Vman things you only learn to appreciate when they are no longer there. It’s different at the Oktoberfest. It went very well for two years without Wiesn flu and poorly poured beer, at least for everyone who doesn’t earn their money with it. But now that the festival is back, you realize that somehow it was missing.
Among the social vegetation zones, the Oktoberfest is the rain forest, a world like a hidden object book in which it crawls and flees and shimmers. Life mainly consists of pulling yourself together and sticking with it, here you can let go for a few hours.
Anyone who has ever witnessed strangers swaying arm in arm on beer benches after the first or maximum second beer, without suspecting cultural appropriation, has an inkling of what good people could be capable of. “Those who dance don’t beat themselves,” said the cheerful Munich police these days.
Bavaria is really a benchmark here
On the other hand, the varnish of civilization on the festival grounds is traditionally particularly thin. You can see that after the last bar, when deranged men wander through the tents to dust off stale beer leftovers in abandoned mugs. It is all the more astonishing that the city always succeeds in staging the festival without major incidents and with dignity. Here Bavaria really is what it sometimes only pretends to be: a benchmark.
Visibly fewer people came this year than before the pandemic. That may have been due to the mixed weather, the fear of infection, travel obstacles for Asians, money worries in the face of inflation and the energy crisis, a bad mood in the face of everything. But it doesn’t have to be bad if the limits to growth also manifest themselves at the Oktoberfest, especially not for families and locals who just want to spend a relaxing afternoon there.
The fact that you don’t have to worry about the brand is shown by the many influencers, who often only go to the tent for half an hour, mime exuberance for social media and then evaporate again. This is more unreal than any ghost train. Politicians don’t behave very differently. Markus Söder believes that his chances of election increase with every bath in a marquee. And even the cautious Greens, who certainly don’t understand moderation as moderation, were present at the Wiesn without a mask.
Theater of illusion exposes theater of illusion
Ironically, the illusion theater Oktoberfest has completely exposed the way politics deals with Corona as an illusion theater. Here, what has long been unspoken government policy was practiced with particular consistency: they let things run their course. Is that responsible? There were other big festivals this year. The number of infections rose afterwards, and the hospitals got along with it. Does that also apply to the Oktoberfest, which is visited by virus hosts from all over the world?
Since the pandemic has lost its terror or has been replaced by other, even greater terrors, the health aspects of dealing with it have taken a back seat. It is increasingly about the question: How do we want to live, what image of ourselves do we want to correspond to? From that point of view, Munich probably owed itself not to play it safe again.
The doubts have remained, not only because of the pandemic. The mayor wondered whether one should celebrate in Munich, a twin city of Kiev, when a deadly war raged just 2,000 kilometers away. The answer is yes.
Piety does not help anyone in Ukraine, it is at best an excuse for doing nothing. People have to celebrate, they probably also need debates about harmless things like the song “Layla” because they can’t constantly deal with the real problems. This is also shown by pictures from Ukraine, where people continue to go to cafes or go swimming.
In Germany, the alarm is constantly sounded, as if we too were already at war. People find all sorts of things unbearable and unbelievable and challenge others to do the same. Times are undoubtedly bad. But many underestimate the power of demonstrative normality and composure.
They are also contagious. After terrorist attacks – the Wiesn was also affected by one – it was often said: We have to continue living as before in order to assert our western lifestyle. It’s by no means as great as we made it out to be – the “puke hill” on the edge of the fairgrounds serves as a memorial.
But anyone who last saw the pictures of the Taliban taking power a year ago or those from the Ukraine war can only come to the conclusion: celebrate whoever can. Germany is also defended on the Theresienwiese.
