Despite its importance to the city, Oktoberfest isn’t Munich’s “Fifth Season.” City residents let loose again in February during Fasching, a carnival celebration with religious roots.
In the Middle Ages, Catholics observing Lent (the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter) once refrained from eating any animal products or engaging in any kind of sexual contact. Rather than give them up cold turkey, they began to hold dances, feasts, and other celebrations just before Ash Wednesday. Though strictures have since relaxed, the pre-Lenten partying has only intensified. Cities all over the world celebrate Mardi Gras, Carneval, Fosnat or Fasching, often without concern for its religious background. What’s more, the celebration has evolved to incorporate other elements of social performance. Costume parties and masquerade balls are perhaps a trace of a pre-Christian tendency to scare away the demons of winter with frightening get-ups. Political satire and reversing social order with a festival king and queen were initially a response to the frustrations of repressive 19th-century life.
In fact, Fasching begins with such a flip of conservative social mores: On Dirty Thursday, six days before Ash Wednesday, women take control of the city. Officials often give a women’s group the keys to the city, and tradition dictates that females are free to snip off the ties of any unguarded men. The next six days are full of wild festivities that have been in the making since the season opened on November 11. A complete list of the dozens of Fasching balls that will be held throughout the city is available at www.muenchen.de.
This year’s traditional Fasching parade will actually take place the weekend before, on February 11 at 11 am. Dancers, bands, more than 60 satirical floats, and children’s groups will party their way from Odeonsplatz through Königsplatz to the Löwenbräukeller at Stiglmaierplatz. More than 20,000 spectators are expected to participate as the city welcomes the beginning of this “Foolish Season.”
