In the streets and alleyways of the Rhenish carnival strongholds of Cologne, Mainz and Düsseldorf, there is again a lot of hustle and bustle. The mild temperatures of up to twelve degrees help the street carnival. “The weather is right, the mood is right, people want to experience something together again that we haven’t been able to do for two years – and there’s a lot of catching up to do,” said Christoph Kuckelkorn, President of the Festival Committee of the Cologne Carnival of 1823 Thursday of the German Press Agency.
During the corona pandemic, the famous Rose Monday procession in Cologne was canceled twice in a row. Alternatively, there was a puppet parade in 2021 and a peace demonstration against Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine in 2022, which brought 250,000 people to the streets of Cologne and became the largest peace demonstration in the city’s history. Nevertheless: the street carnival and the “Zoch” were canceled twice in a row – for Rhenish cheerful people, that’s a long dry spell.
The women’s carnival on February 16 marked the beginning of the street carnival
Growing crowds of visitors in the university district
But there is no sign of the feared distance learned in the run-up to the pandemic in the filled pubs. The beginning of the session on 11.11 already offered a foretaste. And during the carnival week, there will be swaying, “jebütz” (kissing) and singing like before the pandemic. “When you swim again in the big soup of the surrounding people and experience something together, that makes you so strong, that’s a social kick,” says Kuckelkorn. A side effect of this has been the increasing crowds in recent years – and not everyone is happy about them.
The popular Zülpicher Straße in Cologne at the start of the carnival in November (11.11.)
On Zülpicher Strasse, the epicenter of Cologne’s street carnival, there have been closures for several years due to the ever-growing influx of party tourists. You can only get into the cordoned-off area with a ribbon, and part of the nearby university meadow is also completely fenced. Here in the student district, the Cologne street carnival has more of the feel of a rave, and the so-called “bar hopping” that characterizes the street carnival in Cologne is no longer possible here. Some traditional pubs pulled out of the mass rush on 11.11. the consequences and will remain closed this year. In the meantime, a round table in Cologne, consisting of representatives of the Cologne authorities, the festival committee and various groups and clubs, is fighting to develop new concepts that, instead of fences, bans and folders, focus on sustainability, equalization and new venues.
200 years of Rose Monday procession
One concept has worked for a very long time and represents the highlight of the street carnival: the Shrove Monday parades. The biggest and best-known of them is the Rose Monday procession in Cologne. It celebrates its 200th anniversary this year. The parade, consisting of floats, parody floats and a total of around 12,000 participants in foot groups, dance groups and bands, came about in 1823 on the initiative of some members of Cologne’s upper class. Their goal was to domesticate the raw carnival bustle so that the orderly Prussian occupiers, who were skeptical about carnival, would not ban it.
200-year success story: the Shrove Monday procession in Cologne
The very first train in 1823 was a great success, and it didn’t take long for other cities to copy the Cologne model. In order to celebrate the anniversary year properly, the Cologne Rose Monday procession connects the right and left banks of the Rhine for the first time in its history, in line with this year’s motto “200 years of Cologne Carnival: Ov krüzz oder quer” (whether criss-cross or cross).
“Crisscross” – for the first time the “Zoch” crosses the Rhine
The pastiche wagons cover regional, national and international topics: the Russian war of aggression, Trump’s comeback, the women’s revolution in Iran, the shift to the right in Italy or Zülpicher Strasse as a carnival trouble spot. Each float picks up a motto from an earlier carnival session and transports it into the present day.
Kiss with the devil: In Cologne, too, the Rose Monday procession was more political than ever
Under the motto “Schalömche un Alaaf – 1700 years firmly rooted in Cologne”, representatives of the Jewish community in Cologne as well as Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador to Germany and Abraham Lehrer, head of the synagogue community in Cologne and vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, are driving for the first time , with your own car on the train. They are accompanied by a foot group from the “Kölsche Kippa Köpp” carnival club. This was founded in 2017 to continue the tradition of the former Jewish carnival club “Kleiner Kölner Klub”, which came to an end with the beginning of the persecution of Jews by the National Socialists. Now her car is a reminder of the long history of the Jews in Germany, who also played an active role in shaping the carnival in Cologne.
Biting satire in Düsseldorf, visitor record in Mainz
The Düsseldorf Rose Monday parade is considered the most political. The legendary Düsseldorf artist and wagon builder Jacques Tilly designed twelve motif wagons. One of them shows Vladimir Putin bathing in blood in a bathtub painted in the national colors of Ukraine, others take aim at the consequences of Brexit or the poor state of the German armed forces.
Putin bathes in Ukrainian blood: a car by Jacques Tilly in Düsseldorf
The climate protests and the women’s revolution in Iran were also discussed on the trains, as was the gas supply contract with Qatar – with a toad-swallowing Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens). With his eyes narrowed, he swallows a mountain of toads with inscriptions such as “Gas from dictatorships”, “Nuclear power” and “Armament”. According to the Düsseldorf Carneval Committee, around 10,600 people on 122 floats and in 103 foot groups take part in the Düsseldorf Rose Monday procession.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck also gets his fat off at Jacques Tilly
In Mainz, the train started punctually at 11.11 a.m., under the motto “In Mainz, Fastnacht stands for peace, freedom, tolerance!”. 9,200 activists marched through the streets over a distance of seven kilometers, including guardsmen, musicians, flag bearers and the famous swell heads. Thousands of spectators stood at the side of the road and shouted “Helau”. The Mainz Carneval Association (MCV) spoke of record visitor numbers in the early afternoon. Around 555,000 people are said to have lined the route in Mainz.
Tradition in Mainz: the “Schwellköpp”
Important source of income
Not only the revelers, but also restaurateurs, hoteliers and retailers are happy about the carnival comeback. Over the entire season, i.e. from November 11th, 2022 to next Ash Wednesday, they are expecting sales of at least 1.65 billion euros, as the employer-related Institute of German Economics (IW Köln) announced last Thursday. At best, up to 2.75 billion euros could even come together. The largest item is 796 million euros in the catering trade, followed by retail, transport and hotels.
In Mainz, Donald Trump rises from the grave as a zombie for re-election
After the Corona break, more and more carnival and entertainment items, from cardboard noses to streamers, are being imported to Germany again – even 12.5 percent more than before the pandemic in 2019. “The most important country of origin of carnival items for the German market was the People’s Republic of China.” , emphasized the statisticians. Three quarters of the articles imported last year for the so-called fifth season came from there. Not only companies and retailers, but also social projects benefit from the carnival: in Cologne alone, the collections of donations and benefit events of the carnival clubs raise two to three million euros for social institutions every year.
