Overview
- Across Germany, Easter Sunday is treated like a normal Sunday in 15 states, while Brandenburg counts it as a legal holiday that can trigger holiday pay for those who work.
- Easter Monday is a statutory public holiday in all 16 German states, and most shops do not open.
- On Easter Sunday, malls and most stores stay closed, with limited openings for florists and bakeries for a few hours and for shops at gas stations, train stations, and airports.
- Easter Sunday marks the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection and the end of Lent, and Easter Monday recalls the Emmaus story in which followers recognized the risen Jesus.
- Historians trace Easter Monday’s status to a once longer work pause around Easter, including a 1642 decree by Pope Urban VIII that kept the days from Easter Sunday through the following Tuesday work-free.