For as long as anyone can remember, the highlight of the annual Christmas market in Augsburg, a wealthy 2,000-year-old city in southern Germany, was the magnificent Christmas tree at the market’s center.
This year, the most popular attractions are the removable security bollards at the market’s edge, newly installed to prevent cars ramming into the holiday crowds.
On a recent December afternoon, half a dozen captivated bystanders stood around three of these mundane-looking posts. Wielding their cellphones, most of them were filming municipal employees as they used a hand-cranked crane to remove the 770-pound bollards every time a tram needed to pass through. During rush hour, that involved removing the bollards roughly once a minute.
“These things are terrible,” said Hannelore Hendrick, 67, a rare bystander who did not take out her phone. “They remind me of the dangers of being here.”
For centuries, Christmas markets have appeared in town squares across Germany during Advent, bringing a sense of community, tradition and seasonal cheer to the darkest days of the central European year. Augsburg’s Christmas market has been held in the city for more than half a millennium, with the only documented breaks occurring during World War II and the coronavirus pandemic. Revelers can buy mulled wine, steak buns and Christmas decorations from brightly decorated wooden kiosks.
This year, the carefree spirit of the country’s roughly 3,200 Christmas markets has been somewhat dimmed. Security at these markets has been a national concern since 2016, when a man steered a stolen truck into crowds in Berlin. Ever since, municipal officials across Germany have tried to prevent further attacks by encircling markets with barriers.
Now, officials are taking things a step further after another attack last December in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, which highlighted a flaw in the existing security measures. A man plowed a rented S.U.V. into the crowds there, killing six and injuring hundreds, after squeezing the car through a narrow gap in the barriers that had been left open for emergency vehicles. To fix that problem 12 months later, the authorities in various cities have blocked such gaps with police vans, metal gates and concrete blocks.
Augsburg, where trams run through the protected zone, is unique in installing bollards that need to be moved hundreds of times a day. The contraption is so unwieldy that it has become a national symbol of the new security environment, attracting attention across Germany.
The mechanism first became famous through social media in late November, prompting coverage from the national news networks. Eventually, a well-known televised comedy show made a segment about it, leading to the charge that the city might be overdoing it, or doing it wrong.
Augsburg’s mayor, Eva Weber, insists that securing the market is worth a few late-night quips.
“It’s better for people to laugh at Augsburg than for people to cry with Augsburg,” she said in an interview.
On a recent visit, I found the security crews hard at work, at one point moving the crane roughly once a minute, attaching the bollard to a hook, whirling the crane’s handles to lift the bollard, and then pushing the whole contraption out of the way of waiting trams.
Once each tram passed, the workers reversed the whole procedure — to the amusement of a small crowd of onlookers.
“At least they don’t need to go the gym,” said Elke Noll, 58, smiling at the physical effort required to make it work.
Comic though the system was, no one I met was opposed to its installation. Reinhold Hohenögger, 59, who has sold metal signs at the market for a decade, said that many of his friends no longer come there for fear of attacks. Lena Beuerle, 23, who was drinking mulled wine with her friends, said that while they can still get into the Christmas spirit, they have become more vigilant as they move through the market.
A national poll last month found that 62 percent of respondents were at least somewhat worried about attacks on Christmas markets; only 35 percent said they weren’t worried at all.
The city is spending roughly 50,000 euros, or $58,000, to secure the Christmas market, according to Ms. Weber, the mayor. That cost includes the wages of a six-person crew that staffs two sets of bollards and cranes for more than 60 hours a week. And it is a small fraction of the estimated million euros that the little market earns each year, she said.
“It would be reckless not to consider how large events can be protected,” said Ms. Weber.
Though the barriers have their critics, some vendors at the market think the eccentric system has helped to attract more visitors to the market. “We are definitely getting more people than last year — and it’s not just Germans but people coming from abroad too,” said Sina Hefele, 21, who sells Christmas-tree-shaped ornaments at a booth a few yards away from the bollards.
“If you want people to come,” said Mr. Hohenögger, the seller of metal signs, “you have to show them that you have thought about security measures.”
Christopher F. Schuetze is a reporter for The Times based in Berlin, covering politics, society and culture in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The post At Germany’s Christmas Markets, a New Tradition: Retractable Bollards appeared first on New York Times.
