ABSTRACT
The aesthetic in Nazi Germany held an especially prominent position in mass political discourse. In what has been styled as the 'aestheticisation of politics', the vacuity of the Nazis' political project at large was compensated for by the mass rallies and rituals, by the carnival and the festival. The psychic experience of the annual Nuremberg rally is hard to underestimate, but its impact was temporary and so ceremonialism was extended to embrace existing elements of popular culture, Christmas perhaps offering one of the more striking (and ironic) of these.
