As I was taking a walk the other day, among the many Christmas decorations was a big plastic Santa Claus. However, his color scheme was slightly off; he was red and white in the usual places, but the places that are customarily black (boots, belt) were blue, and Santa was waving an American flag. How patriotic.
So this got me thinking: given how popular Santa Claus imagery is, at least in the United States, I was wondering if the Nazi propaganda machine had ever produced a Nazified version of Father Christmas. Like Santa wearing a swastika armband or giving the straight-arm salute? It would make a pretty pointed lesson on jingoism, wouldnja’ think?
Santa Claus is an American invention, not a European institution! Why would you assume because Santa Claus is popular today in the U.S. that it would have been popular in Europe of the 30’s? Most Christmas figures in Europe are closely identified with religion. For example, in Germany, the Kristkindl visits with gifts, not Santa Claus. Guess what “Kristkindl” translates to? The Christ Child.
The whole Christmas commercialized marketing thing is much more prevalent in the U.S. than in Europe, especially Europe of the 30’s.
Lumpy didn’t assume - he wondered. This is the nature of General Questions, one sits and says “Hey, I wonder if…” and then posts a question. As long as there is a factual answer, then one has posted in the proper forum.
That’s perhaps overstating the case. The modern image of Santa has certainly been developed in America, but the origin of Santa Claus – even to the name, derived from the Dutch Sinter Klaas – is clearly based on centuries of European tradition. Since the OP mentions Father Christmas, it’s reasonable to assume he’s asking about European equivalents of Santa, which include the aforementioned Sinter Klaas and Father Christmas along with Saint Nicholas, Pere Noel, Kriss Kringle, etc.
Santa Claus is sort of Dutch, sort of American, but anyway he isn’t German. It was the Dutch culture of New York that introduced “Sinter Klaas” to the rest of America. Clement Clark Moore and Thomas Nast, the two main popularizers of the American Santa, may not have been Dutch, but they were New Yorkers.
We got Thanksgiving from Massachusetts, Santa Claus from New York, and the Fourth of July from Philadelphia.
In Holland, Santa’s little black helper Swaart Piet has come under fire for being a racist image. Somehow Piet didn’t make the crossing to America the way his boss did.
Thanks Gary T and Rusalka, I’d overlooked the obvious- that Germans don’t use the name Santa Claus. A net search turned up The Many German St. Nicks, a fascinating site. Unfortunately, when I tried searching “Weihnachtsmann+ Nazi”, all the hits I got were for sites in German. Can any deutsch speakers help me out?
Actuall much of the modern image of Santa Claus (as do many Christmas traditons) comes from Victorian Britain. Father Christmas is a British midwinter traditon, Santa Claus was introduced to the US by Dutch settlers and the two became synomous by the 1870s. The concept of Santa Claus and variations was certainly extent in Germany by the 1930’s.