From: <JIMB856@aol.com>

Subject: Christmas Eve, 1952

Date: Friday, December 24, 1999 9:41 AM

To All My Friends, Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve, 1952 found me in Salzburg, Austria with a dilemma on my hands. Several of my buddies from the 430th CIC Detachment and I were trying to decide how to best spend the evening in one of the most Christmassy places in the world, southern Bavaria. Many of the Christmas legends and traditions that we recognize in America originated in this area. Decorated evergreens, lights on trees, etc., came from there. And most of all, "Silent Night" was written there. We had two logical choices. We could go into town and attend midnight mass at the Salzburg Dom (Cathedral) and hear the world famous soprano singer from Austria sing solemn high mass or go to a little village south of Salzburg and attend mass at the site of the first rendition of Silent Night. We choose the latter.

Our thinking was, we better go early to be sure of getting in the church,so we arrived at the little town of Oberndorf, Austria, on a chilly snowless eve, before 9:30 PM only to find that the memorial chapel was already full and there was not even standing room inside, and a crowd 10 deep around the chapel outside. The site of the chapel commemorating the song was now 800 meters upstream from the original St. Nicholas Church, where the song was first sung, in 1818. The old church had been destroyed by a flood of the Salzack River and had been rebuilt above the flood level. I bought a souvenir booklet about how Franz Zaver Gruber, the young church organist had arranged a little poem brought to him by a new priest named Joseph Mohr, to be used at the midnight Christmas Mass, and how a mouse had eaten a hole in the bellows of the organ so it was originally sung accompanied only by a guitar. Here is the German words to the first stanza:

Stille Nacht, Heillige Nacht,

Gollen Sohn, O wie Lacht..

Lieb aus demem Gottlichen Mund,

Da uns schligh die rettende stand,

Jesus, in deiner Geburt.

Still being early, we decided to give up on attending mass freezing outside the church, without a chance of hearing anything inside, and try for our alternate in Salzburg. We left Oberndorf, drove back thru Hallein and got back to Salzburg in time to hear mass at the Dom after all. It was sung beautifullly and loss nothing in the translation even though we understood less in German than in the Latin. We felt fulfilled that wonderful Christmas eve nevertheless, as many of our friends settled for mass or service at the Army Post nearby, where we figured any of them with transportation wasted an opportunity of a lifetime.

Peggy and I wish you and your loved ones a beautiful Christmas on a still and holy night.

Jim Biller