Two hundred years of ‘Silent Night’

Two hundred years ago, in 1816, Father Joseph Mohr, a young priest living in the small town of Mariapfarr in what is now central Austria, wrote a six-verse poem.

The previous year the Napoleonic Wars had finally ended with the defeat of the French Empire, but the economy of central Europe had been hard-hit by wartime destruction. In the retreat of Bavarian occupation troops, Mariapfarr had suffered greatly.

Father Mohr, as a young priest, wanted to bring the comfort of the church to the people.

He was assigned the next year, 1817, as an assistant priest to the newly established parish of St. Nicholas in Oberndorf in northwest Austria, about 11 miles from Salzburg. The treaty that ended the war had divided the principality of Salzburg between Austria and Germany, even separating the suburb of Oberndorf from the center of its main community of Laufen, which now lay in Bavaria across the new border of the Salzach River.

The poem Father Mohr had written the previous year back in his hometown of Mariapfarr was “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.”

We know it as “Silent Night, Holy Night.”

As Christmas approached in 1818, the young priest hoped to employ his poem’s theme of peace and comfort to ease the postwar pain and anxiety of his parishioners. So on Christmas Eve day, Dec. 24, he sought to have the words set to music.

At some time during the day he handed the poem to Franz Gruber, the schoolmaster of the nearby town of Arnsdorf, who was also organist at the church of St. Nicholas. Father Mohr asked Gruber to compose music to fit the poem’s words, as a duet with guitar accompaniment.

Gruber did so, finishing before dusk.

“Silent Night” (in German, of course) was first performed at the Christmas Mass at St. Nicholas that evening, with Father Mohr singing tenor and accompanying the song on guitar and Gruber singing bass.

Some 36 years later, in his account of the origin of the carol, Gruber wrote that it had been met with “general approval by all” in attendance, mostly local river boatbuilders, shipping laborers and their families.

“Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” was first published in 1833 in a collection of “Four Genuine Tyrolean Songs.”

In 1859, 41 years after the carol’s composition, the Rev. John Freeman Young, an Episcopal priest serving at Trinity Church in New York City, published the English translation we use today.

The English language version uses three of Father Mohr’s original six verses, in the order of his first verse, then the sixth, then the second.

“Silent Night” is now in the public domain. It’s been translated into about 140 languages. Bing Crosby’s recorded version is the third best-selling single record of all time.

The carol has a connection with other wartime situations in addition to the Napoleonic conflict.

During the Christmas truce of 1914 in World War I, “Silent Night” was sung simultaneously by English and German troops. It was the one carol that the soldiers in both trenches knew.

And regarding World War II:

Kathy and I were invited by close friends from Indianola to accompany them last week on a day trip to Algona, the north Iowa town where an internment camp for German prisoners of war operated during World War II.

The camp itself was located two miles west of town. In all, some 10,000 German POWs spent time there during the war.

Many of them were hired out to local farms and factories, where they provided much-needed help during the labor shortage created by the war.

Some of them developed friendships with Algona area employers and other residents. Some even returned years after the war to renew acquaintances.

There’s a gem of a small museum in downtown Algona that highlights the POW and town experience during the years 1942 to 1945, complete with film, photos, archives and souvenirs from the camp. It’s well worth a visit.

To help pass the time during their captivity, and to hearken back to happier times in their German homes, one of the POWs at the camp, an architect by training, inaugurated a Nativity scene project to involve the prisoners in a meaningful activity.

Over the course of a year they created a half-lifesize Nativity display that eventually included some 70 characters in a manger scene: the Holy Family, shepherds, wise men, an angel, sheep, camels and other animals.

Formed of plaster, covered in concrete and beautifully painted, the impressive creation was unveiled at Christmastime for the benefit of Algona area residents. It was then donated to the community as a gift from the prisoners.

It’s now on display every year during the Christmas season at the fairgrounds in Algona, and we viewed it during our visit.

Some of the POWs formed a chorus and put on a Christmas concert for their campmates and the Algona community at the scene’s inaugural viewing.

One of the songs they sang, of course, was the German “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.”

First-person written recollections from Algona folks in attendance, now available to be read in display cases at the museum, show the powerful effect of the POWs’ singing on their American neighbors.

“Silent Night,” like “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Happy Birthday,” is burned into the American consciousness.

It brings a lump to my throat every Christmas season. Maybe to yours, too.