Since 1920, Germans have recognized the second Sunday after All Saints' Day as Volkstrauertag or "Peoples' Day of Mourning." Since 1949, it has been part of official state memorial culture.

Here in Tübingen, I attended the religious service at the main Protestant church down town, the Stiftskirche and the official municipal memorial service at the hill cemetery as well. The official subject of the church service were texts from the book of Revelation and the Day of Judgement. The sermon managed to make a theological connection to the Volkstrauertag by focuing on the section of Revelations that talks about the city of Smyrna and talking about the martyrdom of Polycarp, who came from that city. The verse at Revelations 2:10, "Be faithful unto death...," is used on many war memorials (for example this 1849 Karlsruhe memorial). The pastor argued that the sacrifice of soldiers on the battlefield are not comparable to those of Christ and that of Polycarp nor are they the kind of future suffering and death that the author of Revelations is talking about to the congregation at Smyrna.

The official municipal memorial featured a brass orchestra, a choir (which did the first of two hymns in English), and two speakers. The city speaker rotates each year between various officials. This year Hermann Strampfer Regierungspraesident for the district of Tuebingen, spoke. The churhc speaker rotates between Protestant and Catholic. This year, the speaker was the Protestant deacon Marie-Louise Kling de Lazzer.

	Three dignitaries - Regierungspresident Hermann Strampfer, Mayor Michael Lucke, and Landrat Joachim Wlater, approach the memorial crosses adjacent to the graves of the fallen to lay a wreath.
	Bundeswehr reservists salute.
	German public buildings usually only fly the flag "at half mast," that is, they only fly it on sad occasions. Instead of being literally at half mast, they attach black mourning streamers to it. This is the city hall of Derendingen, the section of Tübingen where I live.

After the ceremonies, I asked one of the policemen if there is ever any trouble at these events, and he told me about Axel Heinzmann, a man who has been disturbing the ceremony in one form or another since 1985 by laying alternative wreaths. Years ago, there was competition and protest at the cemetery gate between left-wing groups and people around Heinzmann, a right-winger. He has been prohibited from protesting, so this year he appeared alone at the gate with a small sign simply asking for money to help cover the legal costs connected with his previous escapades.

I am in contact with Herr Heinzmann who is going to provide me with material on his history of protest. I will also be investigating these incidents for my upcoming Tuebingen Remembers project.