The First to Stand Up

There is a silence that is peace. And there is a silence that only holds its breath.

Many of us know the second kind. It sits with us at the table at Christmas, when everyone smiles and no one says what they think. When a single wrong word could shatter the whole evening.

Flanders, Christmas Eve 1914. Between the trenches lie barbed wire, frozen earth and the dead of recent weeks. Anyone who raises his head risks his life. Then, across the way, candles flicker into light. Someone is singing. And at some point a soldier climbs out of his trench, unarmed, and walks towards the enemy.

What makes a man the first to stand up when everything in him says stay down? And why do we find it so hard – at our own tables, where no one is shooting at us?

Drawing on the letters and accounts of the men who were there, Bernd tells the true story of that night. He tells of the Christmases of his childhood, which were silent but not peaceful. And he follows the question that links the two right into our own time: in families, among friends and between nations.

A narrative non-fiction book about one night in the First World War that still moves people today, and about the courage to begin peace where we ourselves are sitting. Everything it tells about the war is drawn from testimony of the time. None of it is invented.

A Christmas book with depth, to give as a present or to keep for yourself.

Bernd plans to use the income from this book to set up a non-profit company. Its particular concern will be children who are growing up in difficult circumstances.