A Christmas truce, or the quiet power of song

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A Christmas truce, or the quiet power of song

Published: 19 Dec. 2025, 00:05

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Na Sung-in

The author is a music critic and the director of the classical music brand Poongwoldang.

The episode known as the Christmas Truce took place on Christmas Eve in 1914, in the early months of World War I. Along one stretch of the Western Front, German soldiers in the trenches began to sing. “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht, alles schläft, einsam wacht.” Hearing the melody drift across no man’s land, British troops soon joined in from the opposite side. “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.”

The song spread quickly. In two different languages, the same carol filled the battlefield.

The cover of a Tyrolean songbook in which “Silent Night” (1818) was first published. [WIKIPEDIA]

The hymn was “Silent Night” (1818), written by Austrian composer Franz Gruber. From the British perspective, it was a song in the enemy’s language. Yet it stirred no hostility among the soldiers who heard it. Sung in both German and English, the familiar melody instead summoned thoughts of loved ones left behind at home. For a brief moment, those who sang it found themselves in the same condition. On either side of the trenches were men who could not return home for Christmas.

The song seemed to take flight through the open winter sky, stripping away their uniforms. It revealed the humanity hidden beneath full battle gear. This is a distinctive power of music: the ability to erase differences and bring forward what is shared.

For a short time, there were no longer German soldiers or British soldiers. There were only men who wanted to go home. They ventured out of their trenches, set a football on the frozen ground and began to play. According to accounts passed down, the Germans won the match 3–2. But the score hardly matters. Life divides people by countless measures, yet song has a way of stitching together those who are otherwise separated.

As the year draws to a close, people often find themselves gathered again after long intervals. When someone quietly begins to sing, “When the stormy sea grows calm, will you come today, across the distant water,” the awkwardness in the room can quickly dissolve. The line comes from “Yeonga,” a Korean song adapted from the New Zealand folk song “Pokarekare Ana.” How the melody first reached Korea is not certain, though it is often loosely linked to contacts around the time of the Korean War. What is clear is that the song later became familiar through a domestic album release and was widely sung by young people from the 1970s through the 1990s.

It is easy to forget, but the quiet magic of song remains very much alive.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.