Save money, eat healthy food or do more sports: The list of Germans’ most popular New Year’s resolutions would be the same as in any country in the Western Hemisphere.
Like elsewhere in the world, New Year’s resolutions in Germany are somewhat like astrology, in the sense that some people take it very seriously, while others may be sarcastic about the whole concept – but in the end, it’s a good topic for small conversation, because everyone has their own particular opinion on the matter.
Of course, most people know that it’s also part of tradition to abandon any New Year’s self-improvement plans within the first week of January.
After all, they’re ideas developed after a week of overeating and probably drinking too much wine with family members who are either superior in all aspects of their picture-perfect lives – or failing completely. That’s apparently enough to inspire more than a few people to start jogging away from the beer-belly and take a break on the sausage.
Oath of the Two Faced God or Peacock
Taking the beginning of a new year as the starting point of change in one’s life is perhaps as old as the calendar itself.
The Babylonians were the first to document their New Year celebrations, about 4,000 years ago. In the rituals of their 12-day festival held in the middle of each March, which at that time marked the beginning of a new year, they would promise the gods to return whatever they had borrowed and repay their debts.
Historians see their oaths as a precursor to today’s New Year’s resolutions. However, the Babylonians were actually under greater pressure to keep their word: if they did not return everything as promised, they would fall out of favor with the gods.
Later the Romans set January 1 as the beginning of the new year. The month was named after the Roman god Janus, who was a two-faced god – one symbolically looked at the past, while the other faced the future. People traditionally make sacrifices and swear oaths to Janus as part of their New Year rituals.
Such oaths took different forms throughout the ages, including the medieval “peacock oath”, during which assembled knights swore an oath to the great bird they were to eat.
The actual modern expression “New Year’s resolutions” first appeared in a Boston newspaper in 1813. Since then, articles offering tips about making really good resolutions — or making fun of the fact that most people don’t keep them — have also become part of New Year’s rituals.
little german touch
If there’s anything particularly German about resolutions, it’s the word itself: “Vorsatzes”, which literally translates to “before sentences”.
Perhaps this could be seen as the ultimate strategy for anyone making a resolution to start the New Year: Don’t talk about your resolutions too much. Instead of all those sentences about how you’re going to start doing this or that, consider doing it without talking about it at all, and see what happens.
If it works, you can thank German etymology.
If it’s not, at least you won’t have to explain to anyone why you started smoking again after spending so much time saying that 2025 will be the year you finally stop.
This article was first published in 2019 as part of the Meet the Germans series. You will get much more from here meet germans on youtube