Public holidays in Germany

Non-floating holidays

Non-statutory holidays are written in gray.

Moving Holidays in Germany

Christmas on December 24

Germany is one of the few countries whose main Christmas day is not December 25th, but the 24th. In ancient times, one day ended with sunset, so from a historical point of view, "Christmas Eve" actually belongs to the next day. In Germany, as well as in some other countries (e.g. Switzerland, Austria, Argentina, Hungary and Scandinavia), the giving of presents takes place during this evening. In the English speaking countries, this happens one day later on Boxing Day.

Special Catholic regulations

Germany is a country with an enormous Christian population. Protestants and Catholics have comparable shares of just under 30 percent each. In order not to deprive Catholics of their important holidays, numerous special regulations for individual holidays have been established. For example, the Day of Prayer and Repentance and also the Assumption of the Virgin Mary are school holidays in all of Bavaria, but they are only public holidays in a few communities. Corpus Christi is a public holiday only in some communities of Thuringia and Saxony. All Saints' Day plays no special role in the calendar of the northern and eastern federal states. Conversely, Reformation Day on October 31 is only free by law in the predominantly Protestant states. The bottom line is that there are more holidays in Catholic areas than in the predominantly Protestant ones.

Day of German Unity

Compared to other countries, the German national holiday has gone through turbulent times and has been postponed many times. The first day that resembled a national holiday, but was not yet a national holiday from a legal point of view, was January 18th, in honor of the Prussian coronation of the king in 1701. September 2nd followed from 1873 on, commemorating the capitulation of the French army in 1870. In the Weimar Republic, August 11 was chosen as constitution day. In National Socialism, May 1 was established as the "holiday of national labor." During the division of Germany, June 17 was considered a national day in the West, while in the East, the day of the founding of the state (1949) was celebrated on October 7. It was not until reunification in 1990 that we arrived at the present day October 3.