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Festivals are as German as Goethe
The Wollenschlaegers have been operating carnivals in Germany for a long time. Thilo Wollenschlaeger says it must have been his great-great-grandfather who first went into the business. His father, born in a mobile home, founded the German-American Folk Festival in Berlin, one of the oldest and most important festivals in the city, and once rode in a 'Wild Mouse' roller coaster with chancellor of West Germany Willy Brandt. He was called the Carnival King of Berlin. Thilo has done his best to fill these big shoes,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but when asked whether his children will carry on with the business, he says it doesn't look likely.
At the same time, German folk fests have always been popular. The Germans not only have as many names for them as Eskimos have words for snow, they also attend them in huge numbers. Even when the word 'crisis' is on everyone's tongue. The German Association of Festival Operators counted 178 million visitors to 12,000 folk fests in 2007, not counting 60 million additional visitors to the thousands of German Christmas markets. It looks as though 2008 will offer up comparable numbers,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], financial crisis or no. "People might not be buying an Opel Astra,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but a bratwurst or a raffle ticket, they still treat themselves to that,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," says Wollenschlaeger. Despite this, the picture is less than rosy at the moment. "Bureaucracy is killing us these days," he says. It's not the revenues that he's worried about. It's the state.
Wollenschlaeger is no complainer, but a good-natured man in his early 40s. He wears a Rolex on his wrist, places his cell phone and Blackberry on the table, which twinkle and jingle to compete with the rides on the festival grounds outside. Wollenschlaeger is proud of his family's successful business, but he turns red when talking about the government, when he counts off the ways that it bothers him.
At midday people are already crowding the Christmas market he operates in the west Berlin borough of Spandau. His employees have already pushed the second and third rounds of Gluehwein over the counter. In the decorated first floor of the carnival hut called 'Pyramide', their boss explains how the state impedes his business: Ten different taxes and nine mandatory types of insurance are required, Wollenschlaeger says. On top of this come technical inspections, permit fees for using public spaces, drinking water analyses. And then the fear of being evicted from traditional locations because an investor wants to build a shopping center or a parking garage. "The state," the Carnival King Wollenschlaeger says with frustration. "Win, win, win," says the raffle stand outside.
German folk festivals define the national identity like Goethe, beer and the Wartburg castle. "Festival operators have been carrying on the tradition for hundreds of years," said Helmut Gels, head of the German Association of Festival Operators as he presented a proposal that could change everything for the industry. The festival operators want to place German folk festivals and carnivals under the protection of the UNESCO; the 'kirmes' should be elevated to world cultural heritage.
Since 2006 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has been including "immaterial cultural heritage" in its list of cultural treasures as well as historic sites and buildings. This intangible heritage includes languages, cultural traditions and ancient craft techniques, all at risk of dying out. The vimbuza healing dance from Malawi, the centuries-old hudhud chants of the Ifugao people of the Philippines, the Vanuatu sand drawings are among the 90 'Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity' that have made it onto the 'representative list'. The UNESCO program is intended to preserve these 'masterpieces', or revitalize them, depending on the case. As for revitalization, the German folk festival operators could use some of it too.
Thilo Wollenschlaeger proudly points to what he has built between a bratwurst stand in front of the C clothing store and the merry-go-round on a street corner: In front of the raffle wagon 'Jolly Joker' kids are admiring human-sized Spongebobs; the wooden huts for the jewelry and sock dealers are all rented out; the stuffed moose head at the Gluehwein stand next to the 'Euro-slide' says "Ich bin ein Berliner". People approach Wollenschlaeger as he wends his way through his domain, housewives, teachers, civil servants. All of them appear happy. But the fair is no longer the eye-opening, transformative adventure of long ago.
This is what the Volksfeste were back when Wollenschlaegers ancestors traveled the country with their caravans. "Bizarre people and their arts can be seen in these side shows of abnormality," wrote the philosopher Ernst Bloch in 1940 in his 'Souths Sea in Fairs and Circus'.
