Fastnacht, not fast nackt.

So its been a little while and there are two reasons for this:

1. I've actually been doing academic work.
2. Its been Fastnacht (otherwise known as Fasching or Karnival depending on where you are) and I've been waiting for all the crazy to be over before attempting to explain it.  

Today, being Ash Wednesday, marks a complete close to Fastnacht, so reason 2 no longer stands and I feel I need to avoid a beak from reason 1, so I'll take a stab at an account of the last week.

 

So, how to explain a fairly unique festival with layers of meaning?  Well bullet points of course!

-N.b  It will very soon become apparent that the question words are in an odd order - bear with it as it might just help with the hardest question, which I've left until last.-

When?

• From the Thursday before the beginning of Lent (broadly - although there was a parade on the Wednesday night beforehand), known as Schmotziger Dunstig, although this like everything else varies by region  until Shrove Tuesday (aka Pancake day, just not here).  In this case Schmotzig does not mean 'dirty' but 'fat' coming from an older low german word.

Where?

• Predominantly (but not exclusively) the Catholic areas of continental Europe (sorry Daily Mail) and those places to which their culture has been exported (especially Brazil).
• This particular variation, known as "Swabian-Alemannic" is broadly local to Swabia, Baden, Switzerland, Alsace and western Austria with lots of yellow and red Badish flags visible in Konstanz.  
• Specifically in Konstanz, the middle of the Altstadt, although groups are fond or roaming the streets in the wider city.  

Why?

• To scare off winter/ welcome spring.
• To blow off steam before the beginning of Lent and the sombre seriousness that entails.

Who?

•  For the parades and other organised set pieces, Narrengesellschafts (roughly, fool's guilds) from various parts of the city are the centre piece, each with a costume particular to it, some examples of which can be seen below.
• Hemdglonkern: School children have a parade on the evening of Schmotziger Dunstig in old fashioned night shirts and night caps.
• Other groups (like the volunteer Fire Brigade) who choose to dress up in a co-ordinated theme (like firemen with blue flashing lights on their heads).
• EVERYONE - In order to stand out as an outsider, simply do nothing and don't dress up.  Every other person between the ages of 6 months and 90odd will be wearing some form of fancy dress, from recycled Halloween zombies and such to painstakingly prepared copies of the Imperia statue.  Its hard to overstate the scale - the whole town goes the whole hog, with no-one batting an eyelid at seeing a group of a dozen hairy trolls on the bus.

  Now for the biggie:

What!?

When all is said and done Fastnacht is a celebration that bears a very strong resemblance to the lunatics taking over the asylum.  The usual orders and hierarchies of the town and society are turned upside down with oddly dressed people an entirely normal sight on the streets, as is seeing a brass band march past in the middle of a Monday. 

The greeting for all of Fastnacht either to or from those who are dressed up is Ho Narro!.  These greetings are one of the most locally specific part of the many Fastnacht traditions, with even the other towns on the Bodensee having entirely different shouts.

Schmotziger Dunstig is the biggest, baddest and craziest day of Fastnacht. It begins at around 6am with groups of people dressed in pyjamas, nightshirts and the like going through the streets waking people up by banging posts and pans and shouting. Soon after arriving Children are 'freed' from schools and the keys to the city are 'freed' from the town hall.  Even the university is freed by its senior management, who were (I am reliably informed) suitably ridiculously dressed.  

With that everyone takes to the streets and a fair amount of chaos ensues.  If you're 16 then you gather on Markstätte, drink 5 very small bottles of schnapps and have a very loud, fun time.  Otherwise a few beers (outside of the Glasverbot zone) will do.

During the day the Narrengesellschaften roam the streets at will, their marching brass bands playing and basically doing as they please.  Ordinary folk dress up and wander around town enjoying the carnage.  Foreign students wander around town being bemused and wonder and photograph the carnage.  
The costumes themselves vary greatly. The Narrengesellschaften each have their own costume, some change them every few years, others are traditional with deep roots in local culture. A common theme is scraps of coloured material being layered to make up the costume. Witches, trolls, wolves and daemons are also popular as part of the scaring away of winter. There are also grape people from wine growing areas, French revolutionaries and, for a reason that I've yet to discover, some jolly Giraffes. Amongst the native (and not so native) population the costumes vary widely but it is safe to say that more is definitely more.

Later in the day the drinking continues and the party that used to be a respectable town gets into full swing.  The bars fill up and things get odder; the Hemdglonkern parade and the bands continue to play into the night. 

The following Friday and Saturday are generally quieter, with only low levels of parting, trollism and dressing up strangely and the occasional cracking of whips (which sound like gunfire and need people clearing from streets to avoid doing serious damage).

The next large event is on Sunday, when the whole town is once again closed (more than is usual for a Sunday, which is hard) and all 70+ of the Narrengesellschaften parade through the town, intimidating, entertaining and spreading fun (and large amounts of strange). This went on for a long, long time (or until we decided that feeling our legs again would be a good idea so walked down to the beginning of the parade to speed the process up a bit. This was the day I managed to take 1000 photos (I predict that about 60% will be deleted and only about 25% of what remains will get 'published') because there was so much going on, between the individuals in the parade, the floats, the crowd (once again dressed up as mentally as possible) and the interactions between them all (these 'interactions' being the reason Germans are fearless – if any other 4 year old saw a person in a witch mask crawling towards them, they would scream, cry and run. German children on the other hand just look puzzled and expect sweets). The phrase 'Carnival atmosphere' rings truer than ever. It being a Sunday there was not huge scope for major celebrations afterwards but I'm sure plenty happened nonetheless. 
 

The following day was Rosenmontag, a quasi bank holiday on which lots of shops were closed and the odd marching band could be seen on the streets and the feeling that Fastnacht was winding down (quite possibly due to the stinking hangover that had been accumulated). 
 

Shrove Tuesday, or Fastnachtsdienstag as it is here brings Fastnacht to a close with the Verbrennung or burnings. The Narrengesellschaften each burn some form of effigy – often a witch or even a wood and wicker depiction of their own costume (to clarify the witch is also wood and wicker, you've not missed anything). This is accompanied by traditional dances and music but is over comparatively quickly by comparison with the rest of the festivities. Prior to the burning the figure speeches are made to give the figure a truly momentous send-off.

All in all Fastnacht showed me an entirely different side to this town, area and county; a side which I like a lot. At present it is firmly in top spot for thing of my year abroad and it will take something quite spectacular to dislodge it. I can heartily recommend that anyone with a bit of time to travel in the week before Ash Wednesday take themselves to southern Germany and experience it for themselves, as no explanation that I can offer, long as it may be (~1400 words – if only I could deal with academic writing this well), can ever do it justice.

So for one last time its a hearty Ho Narro! from me.