Yuletide Celebrations of the Dark Side
It is interesting that Hitler didn't share the Reichsführer's passion for the Germanic and the revitalization of the ancient religion. Here is a quote from the Führer's Table Talk on 14 October 1941:
It seems to me that nothing would be more foolish than to
re-establish the worship of Wotan. Our old mythology had
ceased to be viable when Christianity implanted itself. Nothing
dies unless it is moribund. At that period the ancient world
was divided between the systems of philosophy and the worship
of idols. It's not desirable that the whole of humanity should
be stultified—and the only way of getting rid of Christianity is
to allow it to die little by little.
Regarding the text, I apologize that I couldn't add photos for some of the items described. The descriptions remain, however.
The Celebration Of Yuletide
When Neblung (November), the month of the dead, has passed, the time of Yuletide is starting, with its knowledge of the rising of the sun from its sleep, of the renewal after the wintry death, of the birth of light from the darkness of the long nights. Although we Germans no longer live in the far North, and although we can alleviate the depressing feelings through light and heating, the old experiences of our ancestors are very strong and vivid in us. We still feel that Yuletide is the greatest celebration of our year. Therefore we make every effort to celebrate it in style with our family.
The Timetable
Firstly you have to look at the whole of this festive time. It used to last from the 6th day of Jul (December), which was Wotan's Day and is now St. Nikolaus's Day, to the 6th day of Hornung (January), which was the old Frigga Day and is now Epiphany, with the main celebration at Midwinter Night, the night of 21st of Jul, when all the mountain tops would have been alight with fires.
We have become accustomed to some alterations to this timetable. The preparation time, Advent, now lasts from the first Sunday in Jul to the 24th of Jul. Advent contains 4 Jul Sundays, Wotan's Day (6th), and the Winter Solstice (21st). The Twelve Sacred Days of the season start with Yuletide Night on Jul 24th and end on Frigga Day on Hornung 6th. These 12 days are filled with special celebrations, especially on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
The Jul Wreath
On the first Jul Sunday the Jul Wreath is hung up in the living room. Its fir branches fill the house with pre Yuletide smells, its red ribbons awaken the joy for the coming celebrations, and its red candles brighten up the dark winter evenings. The Yuletide Wreath is equivalent to the old Sun Wheel, and as it is made from living greenery it reminds us of the old Tree Of Life. Once we have made these connections we will surely make the right preparations for the festival.
The SS Man should go to his friendly cartwright and ask for a wooden wheel of about 50 to 80 cm diameter. There is bound to be a spare one lying about. He cuts off one side of the hub so the wheel can lie flat. It is then stained dark brown or bright red and so becomes the Jul Wheel of the family, which should be kept on a low table or the family chest in a corner of the living room.
The Jul Wheel
The Jul Wheel or Sun Wheel with its deep rooted Germanic religious meaning is utilised as the base for the SS tree
A small, young, forked tree trunk without branches is stuck into the centre of the hub, so we can recreate the Tree Of Life growing from the Sun Wheel which will be used by the SS-family at every celebration during the year.
Instead of the cart wheel you can use a wooden wheel with the dividers inset and decorated with Runic letters. The tree should still be fixed in the centre. The green tree may be replaced every year by the trunk of the Yuletide tree at the end of the season. It is important that the wooden wheel has replaced the meaningless cast iron Christmas tree stand, which has no place in an SS home. The same goes for electric tree lights and the horrible glass decorations for the tree.
We now place red ribbon both ways across the fork of the tree, the ends of which are tied to the Jul Wreath, which now hangs freely about half way up the tree.
The SS Tree
The typical SS Yuletide Tree sits in the center of the family chest; directly behind is a Wedding Plate and on either side is a Jul Plate
The Jul Wreath is made by binding bundles of small pine twigs around a wooden hoop (a child's toy hoop is ideal), and fastening 4 red candles on it.
When the SS Woman prepares the table for afternoon coffee on the first Jul Sunday, she decorates it with further twigs of pine and lights the first candle on the Jul Wreath. Every following Sunday an additional candle on the Jul Wreath is lit, thereby the lights grow slowly until there is an explosion of lights on the Yuletide Tree by the time of Winter Solstice, portraying the Winter Solstice fires. It is also customary to light 4 candles on the first Sunday, decreasing every week by 1 candle. This should point to the dying old year, which is reborn in the many candles on the Yuletide Tree even as its last candle dies away.
