The Fifth Season in the Alps and the Black Forest (Satis Shroff)

The night of the torches began at Freiburg’s Swabian Gate (Schwabentor), and 13000 witches, knaves and other ghoulish figures marched to the Allemanic town’s cathedral located in the centre. Right below the olde historical Kaufhaus was a stage with 500 witches in motley clothes and ugly noses, warts and all, who performed their wild and frantic dances. The cacophony caused by the percussion and brass of the Guggen music rose in crescendo, as they staged their monster-concert.

40,000 visitors came to the 75th celebration of the Breisgauer Narrenzunft (BNZ) and 100 clubs (Zünfte) took part in the fasnet merry-making. The BNZ was established in 1934, yes the fateful year in Germany when the Nazizeitgeist raised its ugly head. Among the Narren (knaves) that the Nazis didn’t like was a Jewish Freiburger named Hans Pollock, a physician by profession and very active in the fasnet committee. Today, we would say that he was systematically mobbed and bossed from his working place, and was deported to Dachau. Luckily enough Hans fell ill and was sent back to Freiburg, where he died in 1939. There’s a small metal plate with his name in the cobbled street called Güntertalstrasse.

An ethnologist named Bertold Hamel published a thesis with the title ‘Helau and Heil Hitler.’ In 1984 there was an exhibition at the Albert Ludwig’s university library organised in part by the art historian Peter Kalchthaler. It was he who mentioned that the celebrations had their origin in the Christian faith, and that during the Third Reich the brown shirts turned an age-old belief and tradition into a folk tradition.

But things have changed for the better now. Even a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Jew can become a member of the many traditional zünfte and cliques, and take part in the historical and traditional jovial events. I’m looking forward to the Rose Monday parade in which more than 5200 masked figures will be taking part.

From the ‘dirty’ Thursday till Ash Wednesday, the Black Forest and the Upper Rhein areas are under the command of witches and knaves after the town councils are stormed by them and freed, for the fifth season has already begun. The witches also come to the schools and kindergardens and ‘free’ the kids from their teachers and lessons, and make them have fun with music, bags of sweets, colourful streamers and sacks of confetti which are thrown on their blonde, brunette and black heads, amid laughter and screams. A wonderful time of the year, you are inclined to say, where people are ordered to have fun, drink a lot of beer, wine, schnaps to drive off the cold, long, depressing winter. I bumped into an amiable German from Pforzheim named Rudi, who raised his krug of beer and said: ‘Prost! My body needs it!’

Well it’s fasnet-time (fasching, carnival) in the alpine countries of Switzerland, Austria and Germany. The streets are full of wild men and women, witches, devils, knaves, masked figures galore in Durlach (Karlsruhe), Baden Baden-Oos, Offenburg, Gengenbach with its ‘Schalk wach uff’ cry, Hausach with its witches with hearts, the march at Haslach, the red devils on Dirty Thursday at Triberg. And Villingen, which is known for its motto: fasnet-meets-carnival.

In Donaueschingen, Hansel and Gretel are woken up from their Schwarzwälder beds by means of a fanfare at 6am on February 19, 2009. There’s a children’s procession at 2pm and the singing of fasnet songs. At 7pm you see people going around with long white sleeping-gowns and white caps with a pom-pom hanging at the end. You can see thousands of people taking to the cobbled streets: there’s music of all manners, costumes and stork wagons in which the wicked witches of Elzach entice beautiful girls from the streets, dump them in their rickety wagons, throw tons of confetti on them and finally set them free with a ‘narri, narrow!’ farewell greeting. The Schuttig procession is known for the cracks of the long whips on the streets, but if you tease and laugh at him, the Schuttig might clobber you with a swine’s bladder. It’s good for a laugh anyway because humour is useful.

And on March 2, 2009 there’s, of course, the famous Swiss Morgenstraich in Basle, an unforgettable experience after the German merry-making is long over and the witches have shed feigned tears, burnt effigies symbolising the banishment of winter.

Exactly at 4am the lights go out in Basle’s inner town buildings. An uncanny silence shrouds the city, and thousands of spectators listen and look around, holding hands lest they don’t lose themselves among the sea of humanity around them. Suddenly, 200 lanterns begin to shine and make their appearance with masked figures elegantly distributing colourful leaflets with the sujet or motto of the respective cliques, which are actually lyrics lampooning Swiss politicians, Sarkosy, Brown & Merkel included, their speeches, promises, collateral decisions that have backfired, scandals or whatever. I love the sound of the shrill piccollo flutes and drums of the Swiss cliques. When you come to think of it, you’re one of the 10,000 fasnacht revellers. There are witch costume balls everywhere in the evenings, where you eat salted pork, drink schnaps, but hopefully not one too much for the road, for fun is the order of the day.

Whereas the Breisgauer members of the Narrenzunft celebrated their 75th jubilee on February 1, 2009, in Switzerland’s small Klinen Valley the ‘Wild Maa’ reached land at 11am on January 20, 2009 and was greeted with firecrackers. On the bank of the Rhine were the bird Gryff and the ‘Leu’ waiting to greet the ‘Wild Maa,’ surrounded by hundreds spectators who’d come to see the spectacle. The three symbolic Swiss fasnet figures danced all the way to Small Basle for the big-shots of Basle. The highlight was the dance in the middle of the bridge across the Rhines near Käpplijoch, and a thunderous crowd, accompanied by blue coated drummers, wearing white wigs and quaint hats like the Tin Drummer.

