A couple of months before six-year-old Jara started school in London in 2020, her grandmother in Germany was planning a special surprise for the girl: a giant Schultüte , or “school cone”, a kind of cardboard cornucopia traditionally received by German children on their first day of school.
In many German families, all generations they can remember have honored This tradition. Neither the pandemic nor the practical question of how to transport a huge gift to London was going to break the chain.
German school cones appear to be a very simple gift: a large decorated cardboard cone, full of sweets, stationery and toys.
But over the past two centuries, they have acquired a unique place in German culture, as a much loved and deeply symbolic present from one generation to the next, which has a powerful cultural and psychological meaning.
German parents gave away school cones for two world wars, in the rubble of postwar cities and during the decades in which the country was divided.
In the good old days , the cones were filled with luxurious treats; in bad times, with potatoes, or nothing. E The cone itself was the gift.
For many Germans, they are the definitive symbol of starting school and enter a new stage of life.
“For our family, starting school is not possible without a school cone,” says Jacqueline, the German mother of Jara, who works in London as a coach. “I can’t imagine without one, it’s a way to sweeten the first day of school.”
In his home region of Saxony, the cone is given as part of a great celebration, with a ceremony at school and a party at home. It’s something you miss in the UK: “Here, the first day of school is just the first day of school.”
Bettina Nestler, whose family owns Nestler Feinkartonagen, Germany’s largest maker of school cones, describes these school entrance festivities “like a little wedding.”
In Saxony, where the Nestler company is based, the cones are especially lush and planned up to a year in advance.
The cone itself, known in some regions as Zuckertüte (“sugar cone”), is commissioned even in January, to start classes in September.
Origin
It is believed that Saxony, in eastern Germany, is where the custom of giving cones began.
In one of the first references to the tradition, the son of a shepherd in Saxony remembers that his teacher gave him “a sugar cone” in his first school day at 1781.
In those days, cones were simple, little paper bags, stuffed with raisins or other nuts.
Today, they can measure up to 85 cm long and present car pictures , unicorns or astronauts, along with flashing LED lights and even buttons that produce neigh or roar when pressed.
But whether it is of a bag of raisins as of a modern supercon, the essential meaning remains the same.
“The school cone is a traditional rite of passage” , says Christiane Cantauw, historian and folklore expert at the Commission for the Investigation of Everyday Culture in Westphalia in western Germany. “The child is leaving the early years behind and entering school, and this fact is taken very seriously in Germany. And tradition makes it clear. ”
In addition, the cone marks a new special bond : “Through the transition to school, the child moves away from the family unit a bit,” says Cantauw. “And with the habit of giving cones, the family creates a reconnection and conveys that ‘yes, you are now a school-age child, but you are still part of our family. We support and accompany you on this new path, as we did before. ‘”
For some, the memory of that special bond lasts a lifetime .
Hans-Günter Löwe, a retired professor in Hamburg, grew up in the ruins of post-war Germany. A photo taken on his first day at school, at 1949, reveals a strenuous effort by his family to present something similar to normality.
“I’m holding a homemade school cone decorated with shiny aluminum foil. Somehow, my mother managed to make one , ”he says. “She must have done it while I was sleeping.”
Löwe has collected dozens of old school cones, now in a museum, as well as photographs documenting the tradition. In addition, he has written a book on the history of this custom.
So, like now, starting school can inspire feelings of anxiety in children. According to research on early childhood transitions, rituals can help them cope with and experience the moment of change as a positive.
When managed well, such transitions can be “key turning points in children’s lives ”and“ providing challenges and opportunities for learning and growth on multiple levels, ”argue the research authors.
In Germany, cones tend to evoke powerful feelings of homesickness in adults. But as Löwe’s book documents, they have also reflected the tumultuous and violent history of the country.
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In a photo taken during World War I, a girl holds a school cone in one hand and a grenade model in the other.
The children sent photos of themselves with their school cones to his parents on the battlefield. In the Nazi era, some cones featured swastikas.
After World War II, when Germany was divided into the German Democratic Republic (the socialist East) and the Federal Republic (the capitalist West), a new schism arose.
In West Germany, the cones were round and in the East, more angular. Decades after reunification, those differences remain, along with other subtle distinctions between the East and West German cones.
For the Bettina Nestler family, the cones and their East-West history have a particularly deep meaning, one that is intertwined with memories of loss and resistance. “What the school cone means to us is a very emotional question,” sighs Nestler, whose grandfather founded the company in 1953.
He grew up next to the factory, in the middle of the smell to glue. She is proud to have followed her ancestors in the business: “We are part of a very special stage of a person’s life. The beginning of school is a very important step. ”
Today, your firm attends to a new trend: individualism. Parents can order custom cones printed with their child’s name, or even request a unique model based on a personal design.
Cantauw, the folklore expert, explains that the design of the cones reflects the economic fortunes of Germany and also German ideas about good parenting.
In the decade of 1950, when the economy was recovering from the bitter years of the postwar, “it was a matter of showing that you could buy a nice cone, with glossy paper, etc.”, says Cantauw.
But now, for parents who grew up in the relative prosperity of the decade of 1980 and who have successful careers, “the gift is time.” Specifically, the time spent making a school cone: “Parents show the child that they are investing going time ”, he points out.
In 2016, Der Spiegel , a German news magazine, condemned “first day of school madness”, arguing that parents were under a “new kind of performance pressure” to create the perfect cone, which was considered a “love barometer.”
However, in times of crisis, this kind of homemade cone-making can turn into a super power.
Manuela Schmidt, a therapist from the city of Wachtberg, lives near the western part of Germany that was devastated by floods this summer. When he heard that some children had lost their school cones in the floods, volunteered to make replacements with a group of volunteers. Dozens of families contacted her.
The handmade cones, decorated with unicorns, firefighters and planets, offered a sense of hope. “It showed the children and their families that there was going to be a tomorrow, that life was going to go on, even after this catastrophe,” says Schmidt.
Schmidt’s niece, Lillian, age eight, proudly displays hers in a video call: sky blue, with a rainbow, a tree, a moon and stars. He has kept it as a souvenir. “It’s a memory of my first day of school, which was really special,” he says.
As for Jara, the London schoolgirl, her cone sent from Germany was everything she had hoped for. It was almost as big as Jara herself.
happy that I even took him to sleep with me ”, said the girl.
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