This Monday, October 3 is a public holiday throughout Germany, it is the day of German unity… in other words, it is the national holiday.
In Germany, the national holiday takes place every October 3 since 1990, it is young, very young in the sense of history.
If you go to our neighbors today and hope to see the same thing as July 14th in France, you will be disappointed… because it has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Difficult to make large gatherings of national pride
You won’t see many black, red or yellow flags at the windows and of course, it is absolutely inconceivable to have torchlight processions that would be too reminiscent of large Nazi gatherings and no patriotic songs or fireworks.
If in France, July 14 is celebrated in every large or small town, in Germany, it is the opposite, the streets are often deserted.
there are only two cities participating in the party
Traditionally, there are only two cities that really celebrate the country’s national day each year: Berlin, which is the federal capital, and the capital of the state that presides over the Bundesrat.
The Bundesrat is, to put it very simply, the equivalent of the senate in France, it is the institution that represents the German regions (known as Lander) to the federal government.
Each year, a different region takes the presidency and in 2022, it is the state of Thuringia which is in the very center of the country.
So on October 3, 2022, the two cities that will organize small parties, concerts and commemorations for the national holiday are Berlin and Erfurt, capital of Thuringia… elsewhere, there won’t be much.
Saarbrücken organized the parties in 2009 and since then nothing.
October 3 in Germany does not celebrate German pride but just a precise historical fact: German reunification.
Not the right date…
October 9, which is presented as the day of German reunification, does not represent much for them, the real date that the Germans would like to commemorate is November 9, the day the Berlin Wall fell.
Except that it is impossible to use November 9 because it is also the date of Kristallnacht in 1938, the night during which 30,000 Jews were deported by the Nazis.
Today, for Germans, National Day is just a public holiday, the only day decided at the federal level and not at the regional level.
At least that’s it… but seen from France, Luxembourg or Belgium, the German national holiday seems terribly sad.