The Baking
Traditionally the German housewife will bake cakes for Yuletide in three different shapes:
1. Large Cake
2. Gingerbread and Almond Cookies
3. Shaped Cookies
The housewife should always be aware that the Yuletide baking has a special meaning. It should not only taste good, but it should be part of the meaningful celebrations. The cakes and cookies should therefore be an expression of the great changes at the Winter Solstice, like the Yuletide Tree, the Jul Wreath and the candles. Therefore a good SS housewife should pride herself on keeping to the old recipes and shapes and rejecting all cheap and American factory produced goods.
The large cake, which is still served today with a candle in the middle, and the large flat cake are still to be found in every house today.
Gingerbread cakes and cookies, which taste so nice made with honey and syrup and which fill the whole house with their delicious aroma, should be cut out in heart shapes, star shapes, or wheel shapes.
The Jul Plates
Two wooden Jul Plates are shown carved with wheat motifs; many different carvings including Runic can be found, although wheat motifs are amongst the most common; also shown are three wooden moulds -- one large and two small -- used to shape cookies.
Eventually every SS household should possess all the wooden cutters for the almond cookies.
1. The cockerel -- the announcer of day time
2. The boar -- boarmeat used to be eaten at Yuletide
3. The rider -- Wotan on his horse
4. The hunter -- Wotan
5. The spinner -- Lady Holle in fairytales; Frigga
6. The Tree Of Life
7. The human couple.
In addition hand-formed cookies should be made and formed in the shape of the Runic Letters. This is not at all difficult if the dough is rolled into a long thick spaghetti. Runic Letters like the Swastika, the 4 spoke, 6 spoke, or 8 spoke Sun Wheel, the Odal Rune in all different shapes, the pretzel, the Sun Spiral, and the horse shoe can then be formed easily.
These cut out and hand-formed almond cookies should be used to decorate the Jul Wreath, they should hang on the Yuletide Tree, and they should be found on the Yuletide table of every SS family.
Yuletide Songs And Stories
Jul time is especially a time for children. Parents can't do enough to brighten up these dull days and long nights.
Just think about it: Where do our deep-rooted feelings for Yuletide come from?
Mostly they are memories from our childhood days. First impressions last longer and leave the deepest sense for these celebrations in our young folk. All later festivities are only meaningful if this initial understanding is awakened.
Because in Germany every generation has passed on the old traditions to their children, we now have the German Yuletide, which is envied by all other Nations.
We also have to ensure that these old traditions get handed on in a true and unchanged way, so that they will awaken in our children a strong feeling for their Homeland and their Folk, which will provide them with a sense of security in this modern and stressful world.
At Yuletide children should sing our old Yuletide songs. This requires the mothers to learn our old songs and teach them with all their hearts and souls. A joint evening at your local school will help all those parents who were not taught properly in their own childhood to get it right for their children.
Our best Yuletide songs are:
1. High Up In The Winds (Berghoch im Walde)
2. O Yuletide Tree, How Green Are Your Branches (O Tannenbaum, Du Trägst Einen Grünen Zweig)
3. Sacred Night Filled With Stars (Hohe Nacht der Klaren Sterne)
The Yuletide season is like no other a time for telling stories. The nucleus of our fairytales is thousands of years old. If you are able to read between the lines the deeper meaning of the happenings at the Winter Solstice, you will not only make the children happy with these stories, but increase your knowledge of the deeper meaning of Yuletide and your racial inheritance.
It is customary now to tell one story every Jul Sunday which tells of the Solstice and the coming year.
· 1st Jul Sunday: Little Red Riding Hood -- The child with the red cap (Sun) goes into the dark wood to visit old mother (Earth Mother) and is swallowed up by a monster; the young hunter brings her freedom and with it the rebirth of the year.
· 2nd Jul Sunday: Snow White -- The princely child goes into the deep wood, reaches the kingdom of the Gnomes (Mother Earth) but is killed by the bad one (step mother); she sleeps on a mountain in a glass coffin (the ice winter) and is freed and brought home by a young hero.
· 3rd Jul Sunday: Maiden Marleen -- The princess with the golden hair (Sun) is incarcerated in a tower (death of the Sun); the world becomes barren and empty; the prince tries to free her but is thwarted by the bad bride (the bad one), until the time is right and he recognises the right bride and brings her home.
