German Carnival season begins, with police enforcing knife ban

Germany’s Carnival season gets under way on Monday, with tens of thousands of revellers expected once again in the western city of Cologne, one of the main locations for Carnival fun.

The season kicks off annually in Germany on the 11th day of the 11th month – November 11 – at 11:11 am and ends on Ash Wednesday. It has an ancient tradition and marks the build-up to the main celebrations ahead of the Christian fasting season of Lent that leads up to Easter.

Crowds are especially anticipated in Cologne’s Old City on Monday and the student district.

The police are deploying more officers than last year, with 1,400 officers, both male and female, primarily tasked with enforcing a widespread knife ban. Knife bans have been introduced for public events in Germany in response to suspected Islamist attacks earlier this year.

In Mainz, another carnival hotspot in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the festive season is also being marked at 11:11 am. Around 9,000 people are expected at the city’s central square, the Schillerplatz.

The event begins at 11 am with a warm-up session, and at 11:11 am, the tune dubbed “Narrhallamarsch” – a portmanteau of the words for jester, Valhalla and march – is expected to resound, heralding the Carnival season with a thrice thunderous “Hellau.”

The official start of the new carnival season is also being celebrated in other federal states.

Celebrations are set to be lively in the southern city of Würzburg, in Bavaria’s Lower Franconia region, where the 1st Carnival Society Würzburg Council of 11 proclaims its new princely couple.