In the middle of Thun, a town in Switzerland, the Merlinger group ‘Grönbachgusler,’ costumed as blood-suckers with vampire-like canines jutting out of the corners of their mouths, black and white striped clothes and big drums were to be admired. This was the day of the ghouls.

On February 24, 2009 the town of Breisach invites all fasnet-friends to this lovely town upon the Rhine, where the Brysacher Fasnet will be celebrated the whole day. And on Ash Wednesday, when everything’s over, the people of Freiburg wash their wallets at 10am in the clear, cold water of the Freiburger Bächele, a sort of canal that runs through this Schwarzwald town, as it is thought to be auspicious and will bring one happiness and financial benefits in the course of the year. What a pleasant thought, now that the WEF is over, isn’t it?

About the Author:

Satis Shroff is a prolific writer and teaches Creative Writing at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. He is a lecturer, poet and writer and the published author of three books: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelogue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. He is a member of “Writers of Peace,” poets, essayists, novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS) and The Asian Writer.

Satis Shroff is based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) and also writes on ecological, ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and the United Kingdom. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) and the Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen (University of Freiburg where he is a Lehrbeauftragter for Creative Writing). Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

Morgenstraich: Switzerland’s Famous Carnival (Satis Shroff)

Switzerland’s famous carnival, the Morgenstraich, began on Monday morning at 4am, and is a world attraction with its magical atmosphere. The official lights of this cultural town went out and suddenly artistically decorated, self-made lanterns began to glow in the darkness that had enveloped Switzerland’s second biggest city.

The cliques of the Basler Fastnacht were gathered in their individual costumes in the narrow cobbled alleys of the olde historical town. Just before the signal was given, the motley clad people donned their outsized masks (Larven) and stood in formation like infanterists out to conquer a town, not with muskets but music. You hold your breath for a second in the darkness, even though you know that Basle vibrates with life.


Someone shouted at the top of his voice: “Morgenstraich, forwards march!” The people began to move to the melody of drums and piccolo flutes. If you didn’t want to lose contact with your near and dear ones you had to catch hands lest they be lost in the crowd. The piccolo flutes with their shrill notes are characteristic of Basle.


In the three days that follow there’s an outburst of colour, grotesque masks, music and satirical comments that are distributed on long strips of coloured paper along with tons of confetti and goodies for all and sundry. The people of Basle do it perfection, painstaking creativity and you can sense the dedication behind the celebrations.


The Rhine town vibrates to the music of the Fastnacht for three days and nights till Thursday at 3:59 according to Swiss time. The celebrations have an air of joy combined with disciplined behaviour, especially among the members of the Swiss cliques, where they see to it that no clique members starts dancing out of the disciplined formation. It is indeed the biggest flute concert in the world along the cobbled old town as they go about with their piccolos and drums---peacefully and traditionally. There’s none of the noisy ‘Narri, narro, helau’ that you hear and get to see on the German side of the Rhine.


And when you’re tired of walking around in the cold, cobbled streets of Basle, you enter one of the Altstadt Cafes where you can eat the traditional brown Mehlsuppe (flour-soup) with white Swiss wine and round onion and cheese cakes.


The Basler Fasnacht is regarded this year as an ideal chance to integrate foreign youth in the cliques, since they live in the town and their parents work who are migrants work in the area. Thomas Kessler, a guy from Zürich, who’s an admirer of the Basler Fastnacht, is also the chief of the ‘Integration Basle’ of the Security Department. He has integrated the second generation of migrant youth into the cliques because they need new members to carry out the Swiss tradition. The number of Swiss nationals taking part in the Basler Fastnacht has gone down to 20 per cent but a lot of children of the foreigners living in Basle and its suburbs take delight in the celebration and join the cliques when they reach their teens. To this effect the cliques have distributed flyers in nine languages in Basle’s schools. More and more Turks, who are actually Moslems, have been buying Fastnacht costumes for their kids so that their children have a sense of belonging to Basle’s Fastnacht tradition, which in turn is a Catholic festival. When it comes to the Basler Fastnacht, the boundaries between culture, religion and tradition seem to disappear. What counts is: do in Basle as the Basler do, namely celebrate Morgenstraich in this world-open city. And the Basler are an exuberant, fun-loving folk. Celebrating the Morgenstraich can be infectious and visitors are known to come again and again. Like yours truly for instance.


In the pre-Fastnacht days there are a lot of events in the theatres with the many cliques carrying names like: Barfiessler (barefoot), drummeli (drums) for music lovers, Pfyfferli for the friends of theatre, Mimosli for people who’re jolly, Zofinger-conzärtli for two finger concerts, which is meant for insiders, Drufftaggt for those who’d like to experiment, and the Charivari at the Volkshaus, which was originally created as an alternative to the Drummli and which was visited by Miss Switzerland Claudia Wambululu, and naturally a children’s Charivari version for the kiddies at the Theatre Basle, in which a certain Frau Fastnacht wants to do away with the Fastnacht celebrations, because she thinks that the children only think about the forthcoming Euro 08. The list of the pre-Fastnacht events seem to be longer each year.


The taverns, inns and restaurants are open all the time for the next 72 hours. The three beautiful days are called ‘drey scheenste Dääg’ in Schwyzer Deutsch. You can google or yahoo for these celebrations and events till Thursday in the internet under: http://fastnacht.ch/.


Gruezi Miteinander. Cherrio.