· 4th Jul Sunday: Sleeping Beauty -- The princess reaches the tower of the spinning old woman (the bad one); she falls into a deep sleep; the world becomes barren and empty until the young prince comes and freely walks through the rose hedges because the time is ripe (Winter Solstice); he wakes the sleeping girl with a kiss, the world awakes and radiates in new light.
See also the old Saga of Sigurd and Brünnhilde in the Waberlohe -- Magic Fire story.
Wotan's Day And The Jul Plate
The old feast of Wotan is on Jul 6th. In olden days the God of our ancestors drove through the air, visited his people, was friendly to them, and left them little presents. He wanted to announce the start of the Winter Solstice season and the coming of the New Year.
The Christian church couldn't suppress these yearly visits of this white bearded, one eyed leader of the good Spirits. So they put one of its assumed saints, St. Nikolaus, in his place.
But in many areas of Germany the Schimmelreiter -- Rider On A White Horse, also known as Hruodprecht -- Ruprecht -- The One Shining With Glory = Wotan, or simply Father Yuletide remained.
SS Families should gather together and make the visit of Father Yuletide a memorable event for the children. They will thank them for it in years to come. But where a visit cannot be arranged, all members of the family should put their Jul Plates on the window sill. They will find them in the morning filled with apples, nuts, and hand-formed cookies, the first messengers of the coming feast.
Every member of a family should have his or her own Jul Plate. When a child is born, it should be presented with this Plate at the Ceremony Of Name Giving. It should be an old pewter plate, wooden plate, or a ceramic plate decorated with the Tree Of Life and lettering. As this Plate is used throughout the whole life, it should be beautiful, but not too large. It is used on birthdays to put the candles on it, on Wotan's Day, Yuletide Day, and New Year's Day for presents, on Easter Sunday for the Easter Eggs, on the Harvest Festival for apples, during the Wedding Ceremony for bread and salt, and during the Funeral Service the Light Of Life should extinguish whilst on it.
Produced by the SS porcelain firm of Porzellan-Allach GmbH for Yuletide, 1941, and available for public purchase; the Plate has a green border with symbolic Tree Of Life motifs on the lower rim; the centre of the Plate is decorated with snowdrops
The Yuletide Tree
After the men of the SS have stood on the mountains around the fires during the Winter Solstice and listened to the words of contemplation and warning, they bring home one of the little trees which have seen the fire. It is put into the hub of the Jul Wheel and decorated with the Lights of Yuletide. Therefore the evergreen Tree Of Life stood in the living room, telling of the dark winter's death and the shining rebirth of the coming time.
Winter Solstice Inside The House Of The SS Man
We have to keep the meaning of the Yuletide Tree in mind, even if we have to buy it at the market in a town. It should be a beautiful slim tree, the wide branches of which should spread solemnity and festivity in the room. It should stand in the Jul and SS corner of the house. It should be decorated with the greatest care. Do not start the preparations at the last possible minute and rush out to buy the rubbish the nearest shop has to offer.
What meaning is there in angel hair, glass decorations, tinsel and other such nonsense on the Yuletide Tree of the SS family?
The Jul Wheel, which supported the Jul Wreath, now holds the Yuletide Tree. There should be nothing on top of the Tree, and the top crown of branches stays free. The best decorations are the lit candles. In addition lots of red apples should be hung on the tree with thin wires. The apple is a symbol of the forthcoming life, red is the colour of the Sun. Other symbols with the same meaning are golden and silver painted nuts. And of course the home baked shaped cookies and almond cookies with their different meanings must be hung on the tree, together with a marzipan pig, symbolising the Jul Boar.
During the long Jul evenings the father should cut out the wooden shapes of the Jul Wheel and the Swastika in all their different forms. They complete the decorations of the Tree. The main impression should always come from the Tree itself and not from the decorations.
The SS Tree
The typical SS Yuletide Tree sits in the centre of the family chest; directly behind is a Wedding Plate and on either side is a Jul Plate
The Yuletide Celebration
We celebrate Yuletide in the evening, not in the morning. Yuletide is the feast of the newborn light and the renewing life. Therefore it is the feast of the commemoration of the birth of the child, of thanks to the mother, of good wishes for the growth of the whole Folk. The reason for our giving presents at Yuletide is to show respect to other members of our Folk for the part they play in its continued existence.
