By GB News (World News) | Created at 2026-09-29 06:16:00 | Updated at 2026-09-29 07:15:35
1 hour ago
Oktoberfest staff have launched a mass campaign against "far-right hate speech" despite festival organisers insisting there has not been a rise in exactly that.
Around 170 serving staff at Munich's Oktoberfest have banded together under the banner "Waiters against the Far Right," a campaign challenging what its members describe as a growing tolerance of hateful rhetoric at the world's most famous beer festival.
The initiative was set up by two young waitresses identifying themselves only as Fanny and Anna.
The pair have served together at the Oktoberfest and other folk festivals across southern Germany since 2022.
They say they have grown more and more unsettled by certain exchanges they overhear on the festival's famous benches.
Their supporters make up around a tenth of the festival's total front-of-house workforce, estimated to number between 1,500 and 2,000 people.
The catalyst for the campaign was the AfD's commanding victory in Saxony-Anhalt on September 6.
Anna told BR, Bavaria's public broadcaster: "At that point we were actually shocked ourselves that something like this didn't already exist - that there wasn't already an 'Oktoberfest against racism' [initiative], that no one had come together yet."
They pair have claimed to have grown progressively unsettled by certain exchanges they overheard at the festival
GETTY
Fanny also described her dismay, saying: "Sometimes I'm totally taken aback by how some people behave and how it is often shrugged off as tradition.
"There's just really loads of racism and discrimination going on, and it's getting bigger and bigger."
To promote their campaign, the group released a social media video in which more than a dozen members invoked the 1980 terrorist atrocity at the Oktoberfest, when suicide bomber Gundolf Kohler murdered 13 people and wounded over 200.
"We hear what people are saying [at the festival], and for years we have been experiencing how some things are becoming more sayable again and how far-right notions are suddenly drawing less opposition," the video says.
Their supporters make up around a tenth of the festival's total waiting workforce, estimated at between 1,500 and 2,000 people
GETTY
In the clip, one server says: "It is ever more seldom that you hear the phrase 'You can't say anything any more' because now you can say things, things where it would have been clear a few years ago that they overstep the mark."
The servers in the video claimed they have encountered racist, sexist and homophobic abuse from drinkers at an increasing rate.
One member of staff, called Lavio, identifies himself as a non-binary black person in the post, and says he has experienced "queerphobia" and racism as a waiter working in one of the tents.
But the umbrella organisation representing Oktoberfest beer tent operators has pushed back, saying it finds no evidence that incidents of hate speech are actually on the rise.
An estimated 6.5 million people attended last year's Oktoberfest in Munich, which spanned over the course of 16 days
GETTY
A spokeswoman for Lorenz and Christine Stiftl, who run the enormous Paulaner brewery tent, told the Suddeutsche Zeitung their business "clearly" condemned far-right extremism.
However, the operator said they would rather their staff kept politics out of the workplace altogether.
"Of course, our staff can't take [political] positions when they're wearing their work clothes, regardless of what the issue is - just as with the fire brigades, the police and many other jobs," she said.
An estimated 6.5 million people attended last year's Oktoberfest in Munich, which spanned over the course of 16 days.
