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It is the Christmas season again and I expect to read that the first Christmas tree originated in Strasbourg, Germany. It bothers me that the article always reads "Germany" as being the home of the earliest record of a decorated Christmas tree. Strasbourg was in Germany between the years 1870 and 1918 because France was defeated in the Franco Prussian War and France had to cede two provinces, Alsace and Lorrain to Germany. Strasbourg is the chief city in the Alsace Lorrain provinces and is located presently in France. Prior to 1870 Strasbourg was located in France. Between the years 1870 until after World War I it was German. Strasbourg being in France would make the tree spoken of here as being of French and not German origin. I wrote to the mayor of Strasbourg in 1957 concerning the Christmas tree, and he returned an official reply which I will share with you. (My four grandparents were bom in Alsace, France prior to 1870) A translation of a letter is as follows:
The Town Strassbourg VIII nr. 1839
Please answer under the number indicated above. All correspondence is to be addressed to the Mayor in the Town Hall..
Dear Sir:
I have the honor to confirm the reception of your letter, dated Nov. 17, 1957. 1 send you enclosed the copy of an article dealing with the origins of the Xmastree and its first appearence in Strassbourg.
In the same time I have the pleasure to send you some tourist papers giving you the possibility to come into close contact with our city and our region.
Would you please accept the expression of our noblest feelings. Sincerely Yours,
The Mayor,
The profound connoisseur of the Christmas tree, Alexander Title discovered the oldest historically proved Christmas tree in AIsace, i.e. in Strasbourg in 1605. "Before the year 1605 we don't know any historical Christmas tree, i.e. a decorated tree put up at Christmas day. Even then it does not appear as it is today. Above all, it has no candles." The authority for Title is a man who immigrated to Strasbourg. In about 1605 he wrote without telling his name, in his Memorabilia quacdam Argen Lorati observata (in English: Some memorable observations of Strasbourg) : "At Christmas people put up Christmas trees in their rooms; They hang roses cut out of multicolored paper, apples, wafers, gold, sugar, and so on. They fix a square frame around the trunc." A few decades later, Konrad Dannhauser, professor for Protestant theology and preacher in the Cathedral declaims against this custom, which he calls a bad habit. We find this in his collection of sermons (1642-46): "Among others trifles they hang dolls and sugar on the old Christmas tree they put up in their homes, an afterwards let it shake and pick these things up. Where this habit comes from don't know. It is a childrens' play.
Where this custom comes from we don't know it either. We know for sure only one thing, that the Christmas tree appears in Alsace already much earlier. The deserving Alsatian Historian, Joseph Geny, has made the uncontestable prove of this fact in a wonderful essay, published in the Revue Alsacienne Illustree, 1902. Unfortunately Geny's Old-alsatian Christmas habits were nearly not paid attention to by all those people. Competent authorities in ethnology (folklore). Still today the opinion is not shaken that the Christmas tree does not appear before the 17th century. It is Schlettstadt which has the glory to be the cradle of the oldest Christmas tree.
Let us have a look into some old documents. In the towns account 1546 two men get 3 shillings "who cut trees for Christmas". The account book 1549-1565 contains the following decision of the Town's Council made on Wednesday Dec. 17, 1555. "Nobody is allowed to have a Xmas tree except with punishment." In January 1557 the forster of Kinsheim get 2 shillings to guard, and 2 shillings to cut Christmas trees."
I rest my case: The first Christmas tree originated in Strasbourg, France.