Germans celebrate start of carnival season
November 11, 2018
Citizens of Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldorf and other cities on the Rhine crowded on to the streets to celebrate the carnival season as it kicked off on Sunday.
As per tradition, the festivities started on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at 11:11 in the morning, with city officials and costume-wearing locals singing and dancing at the start of the run-up to the large carnival procession next March.
In Cologne, Mayor Henriette Reker welcomed this year's "trio of fools" – composed of a "prince," a "peasant" and a "maid" who is a man in drag – as they signed a prank contract with the celebration committee. The mayor then took the stage downtown to mark the start of the of the carnival season with the revelers.
On this day, residents greet each other with "Kölle Alaaf," meaning "Here's to Cologne" in local German dialect.
Jester speaks from mustard jar
This greeting, however, does not play well during the celebrations in nearby Dusseldorf, with citizens of the two German cities linked by a long-running rivalry. Residents of Dusseldorf have their own slant on carnival traditions, dedicated to the jester Hoppeditz. On Sunday, the Hoppeditz was "resurrected" after being burned for the culmination of the last carnival. With the crowds cheering "Der Hoppeditz erwacht," (Hoppeditz awakes), the character emerged from a large mustard jar at 11:11 to deliver a biting speech on life in the city.
Revelers in Mainz cheered "Helau" (loosely translated as "Hooray") as jesters read out the 11 articles of the Jester Charter and performed on stage. According to Article 6, both "native and adopted citizens of Mainz should wear costumes and be silly during the silly season."
First comes silliness, then comes Lent
The Sunday festivities mark only the beginning of carnival season, which locals also dub "the fifth season of the year" in addition to spring, summer, fall, and winter. In the coming months, residents of Germany's Rhineland region will hold wheelbarrow races, organize cabaret performances, concerts, parades and even poetry readings, until the celebrations culminate just before next year's Ash Wednesday on March 6, 2019.
Read more: 11 crazy Carnival events held between November 11 and Lent
On the last Thursday before Ash Wednesday, women go out to cut off the ties of the men of their choice and then give them a kiss. On Rosenmontag, or Rose Monday, locals set up parades featuring large floats to mock political leaders, and the night before Ash Wednesday is marked with the burning of strawmen.
More toilets, less rowdy celebrations
Cologne is especially popular with tourists looking to experience various carnival traditions. Last year, however, revelers complained of people consuming too much alcohol and urinating in public. Ahead of this year's carnival kick-off Mayor Reker decried the events as "unacceptable," saying that the carnival was part of the city's culture.
"What we had to go through last year did not have anything to do with culture anymore," she said, according to the dpa news agency.
Read more: Enjoy Carnival in Cologne: 11 tips from a native
This year, the city authorities took a series of steps to remedy the problem, including more public toilets, more stages outside the crowded city center, and a special line of communication between pub and restaurant owners and the local officials in charge of organizing the carnival.
dj/jm (dpa, AFP)