Photo Gallery How the Third Reich Celebrated Christmas

A new exhibition in Germany highlights how the Nazis tried to take the Christ out of Christmas. This photo shows a cookie-cutter in the shape of a swastika.

"Christmas was a provocation for the Nazis -- after all, the baby Jesus was a Jewish child," Judith Breuer, who helped prepare the exhibition and co-authored the accompanying book with her mother, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "The most important celebration in the year didn't fit with their racist beliefs so they had to react, by trying to make it less Christian."

A Christmas card from World War I: Governments in different eras have exploited Christmas for their own ends.

Iron Crosses on the Christmas tree: The Breuers have thousands of Christmas-related objects in their collection.