Nuremberg is still sticking to its traditional market. They want to enable “a little normalcy” despite Corona. The city’s top did not understand what was at stake.
The city of Munich has canceled the Christmas market. “The infection figures leave me no other choice,” said Mayor Dieter Reiter on Tuesday. Nuremberg, on the other hand, is sticking to its plans – for now. There Reiter’s colleague Marcus König sends the economic advisor Michael Fraas to confirm the plans. It would be high time for König to stand up and announce the inevitable: The Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt also has to be canceled to prevent worse.
The concept actually sounds conclusive: The traditional Christkindlesmarkt does not take place in a concentrated manner on the main market, but is reduced in size and distributed over the old town. Mulled wine stalls are outsourced as 2-G locations. “Controlled events in the open air” is what Fraas called it, and the way he described it all on Monday in front of the assembled press, one would have almost wished it were so easy.
But similar to Munich, the Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt would also attract hundreds of thousands of guests. You would push your way through the narrow streets of the old town, which are often closed on normal Saturdays. In addition, people would have to get into the city first: crowds, buses and subways would be the result – and an enormous risk of contagion. Such a major event cannot be justified. Especially now, when the Covid-19 incidence is rising to new record levels every day, vaccination breakthroughs are increasing, booster vaccinations are slow, people are dying and far too many are still unvaccinated.
The Christkindlesmarkt can certainly not be justified by saying that those who shop, and especially those who sell, want to allow “a little normalcy”, as Fraas put it. On the one hand, with this justification, the city pushes the traders, who are the main victims. They would have to be compensated for the loss of sales. On the other hand: Right now there is no normality. The hospitals are working to the limit. “The situation is getting worse,” says a spokeswoman for the Nuremberg clinic. A Christmas market would be an imposition for the staff. Hopefully the top of Nuremberg will recognize this too.