Christkindle Markets Part 1: History and Ties to the Nazi Party – Global Adventures in Food and Archaeology

This first post ended up kind of long, so I decided to make it two. This post focuses on the history of the markets. The next post delves into ginger!

This past winter (2023) my family and I went to a Christmas market tour along the Danube. These markets, also known as Christkindle markets, found in much of Europe, are festive outdoor markets held during the Advent season leading up to Christmas. They are usually in town centers or other places of importance, such as palaces. These markets, adorned in festivity with sparkling lights, ornaments, and Christmas trees, feature stalls and booths offering a variety of goods, including handmade and often local crafts, ornaments, gifts, and toys. They are also known for their diverse culinary offerings, such as roasted chestnuts, lebkuchen (German gingerbread cookies, see part 2), schokokuss, sausages, crepes, and glühwein (mulled wine). They often have various forms of entertainment such as live music, carol singing, and performances. They are truly a multisensory experience.

Joyce and I were very into the schokokuss (see recipe at end of post).

Christkindle markets are also considered part of Germany’s, and other nearby countries, intangible cultural heritage (the cultural heritage that extends beyond the “things” to include “traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts“. Although, it is worth noting that they are not on UNESCO’s list.

As we toured the markets, a common theme stood out. We were stopping a lot of places known for their connection to Hitler and the Nazi Party. Nuremberg, Passau, Regensburg, Vienna, Budapest. Which got me thinking about the history of the markets. They are generally advertised as festive gatherings rooted in deep traditions that bring together people to experience the meaning of Christmas in a festive environment. But it is more complicated than that.

Isn’t it always?

Christmas markets date back to Medieval times and the 15th and 16th centuries (the market in Dresden dates back to Dresden 1434). Though some parts of the traditions are even older, with roots back to early pagan and Roman traditions. Back then, people would travel to the city centers and set up stands near the main church, selling foods such as meats and baked goods, as well as pottery and other trinkets, around Christmastime. You can also make a good case that markets just took place near the winter solstice, and were less to do with Christmas. These markets grew quickly with the Industrial Revolution, as people migrated from rural to urban areas, and started mass producing goods. However, this influx of people (aka poor people), the rapid growth of cities, and the markets led to mixed feelings about them in Germany. No longer were they safe places of merriment. And, eventually, capitalistic forces largely forced the “unsavory” markets (ie money not going into the hands of the elite), to the outskirts of cities.

It was Hitler and the Party that resurrected the Yuletide festival. The markets were brought back to city centers and were reshaped to once again extol German heritage and history. While the idea of tradition and German heritage being linked to Christmas was not new, the Nazi party took it to a new level.

For Hitler and the Nazi Party, these markets were a chance to take a beloved tradition and reshape it into their ideal image of what it should be, praising the virtues of the party along the way. But it wasn’t just about bringing Christmas (as they wanted it to be) “back” (making Christmas great again?). It was about taking away any Jewish or foreign influence from how the holiday was celebrated (pg 31). To justify this position, the Nazi Party propagated the belief that Jewish people had taken control of Christmas markets (and the economy!), thus ruining their meaning (along with so many other anti-Sementic beliefs).

After expelling Jews from the Christmas market scene, the Nazi-controlled markets emphasized the sale of “German” crafts. They even “began to standardize stall decorations and the items that vendors could sell—such as German-made ornaments, toys, handicrafts, bratwurst, and sugary confections“. A tradition that continues today with most markets having regulations that anything sold must be handcrafted and locally made so as the preserve tradition. They also used the markets as places to give speeches and showcase “German” performances.

Today, this part of the history has largely been forgotten or glossed over. Now, Christmas markets are advertised as a way to step back in time and experience an authentic, tradition-rich, piece of intangible cultural heritage. When we think of them, images jump to the mind of rows of neatly lined stalls decorated in Christmas lights and ornaments, and the smells of warmed Ggühwein, warm spices, brats, and other festive treats fill the air.

But the emphasis on intangible cultural heritage omits

Which traditions and whose heritage?

Traditions, like heritage and culture, are never static. They are constantly being shaped and reshaped. Reimagined in new socio-cultural and political worlds. In a way, history is constantly being brought into the present. It does not mean that something is not authentic or part of someone’s heritage. Simply that we are never without change. For the markets, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, factors shaping how they are today is the Nazi Party.

Coming back to the question of which traditions and whose heritage, this context tells us these markets are more than Yuletide festivities tied to “cultural heritage” with deep histories dating back centuries. These places of gathering and celebration are also entangled with themes of labor, class, nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, propaganda, and war. Thus, to gloss over the Nazi Party era is to ignore a crucial aspect of their history. An aspect, you can argue, that is necessary to really understand what they are, what they mean, and how they came to be. By recentering that history, Chriskindle markets can be places of celebration and Yuletide while also holding space for remembrance and commemoration.