Himmlischer Ruh

If there’s one universal Christmas carol, “Stille Nacht” must be it; it’s the lingua franca of the holiday. You cannot have any kind of Christmas production without it. I’ve learned it in three different language classes; it must be translated into scores of others. It is so embedded in Western European sensibilities that in the two great wars of the first half of the Twentieth Century, it is credited with spanning the combatant divide.

Since it cannot require any introduction, I’m just going to give you a few different versions. First, representing the First World War, we have a commercial that was produced in 2014 for the British grocery chain Sainsbury’s, on the centenary of the Christmas Truce that occurred in the first winter of the war, when soldiers from Germany on one side and England, Scotland and France on the other reached out across No Man’s Land to celebrate the holiday.

The December holidays—so family focused—are when the men and women in uniform most feel the cold and isolation that serving in the front lines brings. December 1914 was no exception; especially since everyone had confidently expected that the war would be over by Christmas. It must have been other-worldly when Allied soldiers heard the Germans singing “Stille Nacht” and other carols across the frozen landscape, and then seen the lights on trees perched above the trenches. Sainsbury’s would have us believe that the overture came from the Brits, but historical accounts agree that the Germans made those first, dangerous moves. Up and down the trenches, front line soldiers from both sides mingled, exchanged small tokens, played football, shared meals.

Naturally, once commanders found out about it, threats were made and the fraternization was not repeated for the rest of the war.

Thirty years later, there were German and Allied (this time, American) armies facing one another across freezing turf in Belgium. The clip I’m giving you here is from Band of Brothers, so it’s an embellishment on Christmas Eve around Bastogne, but…it could be.

This year again, we have forces stationed in places far away from family. I have no doubt that they will be singing this on Monday night, wherever they are.