"The sword-swallower and the fire-eater, the man with the untearable tongue and the iron skull,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the snake charmer and the living aquarium; Turks, pumpkin-men and female giants are there. And in addition to the strange foreigners, there are always the fairy-tale characters, and those from horror novels: oriental labyrinths,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], jaws of hell, ghost castles,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," wrote Bloch.
At the Christmas market in Berlin-Spandau there is a clown. He fashions balloons into dogs and giraffes, his makeup is a little smudged, his white suit a bit dirty. "Do you know who I think one of the greatest showmen is today?" asks Wollenschlaeger, buying a paper bag of almonds from one of the hawkers. "David Copperfield!" But he shrugs his shoulders at the fact that Copperfield performs in Las Vegas and not at his folk festivals. TV shows have absorbed most of the other side-show folks,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], artists, and eccentrics as well. Thilo Wollenschlaeger is someone who focuses on business, however, on the here and now.
The best paid 'artists' at the high point of the folk festivals at the turn of the last century were the so-called 'recommandeure', the showmen who would stand before the stalls telling raunchy jokes and attracting customers inside their tents with their special brand of burlesque. The fair operators called this art of entertaining salesmanship 'parade making', and it created stiff competition with the sellers of goods from the beginning. At the Hamburg folk festival, for example,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a 'parade maker' promised a sensational view of 'Hamburg at Night'. Those entering the stall, expecting a scintiallating spectacle, were merely treated to a view of the city when a curtain was raised.
It may at first seem strange that the resourceful businessmen running the folk fests have sought to secure their futures with intellectual bureaucrats at the UNESCO in Paris, but then the festival operators have always shown that insecurity can inspire innovation just as much as actual hardship.
Within Germany, they have already made some progress. In a declaration in 2000, the German parliament designated folk fests to be a national cultural treasure worthy of protection. This helped the operators to get an exemption from highway tolls, though they maintain that more important than subsidies is the recognition, says Wollenschlaeger. A more broadly recognized label would be helpful in opening doors. Other applicants for UNESCO recognition include the Spanish agricultural minister (for tapas), and the former vice president of the German parliament Antje Vollmer, fighting for German theater in general being recognized. The goal is to create an international brand like that of the Munich Oktoberfest.
There is a big hurdle in the way, however: Germany is not among the 104 countries that have ratified the UNESCO convention on intanglible cultural heritage,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], so it has no right of initiative. UNESCO spokesman Dieter Offenhaeuser calls the festival operators' proposal "wishful thinking." It is also unlikely that any progress will be made during this legislative period. Even if it would be,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the festival operators would need to convince a large number of committees that the designation of 'Volkfeste' as world cultural heritage would further the respect of cultural diversity. Thilo Wollenschlaeger is not planning to sit around until then. On the contrary.
He did not baptize his daughter in a tent, as is the custom among fair operators, for nothing. He wants to bequeath something to her, and so he thinks of some new innovation each year. This time it is the 'American' Christmas market across the street. It is supposed to attract young people. There are bumper cars instead of crotched socks, Santa Claus arrives on a Harley, and Shania Twain tribute singer Katie Grant performs in the evenings. "We do rock n' roll Christmas instead of 'Silent Night'," says Wollenschlaeger.
He knows that this 'American' Christmas market won't please everyone. There will be people who want it to be more traditional,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], less commercial. He tells them the same thing every year: "Have you ever noticed that people in Berlin say 'Merry Christmas' instead of 'Pleasant Christmas' as they do in Nuremberg?" He makes a dramatic pause. "In Berlin there were always merry-go-rounds at the Christmas markets. People like to party here!"
Now it becomes clear: If anyone could sell one of the 'ice cream burgers' available at the 'American' Christmas market as a symbol of cultural understanding, then Thilo Wollenschlaeger. He may not be an ethnologist,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but he knows a thing or two about 'parade making'.
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