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EVENTS

Where to celebrate Halloween 2022 in Germany

From haunted castles to decked out film studios, here are our top picks of where to celebrate Halloween around the Bundesrepublik.

Published: 31 October 2019 12:49 CET
Updated: 31 October 2022 09:58 CET
Burg Frankenstein
Burg Frankenstein ist anlässlich des Halloween-Spektakels bunt illuminiert. Auf der Burg Frankenstein findet seit 1977, in diesem Jahr zum 43. Mal (21.10 - 06.11.2022), die Halloween-Veranstaltung statt. Auf einer Generalprobe hat der Veranstalter mit speziellem Publikum das Grusel-Event durchgespielt. +++ dpa-Bildfunk +++

More and more Germans are carving pumpkins and putting in their vampire teeth to celebrate Halloween, the holiday which originates from the old Celtic festival Samhain. 

Monday also marks also Reformation Day, a public holiday for the states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia.

That means that Halloween enthusiasts can spend an entire day “um die Häuser ziehen” (“going around the houses”, how Germans refer to trick-or-treating) – or, sleeping off the hangover from a Halloween party the night before!

As well as going around asking “Süßes oder Saures” (“sweets or sours”, you guessed it – Germany’s way of saying “trick or treat”), there are plenty of events going on in Germany to celebrate spooky season.

READ MORE: Five of Germany’s most haunted places

Potsdam 

Take a walk around the Babelsberg Film Studio, the oldest large-scale film studio in the world, where classics such as The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich was filmed, as well as modern icons such as Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds.

You might feel like you’re in a real life scary movie at Babelsberg. Photo: picture alliance / dpa | Ralf Hirschberger

For the Halloween season, the studio has been kitted out to resemble a real-life horror film, with characters from several classic horror films and some original faces roaming around, waiting to jump out at you. 

As well as photo opportunities with Pinhead and Chucky, several attractions are open such as a live maze, simulator and refreshment stands. 

Just make sure to look over your shoulder, as Pennywise may be behind you…

Darmstadt

Nowhere offers a Halloween atmosphere quite like the Burg Frankenstein near Darmstadt, a 1000 year old castle ruin thought to be the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 

Since 1977, the Castle has offered a Halloween spectacle, the first of its kind in Germany. Within the castle walls during the Halloween party, there is a panorama restaurant, food and drink stalls, a monster bar, VIP lounge and gift shop. 

Across 12 infamous scare zones, there are 100 monsters lurking including Pennywise, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers and beings from the underworld. The three new scare zones for this year are entitled The Clown’s House, Death Zone and Chainsaw. 

This event is certainly not for the faint hearted, though if you’re a thrill seeker who loves a good adrenaline-rush, this is the Halloween party for you.

Berlin 

According to the self-confessed “Home of Halloween”, the historical Berlin Dungeon, there is no better place to be in Berlin to enjoy all things spooky. This year, the Dungeon is putting on a special Halloween show: Will you survive the curse of the witch? 

The belief in witchcraft is rooted deep in both German and wider human history. During the Middle Ages, when science was not advanced enough to explain illness, death or forces of nature, society would often suspect that witchcraft or black magic was behind it.

Visitors to the Dungeon will embark on a 70 minute journey through time between Hackescher Markt to Alexanderplatz, as you are transported to the 16th century, where many witches were believed to have roamed the Berlin streets.

Along the way, you’ll encounter several characters such as a vengeful witch hunter, a helpless farmer and a devilish “white woman”. By the end of the journey, will you survive the gaze of not only the witch, but the fanatical witch hunter?

Günzberg 

For those of you looking for a more family-orientated Halloween event suitable for children this year, why not travel down south to Germany’s Legoland resort in Bavaria?

Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Stefan Puchner

On the day of Halloween, the resorts offers free entry to children up to age 11 who arrive dressed in a Halloween costume. Though kids won’t be the only ones dressed for the party, as guests will be greeted by park dragon Olli, who will also be in his Halloween costume for the celebrations. 

The resort will offer a special Halloween atmosphere, with ghosts on the loose around the park. Guests are invited to knock on the door of the Trick or Treat House, or to walk through the Spooky Trail, if they are brave enough. 

Ghastly creatures are waiting for you in the park, as well as the Grusical in the LEGO Arena, a spooky show exclusive to LEGO Deutschland. This event promises plenty of shudders and laughs for the whole family! 

Stuttgart 

The gardens of Ludwigsburg Castle is home to a unique, hidden treasure: the world’s largest pumpkin exhibition. 

It may sound like a niche-market, but even those who aren’t particularly enthusiastic about pumpkins can enjoy the towering sculptures made from 450,000 pumpkins of 6000 varieties. Artists bring to life thousands of pumpkins, with puss in boots, Medusa and a unicorn among many others transforming the park into a fairytale pumpkin kingdom. 

During Halloween, we tend to underestimate what’s inside a pumpkin for the sake of carving its skin. However, this event isn’t short of plenty of pumpkin-based dishes, such as pumpkin soup, pumpkin spaghetti, pumpkin strudel, pumpkin lasagna, pumpkin tart and pumpkin bread. Who knew the classic Halloween fruit could be so versatile? 

Once the event has converted you to a year-round pumpkin fanatic, you can take home a selection of pumpkin jam, pumpkin pesto, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin seed oil, and pumpkin noodles from the gift shop.

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DISCOVER GERMANY

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

With thousands of years of history in Germany to explore, you’re never going to run out of museums to scratch the itch to learn about and fully experience the world of the past.

