Avent, Advent: The War on Christmas

 

Advent, Advent ... This year, the war on Christmas in America is going slowly. For those who are on the Internet for the first day, there is a steadfast belief in America that saying Merry Christmas is not inclusive enough, because there are many, many other holidays on the same day. Not really the same day, though, they are in a two-to-three-month period, which begins with Oktoberfest and ends abruptly on December 26 because nobody cares about Orthodox Christmas or any other competing holiday later on.

 

Some people claim that there are 59 holidays around Christmas. So far, nobody has ever seen this list, but I assume this number includes the four Advent Sundays that lead up to Christmas, all the Saintly days around Christmas, the twelve days of Christmas themselves, and all eight days of Hanukkah. There is also Kwanzaa, invented by an African-American wifebeater in the 1960s. It is a recreation of a traditional African harvest festival, which is kind of odd because harvest in Africa is not in December and should never be culturally appropriated by white people and Asians.

 

Some people include Divali in the Happy-holiday-list for Christmas, the Indian celebration of light. It is at the beginning of November, so it is kinda far away from Christmas. Divali is rather in a November cluster with Halloween, Reformation Day, All Saints Day, All Souls' Day, Samhain, the last day of Oktoberfest, Yom Kippur, Día de los Muertos, Guy Fawkes Night, Sukkot, the first day of Carneval that is celebrated on November 11 (in Germany), and, of course, Thanksgiving.

 

This should be the second biggest mutual Happy-Holiday event, right after Independence Day. After all, the number of countries that are celebrating their independence from the British is 65; six more than the Christmas ersatz Holidays that only number 59 and also are partly imaginary. Whereas the British Empire was very real. Also, I feel strongly that the November cluster should not be connected to Christmas.

 

I'm entitled to make that call because Germany invented Christmas in the late Middle Ages. Martin Luther was supposedly the first one to decorate a Christmas Tree with shiny apples and candles. He coined the famous line: "Früher war mehr Lametta," we used to have more tinsel. Little did he know that people of both coasts of America would put up a "Holiday Tree," or that America would exist in the first place, because the Mayflower landed in America in 1620, nearly 75 years after Luther had died.

But is Christmas really legitimate? Christmas haters point out that Jesus was not born on December 25, and that the holiday goes back to Saturnalia, a festivity in Ancient Rome which was more of a rowdy thing, like Carnival in Germany. Think Monty Python meets Mardi Gras meets Mussolini election party. And another belief, Christmas is really about celebrating the Winter Solstice when the days get longer. In Scandinavia, it is known as Yule, although Scandinavians, as good Lutherans, emphasize Christmas more.

 

The idea of celebrating Christmas by prancing around a burning Yule log at midnight in the snow while waving torches as opposed to sipping Glühwein and hot chocolate in front of the lit Christmas tree is fascinating. But Pagan Christmas, honoring the Nordic Gods, is somewhat discredited in Germany nowadays. The Nazi leadership did not especially like to celebrate the birth of Jesus because, you guessed it, Jesus was Jewish. So they promoted the ancient Germanic Gods instead, who were also quite bloodthirsty and bear little resemblance to the adjacent Marvel Comic characters.

 

They tried to rename Christmas "Yulfest", a festival that celebrates the return of the sun, symbolized by the sun-like Swastika placed on top of the "Yultree". Also, Santa Claus was really Wotan, or, as some call him, Odin. Even Christmas songs were rewritten by the Nazis to praise New Jesus, i. e. the Führer. So it is a bit startling for Germans to see American Liberals happily culturally appropriating the Christmas of white superior Gods, including the torches and the alternate tree, and claim this is the real thing. At least they are not putting up Swastikas. Yet. But if you're into "Happy Holidays", maybe accepting that you don't have a holiday would be the honest thing.

