Holidays in the GDR

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The holidays in the German Democratic Republic have been celebrated uniformly throughout the national territory since 1967.

GDR - sign around 1960 - "Long live May 1st, the day of struggle of the internal working class!"

By 1966, there were 14 public holidays in almost all areas of the country. In connection with the introduction of the “five-day week”, five public holidays were deleted in 1966/67, so that - with two exceptions in 1975 and 1985 - there were nine annual public holidays in the entire country until the fall of the Wall. With the abolition of Reformation Day, which was not celebrated in all parts of the country, a distinction was no longer made, as is the case today in Germany, between national holidays ( e.g. Ascension Day , Day of German Unity ) and regionally limited ( e.g. Corpus Christi , Penance and Prayer Day ) holidays.

Legal holidays

Overview

Statutory, non-working holidays in the GDR were:

holiday date comment
New Year January 1st
Good Friday 2 days before Easter Sunday
Easter Sunday see Easter date
Easter Monday 1 day after Easter Sunday until 1967 and 1990
International struggle and holiday of the working people for peace and socialism 1st of May
Liberation Day 8th of May until 1967 and 1985
day of the victory May 9 only 1975
Ascension of Christ 39 days after Easter Sunday until 1967 and 1990
Pentecost Sunday 49 days after Easter Sunday
Whit Monday 50 days after Easter Sunday
day of the Republic October 7th
Reformation day October 31 until 1966 (not in the districts of Halle and Magdeburg or in Berlin (East) )
Day of Prayer and Repentance Wednesday before November 23rd until 1966
1st Christmas Day 25 December
2nd Christmas Day December 26th

development

On the basis of the provisions of the Seventh Party Congress of the SED (April 17-22, 1967), five public holidays were deleted in connection with the introduction of the “five-day week”.

Since the ordinance came into force on August 28, 1967, 1967 Reformation Day and Day of Repentance and Prayer were no longer public holidays. The ordinance also stipulated that the working hours on Good Friday and Whit Monday had to be made up on the Saturday after Easter or Whitsun. This regulation was lifted a few years later. The free afternoons on December 24th ( Christmas Eve ) and December 31st ( New Year's Eve ) had to be worked on on a Saturday at the beginning of December or offset by a day off.

After the political change in the GDR in 1989, the canceled public holidays (except for the day of liberation) were reintroduced shortly before Easter 1990; Easter Monday and Ascension Day were legally non-working holidays in the last few months of the GDR . The Reformation Day , which was also reintroduced, remained GDR law and thus a public holiday in the states of Brandenburg , Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Saxony , Saxony-Anhalt and in accordance with Annex II, Chapter VIII, Section C - Social Work Safety, Section III, Item 3 until the state regulations come into force Thuringia .

Honor and memorial days

World Shipping Day
stamp of the German Post of the GDR, 1979

literature

  • Hubert Schiepek: Sunday and ecclesiastically prescribed holidays according to ecclesiastical and secular law: a legal historical investigation. 2003, p. 465

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.mdr.de/zeitreise/ffekten-reformationstag-100.html
  2. ↑ Ordinance on the continuous 5-day working week and the shortening of the weekly working hours with simultaneous reorganization of the working hours in a few weeks with public holidays. From May 3, 1967 , Journal II No. 38 of May 9, 1967, p. 237, repealed by notice of May 31, 1979, Journal II No. 19 of July 11, 1979, p. 164, as the most important Regulations became the subject of the Labor Code of the GDR ; “Anyone who wants to attend religious events on the church holidays can use unpaid free time .” GDR / five-day week. Never on Saturdays. Der Spiegel 36/1967 of August 28, 1967, accessed July 9, 2015.
  3. ^ Ordinance on the extension of statutory holidays , Journal of the GDR I (No. 18) p. 161, of March 8, 1990.
  4. ^ Ordinance on the introduction of public holidays , Journal of the GDR I (No. 27) p. 248, of May 16, 1990.