Bayern in Baden

Just like American newspapers, the Sunday Badische Zeitung includes lots of ads (not that you can actually go out and buy anything in Germany on a Sunday, of course). The Edeka supermarket chain has a flyer in today's paper that sheds some interesting light on southern German culture.

The cover tells us the theme of the week: "Feiern wie in Bayern" ("Celebrate as they do in Bavaria"). A smiling, curly-haired young man holds up a glass of Bier. He is wearing Lederhosen and a Trachtenhemd--a special shirt to be worn with Lederhosen. The combination of beer, Tracht, and celebrating Bavarians can mean but one thing: it's time for Oktoberfest, the 16-17 day festival that starts in September and runs until the first Sunday in October.

Ah, but the Trachtenhemd is a giveaway: these are not real Bavarians, but Badisch depictions of Bavarians. The shirt has those fake-horn buttons that make Stefan's mother Helen cluck her tongue disapprovingly, and the photographs on the following pages have similar subtle clues to their inauthenticity.

Take the smiling young woman on the next page. Her blond hair is in braids, and her kitschy Dirndl (see below for some non-kitschy ones) is adorned with jim jams and trinkets. She holds a tray with five glowing beers. But something is not right. Were she a real Bavarian working at Munich's Oktoberfest, the glasses would be mugs, and she'd be holding perhaps as many as four in each hand--eight liters total--which would require a little more muscle on that slender frame.

The next page cuts to the chase. What signifies Bayern better than a Bretz'n (soft pretzel) and a headless, Dirndl-foisted bosom? Carol Adams, the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat, would probably have some interesting things to say about the placement of the phallic Weisswurst (white sausage) below the waist.


And now for some images of real Bavarians in action. Way back in July, Helen's village, Steinebach am Wörthsee, hosted this year's Huosigau Fest. The Huosigau is the region of Bayern centered in Weilheim, south of the Ammersee; it includes Steinebach and the towns around the Wörthsee. The Fest featured a long parade of the various local wind band societies, with everyone dressed in their own very local, traditional Tracht--far more elegant and modest than Edeka's stereotypes.

When people in Freiburg ask me where I learned to speak German, I tell them "mein Mann kommt aus Bayern" ("my husband is Bavarian"). This once elicited the response, "ha, really? But Bavaria isn't in Germany--it's a separate country--and we're happy for it to stay that way!" While Freiburgers might say this facetiously, Bavarians would say it proudly.