Political Ash Wednesday
The Political Ash Wednesday is the traditionally on Ash Wednesday held local or regional assemblies of the most major German parties , where there are often a rough rhetorical slugfest. In Austria, an event has been held by the FPÖ in Ried im Innkreis since 1992 . Such a political meeting is not held in Switzerland.
character
According to its origin, the political Ash Wednesday is a Bavarian institution, but it also exists in other German countries and Austria. In the narrower sense, this means the Bavarian state meeting of CSU , SPD , FW , FDP , Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , ÖDP , Die Linke , Bayernpartei , AfD and other parties. According to the prevailing opinion, the aim of the political speeches held in a beer tent atmosphere, which are characterized by colorful choice of words and violent, polemical attacks against the political opponent, is less to present new political concepts or to provide detailed criticism. Rather, such events should serve to close one's own ranks, motivate party supporters and create uncertainty among political opponents.
Political Ash Wednesday in Bavaria
Origins
Political Ash Wednesday has its roots in the 16th century. In 1580, Bavarian farmers met for the first time in Vilshofen on the Danube for the cattle and horse market and not only haggled about prices, but also vigorously discussed the topics of the day, including royal Bavarian politics since the 19th century .
The year 1919, when the Bavarian Farmers' Union first called for a rally, is considered the actual year of birth. From 1919 until the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship, political Ash Wednesday was primarily the forum for various peasant parties. A major event was held again in 1927 by the Bavarian Christian Farmers' Association. In 1932, several parties appeared in various events for the first time. The NSDAP received the greatest number of visitors, just like in 1933. Then political Ash Wednesday was exclusively the forum of the NSDAP, only in 1937 a mass rally took place.
Development since 1946
In 1946, the Bavarian party put the founding event of the local association on Ash Wednesday and thus re-established democratic Ash Wednesday rallies. Until 1952, the Bavarian Party was the only party that held a political Ash Wednesday. Based on this tradition, she did not cancel her event in Vilshofen in 2016 (like the Republicans in Taufkirchen ) despite the railway accident in Bad Aibling the day before.
When the CSU finally held its first political Ash Wednesday in 1953 under the leadership of Franz Josef Strauss , it finally became a nationwide known institution. The annual Ash Wednesday rallies were initially determined by the dispute between the Bavarian party and the CSU. The election losses of the Bavarian party and the success of the CSU had an impact. While the rallies of the Bavarian party became more and more manageable, the CSU events gained in popularity.
After all, in 1975 the Wolferstetterkeller in Vilshofen was no longer suitable to hold the audience, and that year the CSU had to move to Passau in the Nibelungenhalle . The traditional Ash Wednesday meeting of the CSU has been taking place in the Dreiländerhalle in Passau since 2004, with around 6,000 participants annually. The Nibelungenhalle was demolished in the same year. In 2016 the meeting was canceled due to the Bad Aibling train accident on Shrove Tuesday (February 9th).
The meeting of the SPD has been held since 1965 and takes place at the traditional location, in the Wolferstetterkeller in Vilshofen.
The political Ash Wednesday of the FW took place in the Plattlinger Bischofshof until 2008 . The FW have been holding the event in the Deggendorfer Stadthallen since 2009 and have now been established upstream of the Danube. The political Ash Wednesday of the Free Voters is the second largest event with over 800 visitors in the first year, in 2011 there were more than 1500 visitors.
The event of the Bavarian FDP with up to 1000 visitors takes place in the Joseph-von-Fraunhofer-Halle in Straubing .
Until 2009, the political Ash Wednesday of the Greens took place in Biberach an der Riss . Since 2010, the Bavarian Greens have celebrated their annual meeting in the Bernlochner city hall in Landshut .
There are smaller meetings of the left in Passau and the ÖDP in Landshut . The Bavarian Party continues to hold its Ash Wednesday meeting in Vilshofen. The Republicans met in the "Brauhausstuben" in Geisenhausen .
The Pirate Party's “ Pirate Ash Wednesday” took place from 2010 to 2013 in Ingolstadt . In the first two years in a club restaurant with around 150 visitors each, due to increased interest in 2012 for the first time in the considerably larger ballroom of the Ingolstadt city theater . In 2014 and 2015, the party went with the event to Munich and 2017 to Straubing .
The AfD has been meeting since 2013 for political Ash Wednesday in the Donaucenter Schubert in Osterhofen .
Political Ash Wednesday in other German countries
Like other state associations of the SPD and the CDU, the FDP, Free Voters, Greens and the Left are organizing further Ash Wednesday meetings at different locations outside of Bavaria. The most important Ash Wednesday meeting of the Greens takes place in Biberach an der Riss in Baden-Württemberg . The Left has been meeting with Oskar Lafontaine in Wallerfangen in the Saarland since it was founded .
