City Hall Tower

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Storm on the town hall on the Schmotzigen Thursday in Freiburg im Breisgau with handover of the keys

The town hall tower is the symbolic occupation of the local town hall by the fools that takes place every year at the beginning of the carnival , which is a custom in the former Prussian Rhineland, but also elsewhere in Germany. The mayor is “forced” to hand over the key to the town hall to the fools and thus to override the usual order during the “fifth season”.

In the course of the ceremony, the “ official black man ” is often caricatured or the fools recall spectacular events and mistakes by the administration in the past year. Historical background is e.g. B. for Düsseldorf a custom from the 14th century, when Möhnen were invited to a banquet once a year by the councilors. From this the short-term "takeover" of the town hall developed. In Sulzbach am Taunus or in Erfurt it is still common today for the carnival clubs to line up in front of the town hall with drum rolls and music in order to take the building. In 1969 in Sulzbach, cannons were also set up in front of the village community center to underline their “attack”. Often the key to the town hall or the administration is not given out voluntarily, but the respective mayor is brought out by the fools.

The town hall tower can also be seen in a different meaning: the town halls taken during the March Revolution in 1848 were often referred to as the town hall tower, in addition to social demands, there was also an exchange of mayors. On June 7, 1933, the power struggle between SA and NSDAP functionaries in Glückstadt escalated and the SA quickly occupied the town hall. A town hall storm by the SA and NSDAP took place in Trossingen on March 9, 1933 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Annette Krus-Bonazza (2015): Düsseldorf (= MM-City), Erlangen: Michael-Müller-Verlag, p. 53.
  2. ↑ Joachim Siebenhaar (2013): Sulzbach am Taunus 1945 to 1975 (= the archive series). Erfurt: Sutton-Verlag, p. 117.
  3. ↑ Frank Möller (2014): Enemies of the People. Enemy images and negative attributions in the March Revolution. In: Stefan Gerber, Werner Greiling, Tobias Kaiser and Klaus Ries (eds.): Between City, State and Nation. Bourgeoisie in Germany, Part 2, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 401–424, here p. 419.
  4. ^ Reimer Möller (2017): The police administration of the city of Glückstadt during the Nazi era. In: Christian Boldt (Ed.): 400 years of Glückstadt. Festschrift of the Detlefsen Society for the city anniversary 2017, Norderstedt, pp. 449–481.
  5. ↑ Hertmut Berghoff (2006): Between small town and world market. Hohner and the harmonica 1857-1961. Company history as company history, Paderborn: Schöningh, p. 430.