Each autumn, Munich's Oktoberfest gathers millions beneath a shared mythology of Bavarian warmth and festivity — yet beneath the brass bands and official reassurances, the people who serve the beer and tend the tents have begun to speak of a different experience. Workers at the 2026 festival organized under the banner 'Staff Against the Right,' documenting a pattern of racist and sexist incidents they say go largely unrecorded, invisible to the statistics that declare the event peaceful. Their initiative arrives at a moment when Germany is reckoning with the electoral rise of the far-right AfD
Oktoberfest staff launch campaign against discrimination amid rising far-right concerns
Service staff have experienced racist and sexist harassment, including sexual harassment and upskirting incidents, during the festival.
Suddenly acceptable to say certain things again
Mark
So the staff are saying the official story doesn't match what they're actually seeing. What's the disconnect?
Mimi
The police and organizers report a peaceful festival with 470 offenses by midpoint. But workers say many incidents—racist comments, sexist remarks—never get formally reported. They happen, they're absorbed, they disappear from the statistics.
Luke
Right, but we should be careful here. We know about the 470 offenses because they were recorded. We don't have a number for the unreported incidents. The staff are describing a pattern they're experiencing, but we can't quantify what's hidden.
Mark
Fair. But why now? Why did staff decide to organize this campaign this year?
Mimi
They're connecting it to the AfD's recent electoral wins, especially in Saxony-Anhalt. They see the festival incidents as evidence that right-wing views are gaining social acceptance in Germany more broadly.
Luke
That's their interpretation, and it's worth reporting. But we should note that's their analysis of what's happening, not necessarily a proven causal chain. The AfD's success and the incidents at Oktoberfest are real, but linking them is an inference.
Mark
What about the security presence? Isn't there enough monitoring to catch this stuff?
Mimi
There's 600 police officers, thousands of private security, 56 CCTV cameras. But the staff are saying that surveillance doesn't prevent the behavior—it just means some of it gets recorded and some doesn't.
Luke
And that's the real tension. You can have all the cameras in the world, but if people aren't reporting what they see, or if workers don't feel safe reporting, the surveillance becomes almost decorative.
Mark
So what happens next?
Mimi
The festival ends October 4. The question is whether organizers will actually respond to what staff are asking for, or whether it stays a statement of values.
Luke
And whether this campaign gains traction beyond this year, or whether it becomes a one-off moment that gets absorbed back into the usual festival narrative.
Der Puls
- Service staff at Oktoberfest — servers, bartenders, vendors — launched a social media initiative called 'Staff Against the Right,' breaking a long silence about discrimination they say has become routine.
- A chasm has opened between the official narrative — 600 officers, 56 cameras, a 'harmonious atmosphere' declared by city officials — and the daily reality absorbed by workers on the ground.
- Staff link the festival's climate directly to the AfD's recent electoral gains, arguing that right-wing attitudes once considered socially unacceptable are now surfacing with less resistance and less shame.
- Police recorded roughly 470 offenses at the halfway point, including upskirting and sexual assault cases — but workers insist the true scale of racist and sexist incidents far exceeds what ever reaches a formal report.
- Vendors responded with institutional pledges to reject all discrimination, yet workers pressed for concrete action rather than statements, leaving the festival's final days shadowed by an unresolved tension between words and accountability.
Each autumn, Munich's Oktoberfest gathers millions beneath a shared mythology of Bavarian warmth and festivity — yet beneath the brass bands and official reassurances, the people who serve the beer and tend the tents have begun to speak of a different experience. Workers at the 2026 festival organized under the banner 'Staff Against the Right,' documenting a pattern of racist and sexist incidents they say go largely unrecorded, invisible to the statistics that declare the event peaceful. Their initiative arrives at a moment when Germany is reckoning with the electoral rise of the far-right AfD, and the workers themselves draw the connection plainly: what happens at the Wiesn, they suggest, is not separate from what is happening to the country.
Munich's Oktoberfest opened this year to its familiar pageantry — millions of visitors, brass bands, and official declarations of a peaceful, harmonious event. By the midpoint, roughly 3.8 million people had passed through the grounds, and city leaders and police offered positive assessments. The numbers, on the surface, seemed to hold.
