Christ. Now with the Christmas banning stuff I never use it.
I loved the calendar’s especially the one with all the naked men. :) Today they’d be porn.
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