September is a special time in Bavaria. From the first days of spring at the latest, people here are usually already talking about this “festival” and when it will finally come. I didn't get it at first, and this obsession always struck me as odd. In the meantime I've been living here for more than four years and I have to say:the folk and Oktoberfest fever has gotten to me too. Because there is no nicer way to usher in autumn than pouring beers (note the pun) down the fascia and bawling “Ein Prosit” for hours, the Bavarians are right about that. You have the opportunity to do this every year from mid-August at numerous Bavarian folk festivals, but of course:the highlight of the festival season is the Wiesn in Munich. So today, to celebrate this largest folk festival in the world, let's take a look at the history and origins of Oktoberfest. The whole thing can look back on a proud tradition and the story is not lacking in highlights and drama.
Why do we celebrate Oktoberfest at all?
... is a question that very few Oktoberfest visitors ask themselves. The answer is obvious:To chug down absurd amounts of beer and throw up on the sidewalk on the way home, of course! But the Oktoberfest then and now... Those are two very different things. The festivities did not begin with the beer more than two hundred years ago. Even worse:Originally, alcohol was not even served directly at the Wiesn! After all, the first Oktoberfest was nothing more than a wedding celebration, so such public drunkenness is not appropriate! The marriage in question was that between the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig and Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. They married on October 12, 1810, which was accompanied by all sorts of celebrations, including a horse race a few days after the wedding.
Such horse races had existed throughout Europe for a long time, but by the time of the Bavarian "Royal Wedding" of 1810 they had gone a bit out of fashion. Of course, that's not to say that people weren't excited about the idea of reviving this tradition! And besides, the whole thing now had a slightly archaic touch, which can never hurt in royal circles anyway. On the advice of a major in the Bavarian National Guard, such a race was quickly included in the wedding celebrations, and on October 17, 1810, the race that was to become the first Oktoberfest in history took place on the Festwiese outside of Munich. In addition, there was also a cultural supporting program, for example a traditional costume show was held for the first time, another apparent constant of Bavarian culture. But I've talked about the history of the costume elsewhere.
Although the supply situation for the many middle-class guests at this first Wiesn was consistently miserable and you had to go to the Theresienhöhe just to get a beer or - God forbid - a glass of wine, the festival was well received by the people. But that's probably more of a sign of how poor the entertainment was at the time than it tells us much about the quality of the first Oktoberfest. Either way, people quickly found themselves willing to organize a similar celebration next year. Specifically, in the first few years it was the agricultural association in Bavaria, which was certainly a lot of fun. It didn't have much to do with the wedding of the previous year, but there is one important constant:the venue was soon renamed in honor of the young princess and that's why we're still celebrating the Oktoberfest today on the Theresienwiese.
The Oktoberfest on the way to today's big event
The Agricultural Association certainly intended to hold the Oktoberfest every year from 1811, but it didn't succeed from the start. But good:you didn't have it easy in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars either. The fourth edition in 1813 had to be omitted for this reason, which would happen again and again in history. The Wiesn also paused for a year during the Austro-Prussian War of the 1860s (why shouldn't that have interested the Bavarians)? and throughout the First and Second World Wars, the Theresienwiese remained just as empty in autumn. But at least a new permanent organizer for the Oktoberfest could be found early on, who organized the festival at least in times of peace:From 1819, the city of Munich took the festival under its wing. She still acts as an organizer today.
The road from its simple origins to today's major event was, of course, a long one and would not finally take place until the end of the 19th century. Until then, the festival grew steadily. The first rides - or at least a few roundabouts and swings - existed in the earliest years, but they increased from year to year and towards the end of the century we find the first electronic rides on the Oktoberfest. Beer was soon being served near the premises and from the 1880s also on the premises, but only at stands, not yet in the tents that are so well known today. With the construction of the Bavaria statue, the Oktoberfest received another boost in prestige in 1850 and in the last two decades of the 19th century it finally made the leap to become a major event.
An important step was certainly bringing the Oktoberfest forward to September, which is still causing confusion today. But in September the weather is much better than in October, so you can understand the decision. In the 1890s the first tents finally opened and only a few years later electric light made its appearance, which made the drinking hours almost endless. At least now the festival looks pretty similar to the Oktoberfest of today. In some ways, the dimensions of the Wiesn just before the First World War were even larger than they are today! The total number of visitors may have been smaller, but the largest tent of the time, the Bräurosl, was able to accommodate a proud 12,000 people in 1910. Today, the Hofbräuzelt is the largest of the Wiesn, but “only” has space for almost 10,000 and only if you include the outside area. Almost ridiculous.
Far away from the origin and yet not that far away
The further history of the Oktoberfest in the 20th century is as turbulent as that of the century itself. I have already mentioned that it was canceled in both the First and Second World Wars, but the hyperinflation of the 1920s also brought about the cancellation of the festival. One can only assume that it would have been terribly expensive to collect a beer of around 125 million marks. From time to time, however, people felt sorry for the thirsty citizens of Munich and at least organized a substitute autumn festival. Also something. The Nazis later renamed the festival in a typical manner to "Großdeutsches Volksfest", but that didn't make a big difference, since they threw themselves into the next world war and the festival was canceled again. The Oktoberfest has been held regularly since 1949 and new records are broken every year. More visitors, more hectoliters of beer, more chicken consumed... The Wiesn is a success story and major setbacks like the Oktoberfest attack in 1980 couldn't change that.
The history of the Oktoberfest goes back a long way. However, some of today's traditions are not quite as old as the festival itself. In 1950, for example, Thomas Wimmer was the first mayor of Munich to tap a beer barrel at the opening and announce the famous "O'zapft is". But he not only holds the record of being the first mayor to tap a keg at Oktoberfest. He also holds the less impressive record for the number of strokes it takes to do so. The man had to hit the poor keg up to 19 times before beer finally gushed out of him. "Up to 19" because at some point nobody wanted to count anymore, it was probably just too embarrassing. But so be it:O'zapft is! And that is still all that counts in Bavaria.
The Wiesn is certainly an important part of Bavarian culture and it is not without reason that it is known all over the world. But the history of Bavaria and beer goes much deeper than that. I'll tell you some anecdotes from this very special relationship on the podcast this week. So listen up!