For them who don't know it: each year on November 11th, 11:11am the new "carnevals season" begins in Germany and is mostly celebrated till "ash wednesday" wich is about 40 (If I am correct) days before easter sunday. In the time between "ash wednesday" and easter sunday a lot (not that many no more in the modern time) than have a time about fasting, so they say for example "I am fasting so I don't watch TV till easter" or "I am fasting so I don't eat candy till easter" etc. and most children who are christian fast about candy. On the sunday and monday before "ash wednesday" Germany has a celebration going on, similiar to the carneval in Brazil where people in costumes do a parade in almost all cities, towns and villages. People stand there, watch the parade and some people trow candy at the audience that mainly kids collect and take home. Different belives say it was first ever celebrated to welcome the spring or it was first ever celebrated to get rid of bad spirits and ghosts. Mainly in the south Germany people who apear on a parade tend to wear creepier costumes as for example being a witch who's mask is made out of wood, in the middle of the country you see more colorfull costumes and bigger wagons with themes and a lot in the north of the country tend to look a bit more plain while Berlin for example has a special carneval parade where people from different countries show where they come from. During the "carnveals season" many specific carneval-clubs held meetings where club-member dressed in costumes watch dancing, comedy and music shows, some of the bigger clubs also get broadcastet on TV for people who arn't in the carneval-club. There exist also a specific music genre for that called "Karneval-Schlager".
This year on the 11th on 11:11am CET, the people in Germany went out to celebrate. One of the biggest statements for Carneval in Germany is the city Cologne, but also places like for example Mainz and Düsseldorf are popular for it.
This video shows altho there is COVID happening how thousands of citizen of Cologne are on the streets to celebrate the new carneval-season :
