Since mid-April, 14- and 15-year-olds have been preparing for the occasion. Six months earlier, they participated in a preparatory program that taught them the fundamentals of humanism, including its values, ideals, and objectives. This helps the young people find their bearings as they embark on their future lives.
The program concludes with festive events where the whole family celebrates the symbolic farewell to childhood. More than 70,000 people attend the celebrations.
This former youth initiation ceremony, with roots dating back to the late 19th century, marks the transition from youth to adulthood. During the bourgeois revolution of 1848/49, enlightened members of free religious communities turned away from Roman Catholic and Protestant churches and their confirmation ceremonies. These individuals developed a new form of celebration, and the term „youth initiation” first appeared in 1852. The Humanist Association of Germany was founded as an association of free-thinking and free religious organizations. Since the late 1960s, its members have used the term „youth celebrations” to describe events for young people held throughout Germany.
