Labor Day (Labor Day)
Description:
In the Middle Ages, whence came the holiday of the meeting of spring, it was on the state of the economy on May 1, depended on the payment of farm labor for the whole year.
It is clear that the last night always caused maximum anxiety, because they could not pay for the work. This, the researchers believe, gave rise to the belief that Walpurgis night is the night of the feast of witches. Witches mounted broomsticks and flew to the mountain peaks, where they spent time in wild feasts, dancing and copulation with demons and the devil. Therefore, so that a year of labor was not wasted, farm workers had to burn bonfires, not sleep and sing songs in order to drive away the unclean. And in the morning to show conserved herds and fields, get earned and have fun under the May tree.
Gradually, the day of reckoning with the farm laborers was transformed into a holiday of the working man, and after the shooting in Chicago, the workers’ demonstrations began to be celebrated annually as a proletarian holiday. And here capitalists began to act instead of devils and unclean. The symbol of this holiday was a red carnation, because they recognized each other on this day by this flower in the loop.
With the coming to power of Hitler, this day received official status in 1933. With the National Socialist perversion of meaning, it has been called National Labor Day. A day after the introduction, the Nazis broke into the premises of the unions and banned them.
After the war in 1946, the holiday was confirmed with restrictions by the Allies. Demonstrations and pickets of trade unions and various political organizations are usually held in Germany on the first of May. On a local scale, politically uncolored meetings of residents and neighbors are held - the so-called Hoffest (yard holiday). May Day in Berlin is known for violent clashes between members of radical leftist groups and police.
On this day in the morning in many large cities, the Association of German Trade Unions - Der Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB) organizes demonstrations and political rallies. In the evening of April 30, festivals are held everywhere under the slogan “Dance in May”, which, according to the old tradition, welcomes the onset of the spring month of May.
In some places it is customary to decorate the May tree. This is also an ancient custom: the May tree symbolizes spring fertility.
In short, in modern Germany everything is mixed: paganism, Christianity, the proletariat. All in one place and under one pine tree, that is, under the May tree.