Thursday marks the kick-off of Germany's traditional Carnival season. The celebrations will culminate on Monday -- known here as Rosenmontag, or Rose Monday -- when parades will attract millions of spectators in several German cities. Pictured here are masked women participating in the "schmotzige Dunschtig" -- or "dirty Thursday" -- celebrations in Staufen, a small town in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg. In other cities, including the former West German capital of Bonn, women traditionally cut off old ties worn by men in a symbolic act of castration.