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By law, "the Sundays and the public holidays remain protected as days of rest from work and of spiritual elevation" (Art. 139 WRV, part of the German constitution via Art. 140 GG). Thus all Sundays are, in a manner, public holidays – but usually not understood by the term "holiday" (except for, normally, Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday).
Public holidays apart from the Sundays (there must be some of them constitutionally) can be declared by law either by the Federation or by the Länder for their respective jurisdictions. At present the only federal holiday is German Unity Day (Unity Treaty, Art. 2 sect. 2); all the other holidays, even those celebrated all over Germany, are prescribed by state legislation.
^One-time public holiday in all states, including those not normally observing Reformation Day, to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017.
^Public holiday in all states until 1994. The holiday was discontinued with introduction of nursing care insurance. Saxony is the only state where employers do not have to pay for nursing care insurance (paid by employees in that state) and where the holiday is still kept.
^For states where some holidays are not observed uniformly all over the state, such holidays are included in the state's total number of holidays if their celebration is predominant and widespread in that state:
Bavaria: with Assumption Day, without Peace Festival.
In addition, the state of Brandenburg formally declared Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday as public holidays. As these are Sundays anyway, they have been left out by the other states, nor counted in the table above (the state of Hesse even declared all Sundays public holidays).
Quiet days
A couple of days are designated as stille Tage ("quiet days") by state legislation, which regularly means that public dancing or sport events, music at inns (if live or if not much quieter than usual) etc. are prohibited.
Some public holidays or commemorations are quiet days:
Ash Wednesday (in Bavaria)
Holy Thursday (in some states; in some of them beginning in the evening)
Good Friday
Holy Saturday (in some states)
Buß- und Bettag (where it is a public holiday and in a couple of other states)
Totensonntag (the last Sunday of the Protestant liturgical year)
Christmas Eve (beginning in the afternoon, in some states)
The status of quiet days is also given to festivities joyous in nature: in Hesse, the highest Christian holidays are half-quiet days (until midday) and in Rhineland-Palatinate, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day are two-thirds-quiet days (until 4 pm). For details see the German article on the Tanzverbot ("dancing ban").
Flag days
A yet third category that may sometimes be called "holidays" in a sense are the "flag days" (Beflaggungstage). Only the very highest institutions and the military use the national flags at every day, so the directives when flags are to be displayed mark the days in question as special.
Popular Uprising Day (17 June) This day was public holiday under the title of "German Unity Day" from 1954 until 1990 when that unity actually was achieved.
and by state decrees on other days, such as election days for state parliaments, state constitution days, anniversary of the election of the Federal President (in Berlin) and so forth.
Frequently flags are ordered ad hoc to be shown at half-mast in cases of national mourning.
Unofficial holidays
Either Carnival Monday ("Rosenmontag") or Mardi Gras is a de facto holiday in some towns and cities in Catholic western and southern Germany which have a strong Carnival tradition.
Also, Christmas Eve is developing into a semi-holiday: from mid-afternoon it is practically treated as a holiday, and while shops still open in the morning, for other businesses (apart from those that work even on holidays) this is becoming increasingly unusual; schools are closed in any case.[citation needed]
Customs about holidays
Ascension Day (Christi Himmelfahrt) and Corpus Christi (Fronleichnam) are both always on Thursdays. By taking only one day's leave, employees can have a four-day weekend.
The Three Kings Day, better known as Epiphany, is 6 January, the day after the 12 days of Christmas. In parts of Germany, it has its own local customs.
Public holidays in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
