The transcripts in this pack are:

• Osterei
• Osterfeuer
• Gründonnerstag

To find out more, visit the AllThingsGerman Download Store.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Gründonnerstag
• Ostern
• Can you go shopping on Good Friday?

It’s a simple answer: no.

Even on Gründonnerstag (Maundy Thursday) many shops are required to shut earlier than usual, with supermarkets that usually stay open until 9pm, 10pm or even midnight on other days closing their doors at 8pm and not opening again until Saturday morning.

And when they do open there will be a last-minute rush for Osterhasen and generally a lot of people stocking up before everything shuts again for another two days.

With even the bakeries closed on Good Friday, the petrol stations will be doing a good trade and are probably the best place to go if you run out of anything over the weekend.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Why are there no lorries on the roads on Good Friday?
• Easter Pack 1
• Ostern

So, as in the English equivalent, you might find that an offer is particularly popular and goes out of stock.

However, this being Germany there are rules on how long a product has to be “in stock” for a shop to be able to claim this, so that they do not purposely have very few available and just use the offer to get people to enter the store.  In the event that they do run out without a certain amount of time, they have to offer the consumers who want to take advantage of it the chance to receive the product later at the advertised price.

Now the rule is pretty complicated, and I won’t go into detail here.  In fact, I can just about remember the details of one-week offers, but any others I would have to look up myself.

But I could have done with knowing the rules in Karstadt in Bad Homburg today.  Not that it would have helped me much, but here is what happened anyway:

I received a voucher in the post from Karstadt for a 200g chocolate Osterhase (Easter Bunny) if I spent 50 Euros in the store.  But not just any Osterhase, there were offering me a Lindt Goldhase.

That is, one of these:

Lindt is a Swiss chocolate company and Goldhase is one of their most well-known products – the product form is even a registered 3D trademark.  The 200g version is worth about 5 Euros.

So today when I actually did spend 50 Euros in Karstadt, I was looking forward to bringing one home with me.

However the cashier popped something that was not goldfoil-wrapped into the carrier bag and it didn’t look quite right.  So I took it back out again, and it was a 50g chocolate Osterhase from a company in Bavaria.

I questioned this with the cashier, but all she could say was “that’s all I have”, before finally admitting that the store had run out of Lindt Goldhasen.

Now, I’m not going to make a big fuss about a chocolate bunny rabbit, and I do not know if is OK to run out this early (the offer runs until Easter Saturday), but what I do object to is the fact that Karstadt are still selling the Lindt version in the same store.

So what has really happened is that they have run out of the giveaway stock.

I wonder if they are allowed to do that?  Perhaps I should call the Verbraucherzentrale on Monday…

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Burger King and ADAC extend their offer by a further year
• Take a tour of the Schwebebad at the Hessentag
• 3 German Phrases you probably don’t know

The Palmesel – literally the “palm donkey” – is a nickname given to the last person to get out of bed on Palm Sunday.

The tradition is not new, but it has mutated over time as it was originally used to refer to the last boy to enter the Church on that day.

Of course, the term refers to the donkey ridden by Christ into Jerusalem prior to his crucifixion, and since the middle ages German towns have held Palm Sunday processions – some with live donkeys, others with wooden ones.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Easter Pack 1
• Palmsonntag

There are some exceptions, such as those delivering fresh produce, but in general it means that the roads, especially the motorways, are fairly empty and flow faster.

But what about on Good Friday?

When I was asked this yesterday, I thought I might be in for a lot of research, but in the end the answer was simple.  Just look in the relevant paragraph of the StVO.  That paragraph is known as §30 Abs. 4 – and contains a very straight forward answer.

Good Friday is listed by name as a day on which the Fahrverbot applies for all of Germany.

And before the same question comes up again next week – Easter Monday is too.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Can you go shopping on Good Friday?
• Easter Pack 1
• Ostern