Remembering the World War I Christmas truce

Consider This from NPR

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🗓️ 25 December 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

In the months after World War I erupted, young men in Europe were killing each other by the tens of thousands. Yet on a frozen Christmas Eve in 1914, the guns briefly fell silent.

On the 100th anniversary of the truce, former All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro set out to reconstruct the events of that day using the accounts of the people who were there. We bring you that story. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [email protected].

This episode was produced by Elena Burnett. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

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Transcript

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0:51.1	In the months after World War I erupted, young men in Europe were killing each other by the tens of thousands.
0:59.1	Yet on a frozen Christmas Eve, in 1914, the guns briefly fell silent.
1:05.5	The Christmas truce has become the stuff of legend, and the story of that day has been told again and again in
1:12.1	film, in music, and on stage. For the 100th anniversary of the truce in 2014, the British
1:18.5	supermarket chain Sainsbury's created this Christmas ad. The ad begins on Christmas Eve, on a snowy night in a dark, damp trench on the British side of the front.
1:32.8	Mail has just arrived.
1:34.2	Jenkins.
1:35.3	I'm clean.
1:36.5	No.
1:37.5	Letters from home.
1:38.9	Pictures of sweethearts.
1:40.5	A thick chocolate bar in blue wrapping.
1:42.6	And then, from far away, comes the sound of German voices singing.
1:53.2	The British join in.
1:54.9	Holy God.
1:57.0	Holy Christ, all is calm, is an opera
2:01.6	All is calm, is an opera by Peter Rothstein based on the truce.
	...

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