 

Most Germans, however, never went along with the Nazi war on Christmas. A few years later, East Germany made another effort to get rid of Christmas — the Communists renamed the Christmas Angel "Jahresendflügelfigur," End-of-the-year-winged-figurine. They failed as well. Speaking of Angels, let me direct your attention once to our Wings of Desire — Angels of Berlin book, and post another couple of pictures.

 

 

Advent, Advent! On the fifth of December!

Advent, Advent! Today, on December 5, dear Friends and Fans, I will tell you about St. Nikolaus. So, Nikolaus was real. At least as real as Robin Hood. The character goes back to Nikolaus von Myra, a Bishop and a Christian Saint and martyr. According to Wikipedia, he is the patron Saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, toymakers, unmarried people, and students in most parts of Europe. The patron Saint of unrepentant thieves is Robin Hood.

 

Myra was a town in Lycia, a Greek region in the Western part of what became Turkey about 700 years later, when the Turks drove the Greeks out. So no, Nikolaus was not Turkish, the same way Geronimo was not an Englishman. At the time of Nikolaus, Lycia belonged to the Roman Empire. Around the year 300 after Christ, the Roman Emperor Diokletian went after the Christians all over his lands. He had churches burned down and Bibles destroyed, and he killed or enslaved many Christians, especially clerics, including Bishop Nikolaus.

 

Nikolaus had a testament that gave his earthly possessions to the poor, which was not surprising because also in his life time, he did a lot of charity, some of it secret. He was said to have given toys to poor children and also performed miracles. Fast forward to the near-present, Nikolaus would visit German and Austrian children on the evening of December 6 (in some other countries on December 5) and leave little gifts in their boots outside. Like a tiny bar of chocolate, two cookies, and an orange when I was young, or a Sony PlayStation and a big screen TV today.

 

Nikolaus was depicted as that old man with a white beard, a red hat, and a red coat. His helper and companion was Krampus, who had a deformed foot and a rod. Krampus gave a piece of coal to kids who did not behave, or would even spank them. I would not know because I w
as always a very well-behaved kid.

 

In America, Dutch settlers brought his story to the new world (they call him Sinterclaas), and the British also knew him as Father Christmas (sadly, they did not emphasize Robin Hood). Soon, Nikolaus would develop into Santa Claus. The New York caricaturist Thomas Nast drew the first picture of Santa Claus as we know him. His red-and-white coat was eventually picked up and popularized by the Coca-Cola company.

 

And he would no longer show up at the beginning of December, but on Christmas Eve, the night before Christmas. With a sledge, filled by his North Pole elves (also a later add-on). Coca-Cola-Santa Claus has made his way back to Europe after WWII, including Germany, with the help of Hollywood movies, but not necessarily beloved by everybody. Because traditionally, the Christ Child brings the gifts, not Nikolaus. Tomorrow, I will tell more about Christmas and why some people think Santa Claus is really Odin, the Germanic God of war.

 

In the meantime, here is an angel from our book „Wings of Desire —Angels of Berlin“. Also available in German, including in book stores.

 

 

 

Advent, Advent! Your December 4th story

 

Advent, Advent! This day 77 years ago — on December 4, 1948 — Free University was founded in West-Berlin, in the district of Zehlendorf, with a festive act at the Titania Palast, a movie theater in Steglitz. Berlin's mayor Ernst Reuter was present as well as Lucius D. Clay (both depicted below). This was decided after the Soviets tried to take over the main University of Berlin that was soonafter named Humboldt University. This is an excerpt from our book The Cold War in Berlin.

 

 

The University as a Political Battlefield

 

Soon even Berlin University, where teaching had already resumed in January 1946, by order of the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD), became the scene of political disagreement between the East and the West.

 

The university, located on the Avenue Unter den Linden and therefore in the Soviet sector, was subjected to increasing pressure by the Soviets and the SED, with regard to both course content and personnel. Professors or students who did not willingly submit to this influence were harassed and pressured. In March 1947, several students were arrested, most of them members of the SPD or the CDU.

