Pictures of Hitler and high command Nazi officials at a SS officers cadet Christmas party in Munich have surfaced. Hitler rejected religion as part of his 1000 year Reich and replaced the Christian Saint Nicholas with the Norse god Odin. He encouraged Germans to mark the season as a winter solstice holiday, not Christmas. A swastika replaced the angel as a tree topper and decorations featured runic symbols and iron crosses.
The images taken by Hitler's photographer Hugo Jaeger were buried by him in glass jars outside Munich towards the end of the war for fear they would be confiscated - later sold to Life Magazine which will publish them this week.
During 1944-45 the Nazis again reinvented Christmas as a commemoration of the dead, mostly fallen soldiers - by then almost 4 million men were lost.
Germans baked swastica shaped cookies and depictions of the regime adorned their trees, many still referred to the season as Christmas.
http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/51341/inside-a-nazi-christmas-party-1941?xid=weeklytopten
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