Pedestrians walk past a fireworks store in Berlin, on December 28, 2025. TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP
Could party-loving Berlin ever ban firecrackers and homemade fireworks on New Year's Eve? What would have been unthinkable just a few years ago has become a recurring debate: The intensity of New Year's celebrations in the German capital has become so great that it is not uncommon for Berliners to leave the city that night to avoid them.
Doctors even offer advice ahead of the holidays on the best way to preserve a severed finger – never on ice, as it makes grafting more difficult, one doctor recently explained in the press.
Germans' fascination with fireworks is not limited to Berlin, but the city remains a reference point. New Year's Eve in Germany is the night when all the normal, friendly, sensible and cautious people suddenly become suicidal pyromaniacs, addicted to gunpowder and seeking thrills, wrote Adam Fletcher, a British author of several bestsellers on Germany, in one of his books, How to Be German. In Germany, going outside on New Year's Eve is like stepping into a gigantic game of Bomberman, with 80 million players, he added.
Chilling numbers