But the workers at the heart of the festival — the servers, bartenders, and vendors — were organizing. A group calling themselves 'Staff Against the Right' began posting videos on Instagram and TikTok, describing what they had been witnessing for years: racist remarks, sexist behavior, and a creeping sense that certain cruelties had become socially acceptable again. 'There's less of an outcry,' they said.
The staff drew a direct line between what they experienced at the Wiesn and the recent electoral advances of the far-right AfD, particularly in Saxony-Anhalt. To them, the festival was not an isolated space but a reflection of a broader national shift — a mirror held up to a country where the boundaries of acceptable speech appeared to be moving.
The gap between official statistics and lived experience was the sharpest point of tension. Police recorded around 470 offenses at the halfway mark, including upskirting and sexual assault. But workers argued that the vast majority of incidents — the casual racist comments, the everyday indignities — were never formally reported, simply absorbed as part of the job.
When pressed, a spokesperson for Oktoberfest vendors issued a statement rejecting all forms of discrimination. The workers pushing for change wanted more than language. As the festival moved toward its October 4 close, the question remained whether the distance between what management declared and what staff endured would narrow — or whether the Wiesn would end as it began, with harmony proclaimed from above and a quieter, harder truth below.
Munich's Oktoberfest opened this year to the usual fanfare—beer, brass bands, and the pageantry of Bavarian tradition drawing millions. By the festival's midpoint, the official story looked clean. Christian Scharpf, the event's director, declared the first week "peaceful." Munich's Deputy Mayor Verena Dietl praised the "good, harmonious atmosphere." Police delivered their own positive assessment. The numbers seemed to support it: around 3.8 million visitors had passed through the Wiesn by halfway, with security holding steady across 56 surveillance cameras, 600 police officers, and thousands of private security personnel.
But the people working the festival—the servers, bartenders, and vendors at the heart of the action—were telling a different story. They were experiencing racism and sexism with enough regularity that it had become a catalyst for something unprecedented: an organized response. A group of service staff launched an initiative they called "Staff Against the Right," posting videos on Instagram and TikTok with a simple message about what they were witnessing. "For years, we've been observing how it's suddenly acceptable to say certain things again, and that there's less of an outcry," they said.
The timing was not accidental. Staff members connected their experiences at Oktoberfest directly to the recent electoral successes of the Alternative for Germany, the far-right AfD party, particularly in Saxony-Anhalt. To them, the incidents they were handling—the discriminatory comments, the casual cruelty—were not isolated outbursts but symptoms of a broader shift. They saw the festival as a mirror of something happening in the country itself: a sense that certain views, once considered beyond the pale, were becoming socially acceptable again.
What made this particularly stark was the gap between what official channels were reporting and what workers were actually experiencing. Police statistics halfway through the festival showed around 470 recorded offenses. But those numbers, staff argued, did not capture the full picture. Many incidents never made it into reports. Racist remarks, sexist comments, the everyday indignities—these often went undocumented, absorbed by workers as part of the job. The statistics could not measure what was not formally reported.
Sexual harassment and assault were documented, though. Police had filed reports for upskirting—the secret filming or photographing of women under their skirts—alongside other forms of sexual violence. These were the incidents serious enough to reach official attention, the ones that broke through the threshold of tolerance.
When asked about the concerns raised by staff, a spokesperson for Oktoberfest vendors responded with institutional language. "The entire Oktoberfest family has always rejected and continues to reject any form of discrimination, racism and sexism in the strongest possible terms," they told Bavaria's public broadcaster. But the workers pushing for change wanted more than statements. They wanted action—concrete measures to address what they were seeing and experiencing day after day.
The festival was set to close on October 4 after 16 days. By then, millions more would have passed through. The question hanging over the second half was whether the official response would shift, whether the gap between what management was saying and what workers were living would narrow, or whether the Wiesn would close as it had opened: with harmonious words from above and a very different reality on the ground.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
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 staff in campaign video
The entire Oktoberfest family has always rejected and continues to reject any form of discrimination, racism and sexism in the strongest possible terms.— Oktoberfest vendors spokesperson
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