Mainz Carneval Club

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The Mainz Carneval Club 1899 eV ( MCC ) is one of the two large Mainz carnival clubs that are not gardens .

prehistory

The modern Mainz Carnival came into being in 1838 with the establishment of the Mainz Carneval Association (MCV) and the Mainz Ranzengarde . These two groups were the only carriers of the Mainz Carnival and organizers of the Rose Monday procession until the 1850s. Only from 1856 onwards (beginning with the Mainz Kleppergarde ) did other carnival clubs emerge , and towards the end of the 19th century both organized and unorganized associations flourished.

One of the most important unorganized associations of the 1880s and 1890s was the Birnbaum Club , which met for meetings in the "Brauhaus zum Birnbaum" in Mainz's Birnbaumsgasse. One focus was the hand-made speeches on current topics, and the club already stood out as a “speaker's school” back then. The events were inexpensive, there was no entry fee (instead the host paid for the events to take place in his hall).

Since the "Birnbaum" with 250 seats was too small, they moved to the "Schöfferhof" in Schusterstrasse and on December 5, 1898, they joined forces with the local association of "Humoristische Derke" (Humorous Turks) for the Mainz Carnival -Klub (the spelling with "K" only appeared in the early days and was later frowned upon).

The old MCC

The club was immensely successful with its meetings, and the meetings soon took place in the town hall. The profile as a talent factory was promoted, and the demands were high. An active person had to present several different lectures each season. Of course, events of the day such as Hauptmann von Köpenick in 1907 or Halley's Comet in 1910 were taken up, the latter in the form of a foolish doomsday event (“Food and drinks are asked to be paid before the disaster occurs”).

The MCC set great store by low admission prices (in particular, they wanted to stay below the more upper-class MCV), and beer rather than wine was drunk in the meetings. This led to the labels of the “red club” and the “black club”. There were rivalries with the MCV that were partly joking and partly more serious; on the one hand MCC speakers appeared at the MCV, on the other hand they were also poached by the MCV.

After the First World War, Mainz was under French occupation (until 1930). Mardi Gras was not allowed again until 1925, and it lived primarily from criticism of the occupying power in Mainz. At that time, however, the MCC suffered from the aging of its members and, above all, from the rising prices. When entertainment taxes were then charged, the MCC decided not to hold an event in the 1928 campaign.

The UKRA

At that time, a sociable association had formed among the employees of the municipal converter and power station , which, under the leadership of Jakob Wucher , organized successful meetings under the name “UKRA” in the “Brauhaus zur Sonne”. When the UKRA held a general assembly in 1929 in the Schöfferhof, the seat of the (not yet formally dissolved) MCC, it came into the focus of the old MCC functionaries. Martin Mundo , the MCC President, suggested to Jakob Wucher to take over the inheritance under the name “Mainz Carneval Club UKRA”, which also took place in 1933.

During the National Socialist dictatorship

In 1934 the club was instructed by the authorities to remove the "UKRA" from its name. The MCC became more successful from year to year, and in 1938, when an MCC meeting was broadcast across Germany on the radio (and the broadcast time was spontaneously extended from one hour to four hours until the meeting ended at midnight), the Mainz Carnival was supraregional successfully. Incidentally, 1938 was also the year of the 100th anniversary of the MCV and the introduction of the “Helau” from Düsseldorf.

The speeches were partly in line with the system, partly with slightly hidden allusions. However, even “daring” speeches like Martin Mundo's well-known “Herring Lecture” met with approval from the Nazis in the audience, who reinterpreted the allusions with regard to intra-party rivalries. Even with Wucher's successful refusal to submit the lecture manuscripts to the censorship, it was about protection against theft of ideas by the MCV.

When the carnival was canceled during the war, private events were held by the members of the association, which the usury, who was unfit for military service due to a walking disability, organized. In Nieder- Saulheim , Wucher was able to outsource club materials so that a new start was possible relatively quickly after the war.

The time after the Second World War

In 1946 Jakob Wucher helped organize the Mainz wine market . In 1947 the first sessions began in the “Brauhaus zum Rad”. In 1948 the 50th birthday of the MCC was celebrated. The role of the committee was taken over by 11 well-known Mainz originals for half a session . Until 1951, usury was not allowed to come to the fore in the MCC - this was forbidden from 1939 by the French occupying power because of his party membership.

In 1954 the Südwestfunk offered the MCC the television broadcast of a meeting, which then took place on the initiative of Wucher together with the MCV as " Mainz as it sings and laughs " as the first television meeting.

Wucher was succeeded as president in 1969 by Bernd Mühl, today he is headed by Horst Seitz. To this day, the club and the MCV have played a leading role in the Mainz Carnival.

literature

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