Collection entry
Heimat Deine Sterne Vol. 7 Kriegsweihnacht 1940
Twenty-seven supplied titles alternate Christmas music with greetings, military settings and radio-relay labels. The notes examine seasonal feeling in Nazi propaganda and occupation; the collection’s 1940 label does not date the recordings.
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27 source files · About 79 minutes
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Heimat Deine Sterne
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MP3 recordings in one ZIP download (about 147.4 MB). Download only · No physical record or CD.
Tracklists, historical notes and sources are available on this website.
The recordings
- Heimat Deine Sterne1:13
Ringsendung2:32
Historical Context
The Christmas relay turned distance into a staged sense of togetherness. WDR’s account of the broadcast on 24 December 1940 describes soldiers’ greetings, music and reports linking occupied territories with listeners at home. Seasonal reassurance and Nazi propaganda were woven into the same programme.
Recording details
The historical broadcast is documented, but this Ringsendung excerpt has not been matched to it. The collection’s year does not authenticate a speaker, transmission date or unedited sequence.
- Drüben In Der Heimat3:23
Grüße Aus Narvik6:15
Historical Context
Narvik was more than a distant location in a holiday greeting. German troops landed there during the invasion of Norway in April 1940, followed by fierce fighting and occupation. Reading the place-name against that history restores the military violence behind the programme’s reassuring geography.
Recording details
The place-name is supplied metadata. It does not establish where the microphone stood, which unit participated or who speaks in this file.
Süßer Die Glocken Nie Klingen2:44
Historical Context
The familiar Christmas words are by Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger, while the tune belongs to an older folk tradition. Carus traces it to a Thuringian melody. A striking manuscript in Salzburg Museum, probably dating from the 1830s, carries Stille Nacht on one side and another Christmas song, Die Glocke, on the other. The museum identifies the latter’s melody with Kritzinger’s carol. The sheet preserves a tune shared by different Christmas texts and a physical connection between two carols still familiar today.
Recording details
These sources concern a text and a shared melody. They do not identify this file’s text version, performers, arrangement, language or recording date.
- Posten Auf Dem Feldberg2:21
- Posten Auf Dem Brocken1:51
- Des Jahres Letzte Stunde3:02
- Grüße Von Der Marienburg3:36
- Strahlende Weihnachtskerzen3:00
Grüße Aus Warschau2:02
Historical Context
A Christmas greeting labelled Warsaw belongs beside the city’s occupied reality. By November 1940, its Jewish population had been confined in a sealed ghetto, where overcrowding, hunger and German persecution shaped daily survival. Those experiences are essential context for a broadcast’s image of seasonal normality.
Recording details
This is historical context for the supplied location, not an identification of the speaker, exact broadcast, venue or recording date.
- Christnacht2:35
- Grüße Von Der Kanalküste2:51
Hohe Nacht Der Klaren Sterne0:47
Historical Context
Hans Baumann’s Hohe Nacht der klaren Sterne was first published in 1936 as a Nazi reinterpretation of Christmas. Its nature and motherhood imagery was intended to replace Christian carols such as Stille Nacht. The familiar seasonal mood could carry ideology without sounding like a political speech.
Recording details
Work history does not establish the words, arrangement, performers or date of this supplied version. No lyrics are reproduced here.
- Flugboot Über Dem Atlantik2:49
O Tannenbaum2:19
Historical Context
Before it became a Christmas favourite, this was a song of disappointed love. August Zarnack’s 1820 text contrasted the evergreen tree’s constancy with an unfaithful lover, using an existing melody. In 1824, Leipzig teacher Ernst Anschütz retained the opening stanza and reshaped the song for Christmas in his Musikalisches Schulgesangbuch. The older love song did not immediately disappear: the University of Freiburg’s song history finds it more frequently printed in everyday songbooks than the Christmas version until the First World War.
Recording details
The supplied title does not establish which text, melody variant or arrangement is heard, or identify its performers, language or recording date.
- Vorpostenboot Atlantikküste2:36
- Strahlende Weihnachtskerzen2:52
- Zerstörer An Der Atlantikküste4:32
Stille Nacht3:25
Historical Context
A manuscript discovered in 1995 helped clarify this carol’s creation. Joseph Mohr’s handwritten score, now held by Salzburg Museum and dated around 1820, identifies his poem as a work of 1816 and credits Franz Xaver Gruber with the melody. It also preserves all six stanzas, two vocal parts and guitar accompaniment. This surviving document separates the earlier poem from the familiar 1818 Christmas debut and offers a tangible alternative to the legends that gathered around the song.
Recording details
The manuscript documents the work’s early history; it does not identify this file’s performers, arrangement, language, session or recording date.
- Wacht An Der Biscaya2:09
O Du Fröhliche2:42
Historical Context
The familiar Christmas hymn began as a song for three festivals. Johannes Daniel Falk wrote it for children supported by his charitable work in Weimar, probably in 1816, with separate stanzas for Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. He used the melody of the Marian hymn O sanctissima, transmitted in Herder’s song collection. Heinrich Holzschuher later retained Falk’s Christmas stanza and added two seasonal stanzas. Its joyful words grew from practical care for children, before the three-festival song became a Christmas favourite.
Recording details
This is the history of the titled work. The supplied file’s text version, performers, arrangement, language and recording date remain unidentified.
- Grüße Aus Gumbinnen4:44
- Musik Unterm Weihnachtsbaum1:35
- Grüße Aus Saarbrücken2:01
- Grüße Aus Rumänien4:18
Liveübertragung5:04
Historical Context
The survival of a broadcast can depend on later archival reconstruction. DRA describes reassembling private radio recordings made by Peter Huverstuhl, including Christmas relays from 1942 and 1943. This later example shows why a compilation’s running order and its label Liveübertragung need separate evidence.
Recording details
The DRA account concerns later relays, not this collection’s asserted 1940 programme. It does not prove that this file is live, complete, unedited or part of the Huverstuhl holdings.
Sources & Resources
These later archival reconstructions do not identify a 1940-labelled collection or prove that its files were transmitted live.
Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv: wartime news and propaganda recordings
Behind the sound
Christmas broadcasting, occupation and political framing
WDR dates the first wartime Christmas relay to 24 December 1940, connecting soldiers and households through greetings and music. That emotional togetherness served Nazi propaganda. A published schedule for the separate 1942 relay shows pre-recorded contributions assembled for transmission. These comparisons leave this collection’s production unresolved: a live-sounding title does not establish a live event, an unedited broadcast or a year.
Greetings labelled Narvik and Warsaw carry histories of invasion and occupation. Germany invaded Norway in April 1940. Warsaw had been occupied since September 1939, and its Jewish population was confined within a sealed ghetto in November 1940. Those circumstances belong beside reassuring seasonal messages, without establishing where a microphone stood or who speaks in any supplied file.
The musical titles also represent different traditions. Stille Nacht began with Mohr’s poem of 1816 and Gruber’s melody, first performed at Christmas in 1818. Hans Baumann’s Hohe Nacht der klaren Sterne, first published in 1936, offered a Nazi reinterpretation of Christmas intended to displace Christian carols. These work histories do not establish the versions, singers or arrangements presented here.
Presented for critical historical study of Nazi propaganda, occupation and wartime culture, including persecution in occupied Warsaw. National Socialism, antisemitism and military aggression are not endorsed.