Visitors film women under their skirts

The Munich Oktoberfest attracts millions of revelers every year, but it also has its dark side. Currently, degrading videos of women whose dirndls fly up on the devil’s wheel are circulating online – often without consequences for the perpetrators.

follow me

Every day, several hundred people gather on Munich’s Theresienwiese to celebrate, eat and drink. For many, Oktoberfest is the highlight of the year. But the festival is not fun for everyone. Because where there is a lot of alcohol flying around, the boundaries of what is appropriate often disappear.

There are currently more and more videos circulating on social media that are more than inappropriate. There are shots of the so-called devil’s wheel, where visitors try to sit on the ever-faster rotating disc for as long as possible. It is clear that dirndl skirts fly up in the air. The problem, however, is that some viewers take this as an opportunity to film a look under the skirt. In slow motion, zoomed in, sometimes even with special action cameras.

The videos on YouTube have hair-raising titles like “Stunning, hot girls on the vicious wheel,” as the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reports. Some of them have been viewed millions of times and have received borderline comments. One user writes, for example, that he has watched the video countless times and paused at a certain point. Hundreds of people agree with him.

A 33-year-old woman who appears in one of the videos told the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau:

“Upskirting” has been a criminal offense in Germany since 2021.

Not only inappropriate, but punishable

What some would probably dismiss as a harmless joke is punishable in Germany. Since 2021, so-called “upskirting” has been considered a sexual offense and is punishable by a fine or imprisonment of up to two years.

The Munich police told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that proving that the crime was committed at the popular attraction is not so easy. It must be possible to prove that the entire situation was not filmed, but rather only the intimate area. This is not the case with the videos of the Devil’s Wheel.

Even a prohibition sign in front of the ride doesn’t seem to have much effect. The ban is difficult to enforce, says operator Elisabeth Polaczy to the SZ newspaper. If a man in the audience acts particularly conspicuously, her employees approach him and, if necessary, call the police.

According to press releases from the Munich police, only one person has been arrested for “upskirting” at this year’s Oktoberfest. According to the report, a man deliberately took photos up the skirt of a 32-year-old in a festival tent.

Safe space for women at the Oktoberfest

Sexually abusive behavior occurs again and again at the Oktoberfest. For example, the campaign “Safe Oktoberfest for Girls* and Women*” reported that last year 310 girls and women visited the campaign’s safe space on the Oktoberfest grounds. The association campaigns against sexual assault and supports women in distress.

In 2023, girls and women were counseled at the contact point in 24 cases due to acute violence, the campaign further reports. The attacks range from unwanted touching to unwanted kisses and “upskirting” to serious sexual assault. Demand for the service has increased “greatly” in recent years, as can be seen from the Safe Space campaign’s Instagram account.

The city of Lucerne will start rock stabilization measures at Schlössli Schönegg in the Gütsch area next Monday. It is expected to last until January 2025, as the city of Lucerne announced on Thursday.