Talk:Schützenfest

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Hello, I don't think that it is useful to list every Schützenfest. At least in Germany a Schützenfest can be found in hundreds of villages. So the list would be very very long.

Hi, I must agree with the note above - every small village in the North of Germany has got its own Schützenfest; in summer in the region where I stem from, in a major city at about 70,000 inhabitants (with all the villages connected) two or three events take place every weekend. Furthermore, I am not sure if 'marksmen' is the correct translation of the the 'Schützen'. In my opinion, marksman refers to a person trained for very exact shooting over a long distance - shooting to kill, isn't it? Isn't the expression 'sniper' (in a negative sense? similar? The expression 'Schütze' is linked to the German word 'to protect'. All this evolved from what may be called "home troops" from the era of the Napoleonic War. When Napoleon besieged half of Europe, he quickly conquered a weak and divided Germany what was no longer independent. When the revolution against Napoleon started, every town built up this protection force - rather protecting than able to attack somebody or something. By the way, one of these troops used the colours black-red-golden on their uniforms - origin of the German national flag. Satanius (from Germany), July 7, 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.238.233.70 (talk) 08:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The "protection" notion is important here - the "Schützen" tradition goes back to each city's local militia force as mandated by the jurisdiction under Henry I. ("Gesetz zur Wehrverfassung der Städte" as passed in IIRC 924AD), as such i.e. dating back to the 10th century. In short, for its self-defense, each city was required to maintain an organized militia consisting of its ordinary (male) population. The mandatory training and exercizing for this kind of armed service gradually evolved into competitive shootouts and the festivities attached to them. With the rise of standing armies, these urban militias became obsolete over time, and actually mostly illegal under Napoleon's reign, so all that was left in recent centuries was the respective local tradition of having an annual shooting competition and a Fest to celebrate the occasion. 91.33.223.124 (talk) 18:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The section "Germany" that explains the Großer Zapfenstreich is a huge mess. There is an extremely long run-on sentence that doesn't make any sense, it goes on for multiple paragraphs before it finally comes to an end. Also I have some problems that whoever author edited the article claimed that Schützenfest parades appeal to and are organized by mostly right wing groups. That seems like a personal, anecdotical evaluation more than fact and is not sourced in the article (in fact, there are zero sources in that subcategory of the article at all). As a member of a Schützenverein myself I can assure you that it attracts quite a lot of liberal members as well, and many Vereine actively want to shake the "nationalist" image, as well as their connections to the church. It's true that Schützenvereine generally attract a more conservative audience (especially in places that lean conservative to begin with) but calling it "right-wing" and "nationalistic" is a bit of a stretch, and the way the article is written sounds almost accusatory for enjoying militaristic marching bands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JanFie 95 (talk • contribs) 08:51, 10 January 2018 (UTC)