Servers at Munich's iconic Oktoberfest call for more respect

"The first week went by peacefully," Oktoberfest Director Christian Scharpf said at the festival's half-way point. Munich's Deputy Mayor Verena Dietl praised the "good, harmonious atmosphere." 

The city's police force also delivered a positive report half-way through the event in Munich.

But if you take a closer look, all is not peachy at the Wiesn. Service personnel are among those painting a very different picture. And they're the ones at the heart of the action. The situations they encounter often go unreported and don't appear in the statistics, but sometimes, a line is crossed, with racist, discriminatory comments, for example.

In response, a group of service staff have launched an initiative calling for "mutual respect at the Wiesn."

In a video posted on Instagram and TikTok, staff say: "For years, we've been observing how it's suddenly acceptable to say certain things again, and that there's less of an outcry."

Service personnel say the election successes of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt, coupled with their personal experiences at Oktoberfest, were a catalyst for setting up the initiative. To them, the current climate is an indication that right-wing views are gaining social acceptance.

Hence the name of the initiative: "Staff Against the Right".

Security at Oktoberfest

In an interview with Bavaria's public broadcaster, Bayerischer Rundfunk, a spokesperson for vendors at Oktoberfest insisted that "the entire Oktoberfest family has always rejected and continues to reject any form of discrimination, racism and sexism in the strongest possible terms".

But supporters of this latest initiative want to see more being done to address the problem.

There's certainly no shortage of surveillance: Oktoberfest is monitored by 56 police CCTV cameras and patrolled by around 600 police officers and thousands of private security staff.

Halfway through the festival, police had recorded around 470 offenses; reports were also filed for assault, sexual harassment and upskirting ― secretly filming or taking photographs up someone's skirt.

Munich's Oktoberfest is the world's largest folk festival and attracts millions of visitors from all over the world every year. At the halfway point, organizers estimated visitor numbers at around 3.8 million people. Oktoberfest ends on October 4 after 16 days of revelry.

This article was translated from German and edited by Soliman Lawrence.

Just how international is Munich's Oktoberfest?