Overview
- Totensonntag, the evangelical day of remembrance on the last Sunday before Advent, falls on 23 November this year and is treated as a protected quiet day rather than a statutory public holiday.
- North Rhine-Westphalia bars sports and comparable public events from 5:00 to 18:00, which halted amateur competition and shifted professional fixtures to late slots.
- The Regionalliga West moved most matches off Sunday, with VfL Bochum II vs. FC Gütersloh kicking off at 18:00, Rot-Weiss Essen hosting Energie Cottbus at 19:30, and DEL games in Iserlohn and Cologne starting at 18:00.
- Christmas markets in several NRW cities remained closed during the day, with selected venues reopening in the evening in Cologne, Dortmund, Aachen and at Oberhausen’s Centro, while Münster’s market opens on Monday.
- Rules vary by state—examples reported include Bavaria roughly 2:00–24:00, Berlin 4:00–21:00 and Hamburg/Bremen 6:00–17:00—while churches mark the day with memorial services on-site and online via trauernetz.de, and Saxony’s church promotes cemetery preservation.