The first Rose Monday procession in Cologne

The Cologne Carnival Festival Committee convenes for the first time in 1823

A carnival parade had been held in Cologne on Rose Monday – the Monday before Ash Wednesday – since the Middle Ages. During the Napoleonic occupation of Germany at the start of the 19th century, the citizens of Cologne no longer marked carnival together, but rather segregated their celebrations along class lines. Whilst those in the middle classes held masked balls in private homes, the common people abandoned their traditional masks and organized private parties in the many public taverns. This meant a decline in profitability of the masked balls.

Seeking to rectify this problem, the city council consulted with the new Prussian authorities and decided to organize a single masked parade for the whole city. For their part, the authorities insisted that the procession take a precisely defined route. The first parade took place on 10 February 1823 under the motto “The coronation of the Hero Carnival”. Based loosely on historical models, the new procession also incorporated a number of innovations. People wore costumes – such as mock-Prussian soldiers’ uniforms – that satirized and criticized the great and the good. This was not entirely congenial to the authorities, who issued strict rules as to what people could wear and how they should comport themselves. A number of processions were cancelled to prevent sedition, the first in 1830.