Going out with friends and beer in the handcart: This is a regular Father’s Day program for many men. This time the rounds were rather small due to Corona and weather conditions.
Berlin (dpa) – Restrictions due to the Corona crisis and then bad weather: In many places, the colorful Father’s Day hustle and bustle this year was comparatively modest.
Instead of going out with friends with alcohol-filled wagons, many men spent their holidays in small groups, often with their families. Pictures of set breakfast tables and affectionate messages in scrawly children’s script were proudly shared on social media.
Anyone who dared to venture out had to be weatherproof in most regions. A rain band from Schleswig-Holstein to the south-east made for little spring-like weather. Some strong thunderstorms fell between the Baltic Sea and Spreewald, as reported by the German Weather Service (DWD). Only in the west did the sun show up in between.
In the Spreewald, groups of men paddled along the waterways in the rain. In Bavaria, cyclists pedaled up mountains under thick clouds. Even for day trippers on the Baltic Sea beach there was mostly only drizzle. Intrepid like the winter swimmers of the Rostock Seals Association nevertheless went to the Baltic Sea, which was almost 12 degrees cold.
Even where the sun showed up, the party was kept within limits. In North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, it was calm in many cities with sunshine and mild temperatures. According to the police, there were no major meetings. “There have been no abnormalities so far,” said a spokesman for the Cologne police at noon. “Nothing is going on here,” said a police spokesman in Bielefeld.
Some cities with a persistently high incidence had previously issued special regulations that further diminished Father’s Day entertainment: Leverkusen imposed no lingering on popular excursion destinations on the Rhine, and in Cologne there was a ban on alcohol on the barbecue areas. In other places picnicking was forbidden or it was compulsory to wear masks in parks and on lake shores.
Elsewhere in Germany, too, warnings were issued against reckless behavior that could endanger the subsidence of the corona wave and the loosening that would result. “Ascension now falls exactly at this time when it all depends on us again,” said Lower Saxony Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD). Numerous police stations called for Father’s Day to be celebrated in small groups. “Please help and remain responsible”, appealed to a Hamburg police spokeswoman to the citizens. Nationwide, the police were increasingly present at popular excursion destinations.
Many believers celebrated the feast of Christ’s Ascension with special events on Thursday. In Thuringia, groups of men and women came to the Klüschen Hagis chapel near Heiligenstadt, which is usually the destination of a pilgrimage with thousands of people on Ascension Day. This time there was only one station path with opportunities to pause and pray, and the Ascension Sermon of the Catholic Erfurt bishop Ulrich Neymeyr was played on screens.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210513-99-584715 / 3
