From the Romans to Hitler to Today: The History of the Christmas Tree

Every year, 1.2 to 1.4 million Christmas trees are sold in Switzerland; more than half of them come from abroad, most of them from Denmark. For many, the decorated trees are an indispensable part of Christmas. Very few of them would think that this custom is not as old as is often believed.

It is often said that the Christmas tree with its lights can be traced back to Germanic traditions. In this context, reference is usually made to Christmas, which in pre-Christian times was probably celebrated at the winter solstice and has now merged into Christmas in several Scandinavian countries. However, there is no evidence that fir trees adorned with lights were actually erected for this pagan festival.

The idea that the Christmas tree has a Germanic origin may have to do with the fact that in northern regions fir branches were hung in or in front of houses during winter, presumably to ward off evil spirits. But the Romans already knew the custom of celebrating the turn of the year with evergreen laurel branches. Evergreen plants as ornaments are said to have been a symbol of eternal life as far back as ancient Egypt, China and the Hebrews.

In the Middle Ages, branches of fruit trees were placed in the room, so-called winter corns, which were supposed to bloom around Christmas. Since it was not always possible to get them to bloom in time, over time more evergreens were preferred, such as holly, pine, spruce or laurel.

Another possible origin of the Christmas tree lies in the Christian mystery play about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise, which was performed on December 24 – the day of Adam and Eve in the calendar of saints. At the end of the Middle Ages, trees that were still green at the time, such as spruce or spruce, but also boxwood, served as a “tree of paradise”, which was hung with apples as a symbol of the Fall. Over time, the importance of this saint’s commemoration declined; December 24 was increasingly seen as the Christmas Eve before Christmas. The paradise tree gradually became the Christmas tree.

The sources are notoriously thin, and this becomes even more the further back one goes into the past. The term “Christmas” – Middle High German “ze wihen nights” – first appears in sources around 1170. The oldest tangible references to Christmas trees, on the other hand, only come from the transition period from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. 1419 bakers in Freiburg im Breisgau are said to have hung gingerbread, fruit and nuts on a Christmas tree. However, there is no reliable evidence for this. What is certain, however, is that in Strasbourg, in 1492, fir trees were bought for the parishes of the city. However, there is no evidence of tree decorations.

In the Baltic Hanseatic cities of Riga and Reval (now Tallinn), around 1510, towards the end of the Christmas season, German merchants marketed, decorated, and finally burned fir trees. A little later, around 1527, a document mentions a “Christmas tree” in Stockstadt am Main. A large Christmas tree in Strasbourg Cathedral is documented for 1539. Again, there is no mention of tree decorations.

Finally, the guilds also began to put up Christmas trees in their guild houses – in Bremen around 1570, when small fir trees were hung with dates, nuts, pretzels, apples and paper flowers. At Christmas, the children were allowed to “shake off” the tree; that is, they were allowed to eat the treat. It is the first evidence of a decorated Christmas tree in Germany. In 1597, journeymen in Basel decorated a green tree with apples and cheese, took it for a walk through the city, and then put it in their inn.

In the course of the 17th century, the custom made its way from the guild houses to the homes of the wealthy townspeople. They had to be prosperous, because fir trees were rare in Central Europe and correspondingly expensive. But the decoration of lights was still lacking; the tree was usually hung with paper roses, wafers, and sizzling gold—thin, shiny gold flakes of metal.

Candles as tree decorations first appeared around 1611, when Duchess Dorothea Sibylle of Silesia decorated a Christmas tree in this way. But this custom, ubiquitous today, spread very slowly at first; It was not until more than a hundred years later, from 1730, that candles became more popular and the Christmas tree gradually took on its current shape.

To meet the high demand for Christmas trees, more and more pine and spruce forests were planted in the 19th century. The expansion of the railway network contributed to the supply of Christmas trees. At that time, the custom, which was often seen as a German – and especially Lutheran – peculiarity, also penetrated more deeply into Catholic areas. The Catholic Church had long viewed the Christmas tree with suspicion and preferred the nativity scene.

In Germany, the final breakthrough came with the Franco-Prussian war. In the war year 1870 many soldiers’ quarters and hospitals had decorated trees at Christmas, which gave the use a huge boost: the returnees from the war took it to their families. The war brought German unification – and at the same time the denominations grew closer together.

At the end of the 19th century, the Christmas tree finally became an integral part of Christmas customs among German Catholics as well. However, Christmas trees did not appear in Catholic churches until after World War II. Even more reserved were the Calvinist faith communities, which had nothing to gain from the so-called pagan fuss.

The Christmas tree also spread beyond Germany in the 19th century via the closely related European aristocracy – to Great Britain, France and Italy, the Netherlands and even to Russia, where it initially became commonplace only in the highest social circles in St. Petersburg and Moscow .

The custom also reached the US when a Harvard professor of German descent set up a Christmas tree at home in 1832. From New England, Christmas trees spread all over the country. President Franklin Pierce installed the first Christmas tree in the White House in 1853. In the United States, which was enthusiastic about the progress, the first Christmas tree with electric lighting was installed in 1882.

In Germany, during the twelve years of their “Thousand Year Reich”, the Nazis tried to load up the Christmas tree with supposedly original pagan symbolism and push the Christian element into the background. So the Christmas tree had to become the “specific Yule fir tree”, for which there were matching “Jul jewels” with National Socialist motifs.

These attempts to give Christmas a pagan-Germanic flavor were largely in vain and bore fruit only in circles close to the holiday. By the end of the war, Nazi Christmas was becoming increasingly unpopular anyway, and after the war most rushed to get rid of the incriminating tree decorations.

Today, in many parts of the world, Christmas is almost unthinkable without a tree decorated with lights. Even the increasing commercialization of the post-World War II Christmas season has failed to dampen the custom – quite the contrary.