In Germany Yuletide is therefore a feast for the closer and wider family, which tends to exclude outsiders but for which a long lost son or one living far away is always welcome to return.
The presents, which are only valuable if the giver has himself worked on them, are secretly put under the Tree by the father. When everything is ready the family gathers in the adjoining room for the evening meal. The table should be festive and laid with care. This is the start of the Yuletide celebration.
The meal is substantial and the main course should consist of carp, goose, boar, or hare. These animals have traditionally been eaten at the Yuletide meal and should never be replaced by other food.
The meal should begin with a short speech by the father and end with a reference to the coming delights.
Not only the presents but the whole celebration should be full of surprises for all the members of the family. The father lights the candle in the Jul Earthenware Candlestick, from which the tree candles get their light. On the Tree should be 13 (12 months plus the 13th renewing) or 27 (3 lunar weeks each with 9 days) candles. He leaves three candles, which are close together, unlit. He now calls the wife, the children, and any other family members into the room using a little bell. As they admire the Tree the father lights the last three candles and says:
This light should burn for our ancestors who are with us tonight. This light should burn for my dead comrades from the War, and this light should burn for our millions of German brothers all over the world, who all celebrate Yuletide with us tonight.
After this all should sing the song O Yuletide Tree, How Green Are Your Branches, without which the Yuletide Celebration is unthinkable, and open their presents. The evening should be quiet and sincere. At the appointed time the whole family will listen to the Yuletide address of the Deputy of our Leader and will feel through it a bond reaching out from the close family to encompass the whole Folk of German brothers. During the evening the family photographs should be shown, old family stories told, and thoughts about the success of research into the family history exchanged.
New Year's Eve And The Earthenware Candlestick
Yuletide Eve is followed by the Twelve Sacred Days. Those days were important feast days for our ancestors and nobody worked during this time. Wotan and his Army Of The Dead were said to ride through the air, and Frigga, or Lady Holle, leads the Army Of The Unborn above the heads of the Folk.
We should light the candles on the Tree as often as possible during these days. During the night of New Years Eve the celebrations reach another pinnacle. The happenings of Yuletide are repeated, and again we say goodbye to the old and look hopefully to the future.
The last evening of the year is a very jolly time. The children have bought small fireworks and have their own fun. Mother fetches the spoon for the casting of the lead. This spoon should only ever be used for this purpose. The lead is melted on the spoon and cast into a bowl of cold water. The resulting figures and shapes foretell the future. Greeting cards are sent to distant relatives, the punch fills the house with its aroma, and the evening meal should be as grand as the one at Yuletide.
At midnight, when the candles on the Yuletide Tree are burnt down, the SS Man will put the Jul Earthenware Candlestick on the table. This Candlestick with its year candle has been lit at every family celebration during the last year. Therefore its candle has burned down. It should therefore receive a new light tonight. Just as our ancestors never let the sacred hearth cooking fire extinguish, so our SS Jul Earthenware Candlestick must always have a light. So the candlestick becomes a symbol of the never dying sunlight. Everyone becomes very thoughtful when finally the old year candle burns down and the new one is put in its place.
Presented by Reichsführer Of The SS Himmler, the Jul Earthenware Candlestick is the essential symbol used by the SS family throughout the year to mark celebrations and commemorations
World famous Jul Earthenware Candlesticks being produced at the Allach factory
SS personnel receiving the Jul Earthenware Candlestick and Citation
This is the wish of the Reichsführer Of The SS to his SS Men:
The Reichsführer Of The SS Berlin, Julfest, 1943
“I give you this Jul Earthenware Candlestick. It is fashioned in the traditional style of our Folk. Its light shall burn during the New Year's Night, which for us falls on the night of the 31st of December to the 1st of January. The small candle shall burn as a symbol of the ending year during its last hours.The large candle shall light up at the first moment of the New Year. There is a deep wisdom in this custom. May every SS Man watch the little light go out with a pure heart and light the new light of the new year with renewed vigour. This is what I wish for you and your kin today and for all future.”
Jul Earthenware Candlestick Citation
A Yuletide Card printed for Yuletide, 1945, on behalf on Reichsführer Of The SS Himmler; note the Jul Earthenware Candlestick used to decorate this simple card, which reads: MY HEARTFELT BEST WISHES FOR YULETIDE AND FOR THE WAR YEAR 1945, HEIL HITLER!
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