Fasching season cancelled in Munich for fear of another Muslim attack

Tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent, the Christian season of fasting and penance in preparation for Easter. In many nominally Christian countries, people mark the day before a season of sobriety with carnivals and other events of gaiety, costumes, bibulousness, fun and frolic. 

There's the famous carnival in Brazil and, of course, Mardi Gras down in the Big Easy. Pre-Lenten carnival celebrations are traditional in Germany too, where the carnival season goes by different names: Karneval, Fasching, and Fastnacht. While all three stem from the same pre-Lenten tradition, each region in Germany has its own customs.

Alas, there will be no Karneval, Fasching or Fastnacht in Munich, Germany, this year. Authorities have cancelled the traditional carnival celebrations following the Islamic terror attack on a demonstration in the city that left two dead and 39 injured. 

Officials in the Bavarian capital announced on 19 February that neither the "Nonsense Thursday" event, which was to be held on February 27th, nor the Shrove Tuesday celebration will take place this year. A third carnival event in the city's central pedestrian zone has also been cancelled. 

Need we tell you why? In a statement released six days after the horrific attack on a crowd of innocent people, city officials said they had not taken the decision lightly but "as a city family it is unimaginable for us to light-heartedly celebrate carnival after the attack and especially after the deaths of our colleague and her daughter." 

So the cancellation was an act of mourning, then? Noooo. Security concerns were the true reason. In recent months, Germany has seen an unprecedented spate of terrorist attacks by Muslim immigrants, "refugees" and asylum-seekers. 

On 23 August 2024, a Syrian immigrant allegedly killed three people and injured eight in a stabbing attack on a "Festival for Diversity" [sic] in Solingen, for which Islamic State claimed responsibility. 

On 20 December 2024, a Syrian immigrant rammed a vehicle into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, leaving six people dead and 300 injured.

This past January 22nd, an Afghan asylum-seeker stabbed a two-year-old child and a 41-year-old man to death in Aschaffenburg, where carnival parades have also been put on hold. 

The German people have noticed, as witness the spectacular rise of the Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) in February's election. Commenting on the decision to cancel the Munich events, columnist Julian Reichelt pointed out the irony of a standard phrase uttered almost daily by German politicians over the past few years: "We will not let Islamists change our way of life."

To Angela Merkel, Fred Merz and the others who keep saying there's no problem with mass immigration, Walt says: Ist Ihnen nicht aufgefallen, dass sich Ihr Lebensstil bereits verändert hat? Und nicht zum Besseren.