Nazi POWs in Italy

The title of this blog is German for the well-known Christmas carol, “Silent Night.” It tells of an incident during the Nazi retreat in Tuscany where things could have gone south very fast, but didn’t. The tale is from Iris Origo’s excellent War in Val d’Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944.

In the afternoon, while I am with the children in the garden rehearsing the ‘Sleeping Beauty’, I hear a lorry drive up, and some of these same German troops come tramping, fully armed, into the garden. They do not look attractive. I go up to them, not without some inner apprehension, and ask them what they want. But the answer is unexpected: ‘Please—wouldn’t the children sing for us?’ The children sing O Tannenbaum and Stille Nacht (which they learned last Christmas)—and tears come into the men’s eyes. ‘Die Heimat [The Homeland]—it takes us back to die Heimat!’ So they climb into their lorry and drive away.