Slanted Special Issue — Bavaria

Published by Slanted Publishers

Slanted Special Issue Bavaria presents a selection of the best of Bavarian creativity, diversity, and intelligence!

OK … Bavaria stands for: Men in Lederhosen and women in Dirndls (traditional dresses), beer, Schweinshaxen (pork knuckles), Knödel (dumplings), Brezeln and Weißwürste, Oktoberfest, FC Bayern Munich, BMW (75.000 employees), Audi, Allianz, Adidas, Siemens, Alps, Allgäu, Munich, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Dachau, Altötting, Chiemsee, Starnberger See, and all the other lakes, Schloss Neuschwanstein (logo template Disney), Kraus-Maffei Wegmann, Airbus and MTU (most German arms exports come from Bavaria), Deutsches Museum, Pinakotheken, Neue Sammlung, Münchner Kammerspiele, Bayerische Oper, Wagner-Festspiele, Karl Valentin, Gerhard Polt, Lothar Matthäus (“I hope we have a little bit lucky”) … Stop. In the case of Bavaria, the list of clichés can be extended indefinitely. 

Until the 1950s, many still considered Bavaria to be an agricultural state—an image that even then stood for only one side of the Free State. In 1972, the Olympic Games in Munich presented the world with a civilian Federal Republic that had shed the dull gray of the post-war years and was openly looking to the future. The Weltstadt mit Herz (World City with Heart) was proclaimed. Though “The games must go on.”—Avery Brundage, then president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), declared at the funeral service for the eleven members of the Israeli team killed the day before…