White is the publisher of the Seattle-based press, Scala House Press. In this essay, White argues that Böll's choice of narrator is a crucial element in the tremendous success of the story as a satire on the German postwar situation.

Heinrich Böll's "Christmas Not Just Once a Year" is a satire on Germany's refusal to address the moral implications of its Nazi past. Written in 1951 as Germany was working feverishly to recover from the devastating effects of the war, the story was one of Böll's many warnings that Germany faced an uncertain future of "disintegration" and possible "collapse" if it did not adequately treat the root causes of its historical and moral amnesia.

To convey this warning, Böll chose as the narrative voice a calm and slightly detached nephew of Aunt Milla—the main character whose hysteria is the...