How a Stuttgart Publisher and US President Eisenhower Saved the Advent Calendar

The Advent calendar tradition is a relatively recent Christmas custom, far more recent than the Christmas tree. Although homemade calendars date from around 1850, the first printed calendars were sold in 1902. With time, many German publishers designed and printed Advent calendars in a wide variety of shapes and sizes.

Based on his German hometown, Richard Sellmer’s first “Small Town” Advent calendar had 24 windows that opened to reveal Christmas scenes. The church image in the center shows an open door revealing an altar inside with a nativity scene. This first 1946 Sellmer calendar is still sold as a nostalgic reprint edition. Learn more below. PHOTO: Richard Sellmer Verlag

But when Germany’s Nazi government plunged the country into a worldwide war in 1939, paper shortages and Nazi anti-religious measures ended the popular calendar tradition. The Munich publishing house of Reichhold & Lang, headed by Advent calendar inventor Gerhard Lang (1881-1974), had been the leading calendar publisher in Germany since 1908. But wartime conditions led to Lang’s company going out of business in 1939.

Following years of devastation and suffering, Germans were eager to return to a more normal and intact world (eine heile Welt). Reviving earlier, prewar traditions was one way to accomplish that. Stuttgart publisher Richard Sellmer realized that the Advent calendar custom that had once been so popular in Germany was an ideal way to get people back to some degree of normalcy and happiness.

In late winter 1945, Sellmer applied to the American occupation authorities in Stuttgart for authorization to print Advent calendars to sell in Germany. That permit, typed in German and dated 6 December 1945 (see photo below), was granted by the Publications Control of the 6871st District Information Services Control Command. The paper for the 50,000 calendars would come from the French occupation zone. The permit misspelled Sellmer’s name as “Sellner”, and was signed by James J. Kelleher, 1st Lt. CAC. The permit’s December 6th date is St. Nicholas Day in Germany and Europe, although that may have been a mere coincidence.

The Advent calendar printing permit granted to Richard Sellmer by the US occupation authorities in Stuttgart is dated 6 December 1945. It authorizes the procurement of paper from the French zone/sector for printing 50,000 copies of Sellmer’s first Advent calendar. PHOTO: Richard Sellmer Verlag

International Editions
By the time his permit was approved, the Advent season would be over before Sellmer could design and publish any calendars. With the help of graphic artist Elisabeth Lörcher, Sellmer created a three-section, folding cardboard stand-up Advent calendar named “Die kleine Stadt” (“The Little Town”) that depicted snow-covered buildings in his own village of Rohr, southwest of Stuttgart (part of the Stuttgart district of Vaihingen since October 1936). It would go on sale for the 1946 Advent season. Interestingly, this first postwar Advent calendar was also prepared for an international market, with German, English, and Swedish editions.

The 1946 “Kleine Stadt” calendar is still sold as a reprint edition by the Sellmer Verlag today. This is also the calendar version seen in 1953 newspaper photos that publicized the German calendars with photos of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s three grandchildren. (See photo below.)

Three Generations: The bottom photo from NEWSWEEK shows President Eisenhower’s three grandchildren (Barbara Anne, Susan, and David) with a Sellmer Advent calendar, a reprint of the first calendar published in Germany in 1946. The center photo shows the president’s son, Major John Eisenhower and his wife Barbara. The major was then stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where the calendar photo was taken. (Click on photo to enlarge.) PHOTO: Richard Selmer Verlag

The Eisenhower Boost in the US
As noted above, the Sellmer company had international sales in mind from the very beginning in 1946. And through trade contacts, Richard Sellmer made an effort to reach markets outside Germany, and particularly in the United States. Those efforts got a big boost in early December 1953 when Newsweek magazine published an article about President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his family. The president had German roots himself. His German surname was originally spelled “Eisenhauer” (meaning “iron hewer”).

The National Epilepsy League, an American charitable foundation supporting research for a cure for epilepsy, was running a campaign to raise money by selling Sellmer Advent calendars made in Germany. The Eisenhower family agreed to help publicize this fundraising effort. In 1953, as part of its feature story on the Eisenhowers, Newsweek published a photo of the president’s three young grandchildren posing with a Sellmer Advent calendar. (Photo below.)

The family of Richard Nixon, Eisenhower’s vice president, was also involved in promoting the Advent calendar. There is a later photo of Nixon’s wife Patricia Nixon sharing an Advent calendar with her young daughters, Tricia and Julie, in the mid-1950s.

Besides Newsweek, American newspapers also published photos of the grandchildren with their Advent calendar, mentioning the National Epilepsy League’s fundraising campaign. Similar photos of the Eisenhower kids were also published in 1954. See the photo below, which appeared in the Washington Journal, a German American newspaper published in German.

Other Influences
Besides the presidential publicity, there was another less dramatic factor during the same period: US soldiers returning from Germany. American GIs stationed in Germany had been exposed to German Christmas customs, including the Advent calendar. Also, in an effort to adapt to American consumers, Sellmer and other publishers created calendars with American-orientated designs, such a fireplace with Santa. Today almost all Americans know what an Advent calendar is, if only about half of those surveyed in 2020 answered that they had personally bought or received an Advent calendar during the holiday season.

For another illustration of the eventual success of the Advent calendar in the USA, consider this: As a high school teacher of German in the US for many years, my students used to raise money for the German Club by selling chocolate-filled Advent calendars “Made in Germany.” But at some point in the 1980s or so, Americans could buy chocolate Advent calendars from the local supermarket for less than our wholesale price. The Advent calendar had arrived in the USA. We had to find other fundraising methods.

The Eisenhower grandchildren, now a year older, in a 1954 photo published in the German American newspaper Washington Journal. The calendar is different from the one pictured in 1953. PHOTO: blogs.loc.gov

An Advent Calendar Is Really a Christmas Calendar
Although it’s called an “Advent” calendar, today’s Advent calendar does not truly conform to the religious Advent period. The four Sundays of Advent technically begin on the first Sunday after November 26. The countdown begins on the first Advent Sunday. In 2023, Advent began on Sunday, December 3. In some years Advent begins as early as November 27. But for practical reasons, almost all Advent calendars now start on the first day of December and have 24 numbered windows. The original name in Germany was Weihnachts-Kalender, or Christmas calendar, and that is a more accurate name.

Sellmer Today
Sellmer and other German Advent calendar publishers have continued to produce their popular Christmas calendars since 1946. Sellmer alone, Germany’s leading calendar publisher today, had cranked out more than 230 different types of calendars by 1998. By 2010 they were producing over 100 different Advent calendar designs. Currently the company markets its calendars in 30 countries. Foreign sales now make up more than 50 percent of Sellmer’s revenue.

The Advent calendar today has such a wide variety of designs and contents (candy, alcoholic beverages, toys, etc.), the early originators of these countdown calendars would probably be shocked to see how they have evolved – in secular and religious ways. We’ve come a long way from Sellmer’s “Small Town” of 1946.

– HF