The First to Stand Up: The Christmas Truce of 1914 and the Courage to Leave Our Trenches

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 takes a seat at the Christmas table, where everyone is smiling and no one says what they think. Where one wrong word could shatter the whole day.

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

What makes someone the first to stand up, when every instinct tells them to 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 Blasius tells the true story of the Christmas Truce of 1914. He tells of the Christmas Eves of his German childhood, which were silent but not peaceful. And he follows the question that links the two all the way into our own time: in families, among friends and between nations.

A work of narrative non-fiction about a night in the First World War that still moves us today, and about the courage to start making peace right where we sit. What it tells of the war rests on the records and testimony of the time. None of it is invented.

Inside:

• seven letters from the front and from home
• a map of the front at Christmas 1914 and two illustrations
• a timeline, the people in this book and places you can visit today
• 'Silent Night' with all six original verses, in German and in English

A Christmas book with depth - to give, or to keep for yourself.

With the proceeds of this book, the author intends to found a non-profit company. Its particular concern will be children who grow up in difficult circumstances.

Peace begins when someone is the first to stand up.