 

In spring 1948, the situation intensified further when the SED reacted to student demands for more freedom in research and teaching by expelling numerous students and making serious threats. About two dozen students and lecturers took the initiative to found an independent university, free of any political influences, in the western part of the four-sector city. They were supported above all by the Americans, in particular by US Military Governor Lucius D. Clay, and the new institution was officially founded on December 4, 1948, as “The Free University,” situated in the idyllic area of Dahlem in the American sector, just a stone’s throw from the Allied Kommandatura building.

 

From then on, the Cold War in Berlin was also manifest in the existence of two competing universities. Both of the other two higher-level educational institutions, the Academy of Arts and the Technical University, were in West Berlin and were therefore shielded from the East–West confrontation, since the East did not have competing institutions.

 

 

 

 

 

And here is the actual book!

 

 

Advent, Advent, Day 3! The death of Siegfried Jacobsohn

 Advent, Advent! On this day in 1926, Siegfried Jacobsohn died. Jacobsohn was a towering figure in the Weimar Republic. He was the founder and editor of Die Weltbühne, a small, but very influential weekly magazine many famous writers worked for, among them Lion Feuchtwanger, Kurt Hiller, Erich Mühsam, Else Lasker-Schüler, Erich Kästner, Alfred Polgar, Carl Zuckmayer, Arnold Zweig, and Kurt Tucholsky.

 Harold Poor wrote in his Ph.D. about the Weimar Republic: "Jacobsohn had the most coveted editor’s gift in abundance, the ability to recognize true writing talent." When Jacobsohn died at the early age of 46 years, a very unhappy Tucholsky returned from Paris — where he had been the correspondent for Die Weltbühne — to Berlin to take over. 

 Read more about this in Harold Poor's landmark biography of Kurt Tucholsky

 

 

And here is a picture of Harold Poor himself

 

 

Advent, Advent! A book about a bygone half-city

 Advent, Advent! Today is the second day of our Advent Calendar. Today, we will remember West Berlin, the only socialist place that ever existed successfully because the money never ran out — until the Wall came down. Where bars and pubs were open all night so the locals could plot the revolution! Where beer was cheap and sausage on a roll was considered dinner. Where the tenements still bore bullet holes from World War II, and the draft did not exist. You can now buy the hardcover at Amazon.com for a limited time in America for $20 only. And in Germany you can, of course, buy it in every book store.

 

 

 

However, if you prefer the English version, we have it, too.

 

 

 

And here are some pics!

 

The Berlinica Advent Calendar, Day 1

 Advent, Advent! This is December 1, the day the traditional Advent Calendar begins. Usually, you get little shiny color pictures, or chocolates, and since chocolates is out of the question, you will get a literary gift, tied to the date.

So, yesterday, Mark Twain would have turned 190 years old, had he lived, and his writing is a fresh than the day he stepped aboard the Enterprise (by some time-traveling accident). However, did you know that Mark Twain spent half a year in Berlin? 

This was quite an adventure. He conspired with diplomats, frequented the famed salons, had breakfast with duchesses, and dined with the emperor. He suffered an “organized dog-choir club,” at his first address, which he deemed a “rag-picker's paradise,” picked a fight with the police, who made him look under his maid's petticoats, was abused by a porter, got lost on streetcars, was nearly struck down by pneumonia, and witnessed a proletarian uprising in front of his hotel Unter den Linden. He even began a novel about Wilhelmina von Preussen, the lonely Prussian princess. Read all about it here, also the stories he wrote about Berlin.

 

 

 

 

And here is your pic!

 

 

 

If you get the book at Bookshop.org, you will endorse local booksellers and NOT You-Know-Who, and also, they have a 20 percent discount today, on Cyber Monday.

Also, if you sign up for our (American) newsletter, we will send you a free e-book; Berlin - The Chicago of Europe, Twain's main story he wrote about Berlin.

 

 

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