May Day

Today is a holiday in Germany. Everything is closed - schools, shops, and the eyelids of the Germans living in Hannover. It's pretty quiet out there this morning. Brian and I took advantage of it and had a great bike ride with no traffic. May 1st is German Labor Day. I checked the internet, font of all cultural knowledge, to find out more about it.

The May 1st celebration was actually inspired by a workers' strike in Chicago in 1886. Socialist parties in Europe wanted to show their solidarity with the Chicago laborers and declared May 1st to be a workers' holiday, starting in 1890. May 1st is not just a German holiday; it's celebrated in many countries. But there's more to the history here:

"In Germany, May Day (erster Mai, May 1st) is a national holiday and an important day, partly because of Blutmai ("bloody May") in 1929. That year in Berlin the ruling Social Democratic (SPD) party had banned the traditional workers' demonstrations. But the KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands) called for demonstrations anyway. The resulting bloodbath left 32 people dead and at least 80 seriously injured. It also left a big split between the two workers' parties (KPD and SPD), which the Nazis soon used to their advantage. The National Socialists named the holiday Tag der Arbeit ("Day of Labor"), the name still used in Germany today."

I got this from about.com, which is a slightly more reputable source than Wikipedia. I hope that my librarian family members don't disapprove of my researching skills. I can include a reference list if it would help.

Another May 1st tradition is the May pole. A tall pole with a tree on top of it goes up in the village center, bands play, people dance around the pole, and then they eat sausages and drink beer (it's Germany - don't they eat sausages and drink beer every day?). That doesn't happen here - they only have May poles in Bavaria and other parts of Germany that are fun. The northerners don't like to party too much unless there's a soccer game.

May day is just the first holiday in May. On the 17th we have Christi Himmelfahrt. In English you'd call it the Ascension of Christ. Brian decided that it in German it sounds like the name of a girl that all the boys used to whisper about in high school. I just think it sounds funny.

Then there is Pfingsten, which is Pentecost, on May 27th and that Monday (Pfingsmontag) is a holiday too. In our household it is known as Boss Monday, since we are going to see Bruce Springsteen in Cologne on the 27th.

So happy May 1st to all of you. Show your solidarity today with the workers in socialist countries by eating sausages, drinking beer, and dancing around a pole. Don't confuse it with pole dancing - that's something that Christi Himmelfahrt would do.