Bavaria

For decades Bavaria has been the embodiment of Germany for foreigners - Germany made flesh. And what flesh! It was - how shall we say this? - typisch deutsch. An apostil from Roger Boyes.

A nervous breakdown

The Americans who liberated Bavaria after the war loved its oompah-oompah bands, its verdant landscape, its beer and its sense of local pride. The Bavarians claimed to be the Texans of Germany and even if the GIs had a different memory of their home state - a raw, dry place, obsessed by cattle, made rich by oil -they nodded and said "Prosit!" at the trestle tables of the Oktoberfest. Often this was the only German word that they succeeded in learning during their two-year stay and certainly the only one they could understand after the Bavarians had mangled the German language.

So it has come a shock for us foreigners to discover that Bavarians, once as self-confident as the Texans, are going through a nervous breakdown.

Fact one: the CSU ( Christian Social Union) which perpetuated single-party rule for longer than some East European countries (albeit without the help of a secret police - nothing stays secret for long in Bavaria) is going to have to share power. This is terrible news for those civil servants (by the way, among the most efficient in Germany) who signed up for party membership in the early flush of youth, soon after their first kiss or their first drunken party. Now ambitious young Bavarians will have to think more carefully before making a commitment to a party. Most outsiders see this as a positive development, a sign of Bavaria's growing political maturity. The Bavarians themselves however seem to believe that a disaster has struck. Some are even thinking of emigrating--to Baden-Wurttemberg.

Fact Two: Bayern Muenchen, the elite team in Germany as far as foreigners are concerned, is behaving strangely. The team's new coach, Juergen Klinsmann has set up the training ground according to the principles of Feng Shui. There are aquariums and gongs and corners of the pitch that symbolise luck, money and good health. And guess what? The players, now as well balanced as their bank accounts, are losing matches. Another Bavarian institution is beginning to crumble. And the Bavarians have yet another reason to reach for the Prozac.

Or a glass of beer. But wait: the Oktoberfest - the annual orgy on Munich's Wiesn - is actually making the locals even less comfortable with themselves. Year by year the Oktoberfest (which for reasons mysterious to foreigners actually takes place mainly in September) makes a few grudging concessions to the modern world. Gay evenings have been introduced, so has Dirndl-Punk - pink hotpants, tight corset - but in the end it remains a medieval event where it is still considered honourable and amusing to be carried out of a tent with alcohol poisoning. Over the years I have come to appreciate the Fest as a form of international cultural exchange as significant, in its way, as the more sober events organised by the Goethe- Institut. After all, almost a million people visited the Wiesn on the first day and they have been coming in huge numbers ever since. I would wager that not many Goethe-Institut conferences attract that number or to the daily consumption of 11 oxen: admittedly not many Goethe participants get stretchered out of their conferences or end the day in a police sobering-up cell. So cultural exchange can take many forms.

Drinking habits of the British and the Bavarians

I used the Oktoberfest one year to compare the drinking habits of the British and the Bavarians (chronicled in a book entitled How To Be A Kraut). The ground rules seem to be as follows:

The Englishman:

1. downs his first drink to overcome his inhibitions. It is drunk fast like medicine.
2. Only then can he talk to his companions. Half a litre later he realises that his companions are boring and starts to talk to strangers.
3. After the third beer the Englishman considers himself irresistible, witty and attractive.
4. Half way through the glass he senses that no-one is listening to him. He gets so angry that he orders another drink.
5. With a short interruption for food or an argument, he falls asleep.

The Bavarian, by contrast, is a master of the drinking arts, an MDA.

1. At the Oktoberfest at least, beer is a breakfast drink, more nutritious(claims the Bavarian) than muesli.
2. Faster than the Englishman, after the second drink, he feels the need to tell jokes to strangers.
3. The mood changes: he starts to complain about the Saupreiss"n (almost anybody north of Mainz) and the Sozis.
4. After the third litre the Bavarian becomes sentimental, feeling the urge to telephone his wife. Sometimes they argue, and he cries, alternating it with loud speeches praising the virtues of his wife.
5. It would be good to go home but he feels... sooo sleepy

Which all goes to show that two drinking nations can learn from each other.

A fixed component of the Bavarian national psyche

The Oktoberfest was a constant, a fixed component of the Bavarian national psyche. One of the most ingenious marketing labels under the rule of Edmund Stoiber (who I believe secretly mixed his beer with lemonade in order to make rational political decisions) was that Bavaria was a land of "Lederhosen and laptops". Exactly: the Bavarians can embrace the modern world but only if their feet are on the ground.

Now however comes the bombshell: most of the Lederhosen worn in the Oktoberfest this year were not cut from the hide of a Bavarian cow. They were made in China! The Bavarians are sitting on Chinese leather!

In short, Bavaria is giving way to the forces of globalisation - and the old stereotypes are changing fast. Slowly but surely Bavarians are becoming wine drinkers (the influence of the Franconians - the Franconian wife of Bavarian prime minister Guenter Beckstein also shocked the electorate by not wearing a dirndl to the Oktoberfest this year) and this is subtly altering their view of the world--and our view of them. Freeing the CSU from the shackles of absolute rule, will improve Bavarian politics; there will be less coziness, less corruption, less provincial back-stabbing. Bavaria is on the cusp of a modernising revolution and we foreigners are only just beginning to catch up with it. So far I like what I see. Even Lederhosen Made in China have their charm.