Froeliche Weihnachten
Standard Fanfic Disclaimer that wouldn't last ten seconds in a court of law: these aren't my characters. I'm just borrowing them for, um, typing practice. Yeah, that's it, typing practice. They will be returned to their original owners (relatively) unharmed. Based on situations and characters from the TV show Hogan's Heroes, and the songs "Christmas in the Trenches" and "A Silent Night, Christmas 1915." This story is debuting as 'netfic. It has not been previously published in any 'zine.
Froeliche Weihnachten
Hogan's Heroes
by Susan M. M.
Sgt. Schultz sat at a table in the prisoners' mess hall. Officially, he was supervising the POWs who were decorating the small fir tree. Unofficially, he was playing cards with his right hand (losing at solitaire) and eating LeBeau's Apfelstrudel with his left hand.
The POWs cut colored construction paper into strips and pasted them into chains as carefully and solemnly as any first grader.
"Il est né, le Divin Enfant." LeBeau hesitated, not remembering the next line of the carol.
Carter took up where LeBeau left off. "Play the oboe and bagpipe merrily. He is born, the holy child. Sing we all of the Savior mild." Carter had a surprisingly good voice, and unlike the others, he managed to stay on key.
Schultz glanced up at the tree and looked away. At home, his Klara was probably doing the same thing. She had just sent him a card she had made in school: a Tannenbaum done in green crayon, the words froeliche weihnachten carefully traced above where the teacher had written it. Die Kinder were a headache and a half when he lived with them, but now, so far from home at Christmas, he would have given a million Reichmarks to spend just one hour with them. He returned his attention to the cards.
"Wotcha doing, Schultzie?"Newkirk asked.
"Losing." He kept his voice gruff. A soldier of the victorious Third Reich did not let prisoners see his eyes water.
"God rest ye merry, gentlemen. Let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day."
"I remember the first time I heard that song," Schultz said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Wot's that , Schultzie?" Newkirk asked.
Schultz repeated, "I remember the first time I heard that song."
"Oh?" Carter turned from the tree to face the rotund sergeant.
"The last war—the fighting had stopped for a one-day truce for Christmas. My cousin Fritz – he was in my unit – sang 'Josef, Lieber Josef Mein.' Such a voice he had – he was in the church choir – everyone stopped talking on both sides to listen. Some of our boys joined in and sang with him." Schultz took a deep breath. "Then some Englanders sang that song. Then Fritz sang 'Stille Nacht' – 'Silent Night.' Suddenly everyone was singing the same hymn – as if we were in church, where we should have been on Christmas, instead of on a battlefield."
The off-key caroling stopped. The chatter stopped. All of the POWs were silent as they listened to Schultz.
"Then Fritz – Fritz climbed out of the trench. He walked toward the English lines, a white flag in one hand, a bottle of schnapps in the other. The sergeant called for him to come back, but he didn't listen. We were all sure he was going to be shot, Christmas truce or not."
One young RAF prisoner stared, his eyes wide.
"And then what happened?" Carter asked.
"One of the Englanders came out –unarmed – his hands spread out to show they were empty. Suddenly, everyone was out of the trenches – out in the open. We traded cigarettes – chocolate – hidden flasks. We showed off pictures of our sweethearts – Gretchen and I were not yet married, just courting. There was not so much of her then, and one of the Englanders wanted to trade for a picture of his girl, but I wouldn't."
"C'est bon," LeBeau approved. "Sweethearts should be loyal to each other."
"Says the man with two dozen birds 'e's trying to court at one time," Newkirk muttered.
"Ernst Zimmermann had a fiddle – and he played much better than der Kommandant, let me tell you – and one of them had a concertina and another had a pennywhistle. We had music and those of us who knew a little of each other's languages tried to talk. We agreed that it was a terrible shame, with their king and our Kaiser first cousins, that they couldn't find a better way to solve their problems. We played soccer."
"Who won?" Newkirk and Carter asked simultaneously.
"They did," Schultz admitted, "but we made them pay for every point. For a few hours we were men – Christians – not soldiers. Then the truce ended and unser Leutnant expected us to shoot the men we'd been making merry with. The boy with the concertina – he was barely old enough to shave – had shown me a picture of his son. He had not yet seen the baby, and der Leutnant wanted me to kill that poor baby's father. "
"Blimey." Pvt. Sanders paled. "But you didn't kill 'im. 'E came 'ome safe from the war."
"I hope so. We all aimed high and prayed to miss for the next week or two."
"I know so. That was me Dad, and 'e's told me that self-same story every Christmas since I was a wee lad," Sanders said.
"Gut. Sehr gut. Because my cousin Fritz –mein bester Freund – was shot and killed on New Year's Eve." Schultz stood and slowly trudged to the mess hall door, not caring that he was leaving the prisoners unguarded.
Author's Note: As I write this, it is a few days before Christmas. This chapter is a songfic, based on John McCutcheon's "Christmas in the Trenches" and Cormac McConnell's "A Silent Night, Christmas 1915." Fullerton-dot-edu-slash-bstarr-slash-CHRISTMAS-TRUCE-dot-LYRICS-dot-HTM has the lyrics to six Christmas songs based on the truce in WWI, including John McCutcheon's "Christmas in the Trenches" and Cormac McConnell's "A Silent Night, Christmas 1915." You can hear the hauntingly beautiful but sad "Christmas in the Trenches" sung by John McCutcheon on his album Winter Solstice or by Harold Groot on Windbourne's album Winter Celebrations. (Harold's solo is followed by Windbourne doing a bilingual rendition of "Stille Nacht" and "Silent Night.") You can hear "A Silent Night, Christmas 1915" on Celtic Thunder 's albums Act Two and Christmas. My German is limited to what I learned from watching Hogan's Heroes and reading Heidi. Many thanks to Lizzi0307 for correcting the worst of my errors.