Published: 5 April 2024 10:46 CEST
Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

Here are eight of our favourite museums across Germany’s 16 states for you to discover for yourself. 

Arche Nebra

Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt

One day, around 1600 BCE, local Bronze Age peoples buried one of their most precious objects – the Nebra Sky Disk, a copper, gold, and bronze disk that acted as a calendar to help them plant crops. This was a matter of life and death at the time. 

Over three thousand years later, in 1999, it was uncovered by black market treasure hunters, becoming Germany’s most significant archaeological find. 

While the Sky Disk itself is kept in the (really very good)  State Museum of Pre- and Early History in nearby Halle, the site of the discovery is marked by the Arche Nebra, a museum explaining prehistoric astronomy and the cultural practices of the people who made it. 

Kids will love the planetarium, explaining how the disk was used. 

Atomkeller Museum

Halgerloch, Baden-Württemberg

From the distant to the very recent past – in this case, the Nazi atomic weapons programme. Even as defeat loomed, Nazi scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were trying to develop a nuclear bomb. 

While this mainly took place in Berlin, an old beer cellar under the town of Halgerloch, south of Stuttgart, was commandeered as the site of a prototype fission reactor. 

A squad of American soldiers captured and dismantled the reactor as the war ended. Still, the site was later turned into a museum documenting German efforts to create a working reactor – one that they could use to develop a bomb.

It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand what they were trying to do here, as the explanatory materials describe the scientist’s efforts in a manner that is easy to understand. 

German National Museum

Nuremberg, Bavaria

Remember that scene at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, where an unnamed government official wheels the Ark of the Covenant into an anonymous government warehouse? This could possibly be the German equivalent – albeit far better presented. 

The German National Museum was created in 1852 as a repository for the cultural history of the German nation – even before the country’s founding. In the intervening 170 years, it’s grown to swallow an entire city block of Nuremberg, covering 60,000 years of history and hundreds of thousands of objects. 

If it relates to the history of Germany since prehistoric times, you’re likely to find it here.

Highlights include several original paintings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer, the mysterious Bronze Age ‘Gold Hats’, one of Europe’s most significant collections of costuming and musical instruments, and a vast display of weapons, armour and firearms. 

European Hansemuseum

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein

In the late Middle Ages, the political and economic centre of the world was focused on the North Sea and the Baltic German coasts. 

This was the domain of the Hanseatic League, one of the most powerful trading alliances in human history. Centuries before the Dutch and British East India Companies, they made in-roads to far-flung corners.

The European Hansemuseum in the former Hanseatic city of Lübeck tells the story of the league’s rise and eventual fall, its day-to-day operations, and its enduring legacy.

This museum is fascinating for adults and kids. It uses original artefacts and high-tech interactive elements to tell tales of maritime adventure. Younger visitors will also be enchanted by the museum’s augmented reality phone app that asks them to help solve mysteries. 

Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum

Augsburg, Germany

The Hanseatic League was not the only economic power in the late Middle Ages. The Fugger and Welser families of Augsburg may have been the richest in the world until the 20th century.

From humble beginnings, both families grew to become incredibly powerful moneylenders, funding many of the wars of the 16th century and the conquest of the New World.

The Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum not only explains the rise of both patrician families but also the practices that led to their inconceivable wealth—including, sadly, the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. 

The museum also documents the short-lived Welser colony in Venezuela, which, if it had survived, could have resulted in a very different world history.

This museum has many high tech displays, making it a very exciting experience for moguls of any age.

Teutoburg Forest Museum

Kalkriese, Lower Saxony

Every German child learns this story at some point: One day at the end of summer 9 AD, three legions of the Roman army marched into the Teutoburg forest… and never came out. 

Soldiers sent after the vanished legions discovered that they had been slaughtered to a man.

Arminius, a German who had been raised as a Roman commander, had betrayed the three legions to local Germanic tribes, who ambushed them while marching through the forest. 

Today, the probable site of the battle – we can’t entirely be sure – is marked by a museum called the Varusschlacht Museum (Literally ‘Varus Battle Museum’, named after the loyal Roman commander). 

The highlights here are the finds – made all the more eerie by the knowledge that they were looted and discarded from the legionaries in the hours following the ambush. 

German Romanticism Museum

Frankfurt, Hesse

The Romantic era of art, music and literature is one of Germany’s greatest cultural gifts to the world, encompassing the work of poets such as Goethe and Schiller, composers like Beethoven and artists in the vein of Caspar David Friedrich.

Established in 2021 next to the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born, the German Romanticism Museum is the world’s largest collection of objects related to the Romantic movement. 

In addition to artefacts from some of the greatest names in German romanticism, in 2024, you’ll find a major exhibition exploring Goethe’s controversial 1774 novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, and another on the forest as depicted as dark and dramatic in the art of the period. 

Gutenberg Castle

Haßmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Sometimes being a smaller castle is a good thing. The relatively small size and location of Guttenburg Castle, above the River Neckar near Heilbronn, protected it from war and damage over eight hundred years – it’s now the best preserved Staufer-era castle in the country.

While the castle is still occupied by the Barons of Gemmingen-Guttenberg, the castle now also contains a museum, that uses the remarkably well-preserved castle interiors to explore centuries of its history – and the individuals that passed through it.

After you’ve explored the museum—and the current exhibition that uses Lego to document life in the Middle Ages —it’s also possible to eat at the castle’s tavern and stay overnight!

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