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Chilling images of Hitler celebrating Christmas & decorations inspired by the Nazis


Christmas ornaments produced in Germany during the rise and rule of Adolf Hitler.
 
In the 1930s as Hitler and his Nazis were coming to power in Germany, they began a war on Christmas, a quest to dismantle age-old Christmas traditions and replace them with Nordic/pagan practices and folklore. The Nazis wanted everyone to follow their lead when it came to their image of the holiday—which at some point included displaying swastikas on Christmas trees. In Germany, Christmas is called “Weihnachten” which the Nazis also took it upon themselves to rename Rauhnacht, which translates in English to “the rough night.”

The Nazis’ changes to Christmas included anti-Semitic activities such as actively avoiding doing business at Jewish-owned establishments during the holiday so that their celebrations would be “free of Jews.” Christmas carols were modified to reflect socialist Nazi beliefs and ideology including replacing references to the “Savior” with a nod to Hitler himself, “Savior Führer.” While many of the Reich’s changes to Christmas took hold, there was one aspect of the holiday that they could not do away with—the image the jolly old fat man, Santa Claus—even in Hitler’s Germany, Santa remained a fixture of the newly Nazified celebration.

Other changes inflicted by the Nazis during the period before their eventual fall in the mid-1940s was the use of Christmas decorations. If you were not already aware, the tradition of decorating a tree at Christmas time got its start in Germany in the 16th century. The most problematic issue for the Nazis was the gleaming star on the top of the tree—a six-pointed star signified Judaism and the Jewish community. A five-pointed star was associated with communism which was less than appealing to the Nazis as well. Instead, Germans were encouraged to replace tree-topping stars with, you guessed it, a swastika or the symbol for the SS (the “Schutzstaffel” or “Protection Squadron” formed under Hitler). Ornaments were transformed to contain Nazi images, slogans like “Sieg Heil!,” and glass-blown baubles in the image of their beloved leader Adolf Hitler. The metamorphosis took approximately six years to complete, though it would all come to an end in 1944 which marked the very last Nazified Christmas. Hitler would meet his maker four months later on April 30th, 1945.

The images that follow are haunting historical documents of how the Nazis tried to change Christmas (and the world) and failed. 
 

 

 

 
More chilling Nazi Christmas images after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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12.15.2017
08:50 am
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Hitler resists a kiss! Watch a bashful führer spurn the advances of an American fan at the Olympics!
08.04.2016
10:39 am
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It’s Olympics time again, so time to reminisce over our favorite Olympics memories—what’s yours? Perhaps it was Kerry Strug, valiantly securing gold medals for the American Women’s Gymnastics Team in 1996, despite her injured ankle! Or maybe it was in 1968, when runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos accepted their respective gold and bronze medals for the 200 meter dash shoeless in black socks, to represent black poverty, their fists raised in symbolic protest on the podium. Or maybe it was at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, when that crazy American woman snuck past the guards to try and kiss Hitler?

Yes, enthusiastic Yankee tourist Carla De Vries wanted to meet Hitler, and she decided to approach like a ‘tween chasing down Justin Bieber. Why? Well, Carla was simply attracted to the Führer’s winning personality, saying:

“Why? I simply embraced him because he appeared so friendly and gracious. People sitting near Der Führer’s box began to cheer and applaud so loudly that I ran back to my husband and told him we had better leave. I don’t know why I did it. Certainly I hadn’t planned such a thing. It’s just that I’m a woman of impulses, I guess. It happened when I went down to take Hitler’s picture with my small movie camera. Hitler was leaning forward, smiling, and he seemed so friendly that I just stepped up and asked for his autograph, which he wrote on my swimming ticket. He kept on smiling and so I kissed him”.

In what is perhaps some of the oddest footage of a mass murderer ever, you can actually watch the incident below. Despite Hitler’s apparently affable reception to De Vries, the incident obviously represented a massive compromise in security, and resulted in the dismissal and demotion of many SS guards.
 

 
Via Rare Historical Photos

Posted by Amber Frost
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08.04.2016
10:39 am
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‘Trollface Hitler in a Fedora,’ Hitler in dorky short pants and other photos banned by the Nazis
07.16.2015
09:36 am
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Adolf Hitler, wearing a fedora, and looking remarkably like the Internet “trollface” meme is but one of several photos published in the new book The Rise of Hitler Illustrated that were purportedly “banned” by the Nazis for being unflattering to Der Führer.

Vintage Everyday reports that the photographs are from an early propaganda pamphlet titled Deutschland Erwache (Germany Awaken) written in the 1930s that Hitler later disliked. An English soldier found the photos and his family hung on to them for years. Now the photos are available for the world to see what a dork Hitler looked like in short pants.


“It keeps das hair dry in der shower.”
 

Hitler banned this picture of his ‘steely glare’ fearing it made him look stupid. It did.
 

“Hitler despised this ‘undignified’ picture of him in short trousers.” His knees must be so cold.
 

