May Days
The month of May is full of holidays all across the country - as usual Berlin does its own thing.

Last Wednesday was May 1 (May Day), an ancient European holiday that marks the first official day of spring. In some regions of Germany, particularly in smaller towns, people will decorate the Maibaum (May tree) with flowers and streamers. People from nearby villages may try to sneak over on the night of April 30 and steal the Maibaum and hold it for ransom! So collectively guarding the Maibaum (or stealing one) is the source of a lot of revelry the night before.
Some regions celebrate Walpurgisnacht and dress up as witches or burn witch figurines. And - tree or not - a lot of people believe in ‘dancing May in’ by partying the night of the 30th into the first.
But May 1 is also International Workers’ Day (German: Tag der Arbeit), a holiday that honors the contributions of laborers and the working classes and the social progress achieved by the organized labor movement. So there are also a lot of demonstrations in support of social justice or workers’ rights all over the country.
Saxony burns (fake) witches, Berlin torches cars
In Berlin - a city that has never needed a particular excuse for a party or a revolution - the 1st of May can get pretty crazy.
There are organized dance parties for the holiday and lots of street festivals.
In Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, you can expect left-wing political demonstrations that can include fights and burning of cars and other property. The most well-known of these were probably the ones that occurred on May 1, 1987, in what became known as the Kreuzberg Kiezaufstand (Neighborhood Uprising).

On that day, police attacked demonstrators on Lausitzer Platz with water cannons and tear gas. The residents of the neighborhood fought back hard enough that the police had to withdraw.
As historian Nathaniel Flakin writes in The Berliner:
“And as the police withdrew, autonomists began breaking windows and plundering the surrounding shops. Again, nothing unusual for Kreuzberg. But this time, it wasn’t just the usual suspects: More and more working-class families used the opportunity for “proletarian shopping.”
By 10 p.m., the police were forced to retreat from the entire kiez – as telephone poles were knocked over and the neighbourhood became pitch black, the “autonomous republic of Kreuzberg” was proclaimed. Cars were flipped over and lit ablaze to create barricades. The police only reentered around 2 a.m. It wasn’t so much the cops that won the day – by the early hours of the morning, all the alcohol requisitioned from shops had made it impossible to hold the barricades.”
In recent years, the demos have been much calmer. In fact, when my husband arrived in Berlin exactly on May 1, 2022, his colleagues said he shouldn’t worry about traveling around the city at all - unless he planned to leave a car on the street.
More police
This year, it seems the state government decided to put more police on the streets in anticipation of potential unrest at the demonstrations against the war in Gaza.
A few days before, they cleared a camp that had been established near the Parliament building after protesters there were said to have used anti-Semitic slurs and banned phrases.
We didn’t go near the demonstrations, but we noticed more police vans around Treptower Park and the Soviet War Memorial there. We did see several cops go over and ask a guy playing his stereo to lower the volume, but that was the extent of any disturbance there.
All in all, it was a rather quiet May 1 for Berlin, according to the Tagesspiegel.
“A total of around 30,000 people took part in the three largest protest events. More than 14,000 people took part in the demonstration by the German Trade Union Confederation in the morning alone. Around 4,000 people joined the satirical demo “My Gruni” in Grunewald.
In the evening the focus was on the Revolutionary May 1st demonstration in Kreuzberg and Neukölln. Before the demonstration began, the police had already discovered several suspected stone deposits. However, the demo with around 12,000 people ended “without any major incidents”.
Other news reports indicated about 30 people were arrested for disturbing the police, one police officer was bitten, and several Amazon delivery vans were set on fire in Wittenau.

Victory Day - May 8
Although it’s not a public holiday, there will be ceremonies at the Soviet memorials in Treptower, Tiergarten and Schönholzer Heide, commemorating the surrender of the National Socialists to the Allied Powers at the end of World War II.
A bill recently introduced in the Berlin Senate would make next May 8, 2025, a one-time public holiday in honor of the 80th anniversary of Victory Day.
Such celebrations have been controversial in recent years, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and in light of the repression of the Stalin regime in Soviet territory after the war.
Next up: Vatertag and a four-day weekend
This Thursday is another national holiday - officially Christ’s Ascension (Christi Himmelfahrt) - but commonly known here as Vatertag or Männertag, a day for fathers - sometimes all men - to go out drinking.
The rationale being that it is in remembrance of Christ going to be with the Heavenly Father, and it honors God, the father, or something.
As my sister-in-law explains it: “Here they take Jesus ascending to heaven as a sign for fathers to go roaming around drinking in public with their buddies, like Kohlfahrt* Part II, when men mark Father’s Day by leaving the family at home and forgetting they are fathers.”
Friday is not an official holiday but a “bridge holiday” that connects Wednesday to the weekend. I love the concept of bridge days (they’re literally on my son’s school calendar as ‘Brückentag’) because it’s just straight up, “Yeah, we’re not going back to the office for one day.” But the stores are still open because it’s not an official holiday and, therefore, legal for them to be open, if they want to.

Whit Monday - May 20
Closing out the month, the Monday after Pentecost (Whitsunday) is also a public holiday.
There are many street festivals, music events, and Berlin’s four-day Karneval der Kulturen, which features people from all over the world presenting music, art, food and dance from their home countries.
According to the state government’s website:
“Over 5,000 actors from almost all parts of the world usually take part. From Brazilian samba to Chinese lion dance, from West African drums to Bernese carnival brass, the carnival groups impressively prove that Berlin's treasure is diversity and internationality. In addition to the four-day street festival, the parade is the highlight of the carnival.”
Many of Berlin’s churches will also be open for the “long night” between May 19 and May 20 and hosting their own events. (More events and information at Berlin.de.)
*As far as I can tell, the Kohlfahrt (“cabbage tour”) is more of a Bremen and immediate surrounding area thing.
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More about May
Planning a visit to Berlin in May? Check out these links for more events and things to do.
The Local: Germany’s most bizarre May 1 traditions
The Berliner: May Day in Berlin - Six highlights from 134 years of workers’ history
visitBerlin.de: Whitsun in Berlin
A bit of light housekeeping
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