The CDU's largest event in Germany - with more than 3500 visitors in some cases and thus the second largest after Passau - took place in 2008 in Volkmarsen (with Roland Koch and Angela Merkel). Further events will be held in Recke in Westphalia , Fellbach in Baden-Württemberg (with Günther Oettinger ), Demmin in Western Pomerania and Apolda in Thuringia (with Mike Mohring and Bernhard Vogel ). In Marne there is a Political Ash Wednesday of the SPD Schleswig-Holstein . The Freischütz regularly sees the meeting of the SPD NRW .
development
A characteristic of the historical development of the political Ash Wednesday is a gradual “universalization”: It initially broke away from its purely rural tradition and developed into a party-political forum. More and more all German parties took part in the political Ash Wednesday. He also broke away from the close territorial ties. Initially Vilshofen was the usual venue, but the CSU migrated to Passau and, in the long term, triggered a territorial expansion of Ash Wednesday: It penetrated as far as Schleswig-Holstein.
The topics and the audience also exceeded Bavaria's borders. On the one hand, a larger audience is reached on site and, on the other hand, media interest in the various events has grown enormously. This also means that a large “media audience” is reached. This media interest has also created a new function for political Ash Wednesday: Ash Wednesday has developed into an “alternative political forum”. Numerous demonstrations and political stagings accompany the Ash Wednesday rallies of the major parties.
Political Ash Wednesday in Austria
In Austria, a nationwide meeting was organized for the first time in 1992 under federal party leader Jörg Haider at the Freedom Party of Austria in the Jahnturnhalle in Ried im Innkreis . The tradition was continued under Heinz-Christian Strache .
From 1993, the year of Austria's first anti-foreigner plebiscite , until 2003 and again since 2014, the “cultural-political Ash Wednesday” takes place as a counter-event.
literature
- Barbara Wasner: Political Ash Wednesday since 1919 . Wissenschaftsverlag Rothe, Passau 1999. ISBN 3-927575-79-8
Web links
- The history of political Ash Wednesday
- Ulrich Hottelet: Political Ash Wednesday: the holiday of the angry citizen , article in Cicero Online from March 9, 2011
- Barbara Wasner: Political Ash Wednesday In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria (June 10, 2013)
Individual evidence
- ^ Political Ash Wednesday of the CSU (Passau). Accessed March 7, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Andreas Reichelt: Political Ash Wednesday of the CSU 2019. In: Tele Regional Passau 1 (TRP1). Accessed March 7, 2019 (German).
- ^ Spiegel Online, February 6, 2008
- ↑ CSU says political Ash Wednesday from Bayernkurier online, February 9, 2016
- ↑ Andreas Reichelt: Political Ash Wednesday of the Greens 2019. In: Tele Regional Passau 1 (TRP1). Accessed March 7, 2019 (German).
- ↑ CDU Ash Wednesday - Merkel strengthens Koch , In: hr-online.de , online version of January 18, 2008 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Jan-Herm Janßen: Stoiber at Ash Wednesday - CDU draws a positive balance . In: Ibbenbürener Volkszeitung , online version of February 26, 2009 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sabine Plake and Jan-Herm Janßen: Edmund Stoiber becomes the workhorse in the far north . In: Ibbenbürener Volkszeitung , online version of February 25, 2009 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ CDU in Fellbach
- ↑ CDU in Demmin ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Political Ash Wednesday of the Western Westphalia region on nrwspd.de, accessed on June 25, 2020
- ^ Passauer Neue Presse: Political Ash Wednesday: From the cattle market to the political spectacle. Retrieved March 7, 2019 .
- ^ Political Aschermittoch of the CSU (Passau). Accessed March 7, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Andreas Reichelt: Political Ash Wednesday of the CSU 2019. In: Tele Regional Passau 1 (TRP1). Accessed March 7, 2019 (German).
- ↑ idowa, Straubing Germany: Political Ash Wednesday: Söder and Kramp-Karrenbauer hand out - idowa. Retrieved March 7, 2019 .
- ^ Passauer Neue Presse: Pictures / Videos and Voices: That was the Political Ash Wednesday. Retrieved March 7, 2019 .
- ^ APA: February 18: FPÖ invites you to "Political Ash Wednesday". In: DiePresse.com. January 19, 2015, accessed March 19, 2015 .
- ↑ David Albrich: Long live the cultural-political Ash Wednesday in Ried. In: left turn. February 23, 2015, accessed March 19, 2015 .