 

Not Hugo Boss’ best work.
 
More Hitler hijinks after the jump…

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Posted by Christopher Bickel
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07.16.2015
09:36 am
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‘Russian Rhapsody’: Gremlins from the Kremlin battle Hitler in this insane 1944 cartoon
05.30.2014
11:38 am
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Depictions of Russia in American propaganda had some wild vacillation before the Cold War. The first Red Scare followed the Russian Revolution, and anti-communist sentiment really found purchase around 1919. Leftists in the US (many of them immigrants) became a force to be reckoned with, and bitter labor conflicts (plus some radical terrorism) seemed to suggest a Bolshevik revolution was imminent in the Americas. There’s the period however, during World War II, before Truman decided to wave his nuclear dick at Stalin, when Russians were still our Nazi-fighting Allies, and 1944’s Merrie Melodies production “Russian Rhapsody” is a fascinating artifact of that ambivalence America had towards the Soviets.


 
Of course, the cartoon doesn’t quite portray Russians as “dignified.” Rather than some cartoon-friendly version of Red Army soldiers fighting Nazis in the snow, they’re literal “gremlins”—tiny things that are only really capable of sabotaging a plane. (The title was originally “Gremlins from the Kremlin,” but Disney was developing an animated version of Roald Dahl’s The Gremlins at the time and Roy Disney pressured Warner Brothers to change the name.) Regardless, the gremlins are clearly the good guys, whipping out a mask of Stalin to frighten Der Führer.


 
In addition to being a really beautiful (and profoundly weird) piece of animation, “Russian Rhapsody” has some great dog whistles. The cartoon starts out with Hitler delivering a speech that’s a direct reference to a scene from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. As an inside joke, some of the gibberish German Hitler spouts is actually the names of animators and studio staff. The gremlin faces are actually based on caricatures of Warner Brothers legends like Chuck Jones, Robert Clampett, Friz Freleng, and Leon Schlesinger. The berserk musical score was provided by the great cartoon composer Carl Stalling.
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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05.30.2014
11:38 am
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Hitler wearing shorts!
04.10.2013
01:14 pm
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This photo—well, the pose—is eerily similar to my early 90s high school senior portrait.

Via Retronaut

Posted by Tara McGinley
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04.10.2013
01:14 pm
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Odd Hitler float
06.08.2012
07:09 pm
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Photo credit: Helge Schreiber
 
Here’s a rather provocative Hitler float spotted in Düsseldorf, Germany. According to some of the comments on the StreetArt in Germany Facebook page, NPD is a German political party and “Nachgeburt” means “afterbirth.”

Via KMFW

 

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.08.2012
07:09 pm
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Hitler’s Skull: Russia Weighs In
12.09.2009
06:35 pm
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The controversy over Hitler’s remains kicked up (again) last fall when American DNA analysis revealed a sliver of skull fragment to be actually that of a woman’s.  Yesterday, though, Russia’s chief archivist of the Federal Security Service (FSB) dismissed such a claim.  Along with the skull fragment, the fragment of jaw preserved in the Lubyanka—Russia’s secret police HQ—is all that truly remains of the F?ɬ

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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12.09.2009
06:35 pm
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Hitler Learns About Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue”
10.01.2009
06:13 pm
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I’m an admitted sucker for the “Hitler responds” meme culled from Downfall.  Jump on this one while it’s still fresh.  Hitler’s not gonna be blurbing Rogue, that’s for sure!

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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10.01.2009
06:13 pm
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Hitler: The Missing Years
09.30.2009
09:48 pm
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As of today, there is no longer any proof that Hitler died at the end of World War II.

In exchange, I propose the following potential (not mutually exclusive) theories about where he ended up after the war. Feel free to add your own.

?

Posted by Jason Louv
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09.30.2009
09:48 pm
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Roseanne: That Oven Feelin?
07.30.2009
09:37 pm
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A truly WTF? moment courtesy of Heeb magazine’s “Germany” issue… Roseanne dressed as Hitler. Why not?

I once met Roseanne and she was as cool as fuck. I met her at a function at the Tribecca Film Festival in 2000 when she gave me an award. There is actually a photograph that was taken that morning of Roseanne, myself and Gary Coleman at the ceremony. Sadly I do not have a copy of it.

Afterward we discussed our respective “collections” and she nearly trumped mine with the first thing she mentioned: She told me that she owned the entire archive of Lenny Bruce materials that had belonged to the late attorney Martin Garbus. I was pretty impressed!

She also told me about her interest in medieval alchemy—it was clear from her conversation that she knew what she was talking about—and she asked me if I could hook her up with some herb while she was in New York. So I called the weed delivery service I used at the time on her behalf (I also once hooked up Sid Caesar, but that’s another story).

I am pretty sure sure I smoked a bowl with her standing on Hudson Street that day, but for obvious reasons, my memory isn’t what it used to be…

?

Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.30.2009
09:37 pm
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