Germany: The Sugar Cone Tradition

Hi everybody!

It’s the German Ambassador writing to you, this time about a really German tradition. I am going to visit a Norfolk school soon and the teacher asked me to talk with the children about school in Germany and the tradition of “Zuckertüte” or “Schultüte” (translating to “sugar cone” or “school cone”), depending on the region you live in. It was then, when I remembered that this thing is really unknown in the rest of the world (I had already noticed that in France!) and how sorry I always felt for the children who didn’t get one.

It works as the follows: Every child in Germany gets a Zuckertüte for his/her first day of school. Below, you can see a picture of me on my first day on my official school picture. The writing on the blackboard translates to “To the first day of school”, in case you forget later just why you were posing in front of a photographer in the first place… Just kidding ;) You usually get a big cone like that from your parents and it will be filled mostly with sweets of any kind, but also sometimes with little goods for your time in school (for example a pencil case or sport shoes).  Often, you get also smaller ones from other people in your family, like your grand-parents, your aunts and uncles, and maybe your godparents. Usually, if you have siblings, they will get a smaller one, too, so that they don’t feel so left out.  By the way, you are only allowed to open it by the end of the afternoon, which was a real exercise in self-discipline for me! 

I have looked up a bit on the history of this tradition and found out that this goes back as far as the year 1810, when it was first mentioned in Saxony and Thuringia (regions in the East of Germany). The original tradition surrounds a tree full of the cones (put there by the parents or the teachers) which can be “picked” when they are “ripe” – this will be the first day of school. This tradition survives (we had a tree like that in Kindergarten), but it is not the main part of it anymore (at least as far as I know). Nowadays, it is really mostly centered on the cone your parents give to you directly.  If you are interested in following the historical part up, here is a link to the Wikipedia article in English:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schult%C3%BCte

and in German (a bit more detailed, so go there first, if you speak German): 

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schult%C3%BCte

It is a really widespread tradition in Germany, and before going abroad, I didn’t even know that there are children in the world that don’t get these on their first day. I think it is a really nice thing to do and it certainly helps children to look forward to school J