Now I’ll backtrack to the festival that’s coming up on the 18th and 19th of September. You asked why Oktoberfest is in September. Oktoberfest originally got started when King Ludwig I of Bavaria got married in 1810. His wedding was in October. After that they decided to celebrate his wedding every year. The king wanted it to be a celebration for the people of Bavaria, so everybody was invited. Eventually it started turning into more like a fair-type situation where people were bringing animals and they had horse races and all kinds of things. Of course, now it’s the biggest beer drinking and cultural festival in Bavaria. But at some point, they figured out that it was too cold in October to have an outdoor festival, so they moved it back into September but still called it Oktoberfest. The celebration starts in Germany on the same weekend that we do in Omaha. September 18–19 is the exact same weekend when Oktoberfest starts in Munich. But of course, we only run it for two days in Omaha but in Germany they run it for two weeks.
Thank you. Tell us what to expect at Oktoberfest. food-wise and celebration-wise.
Okay. Well, we call it German Day Oktoberfest because what we actually combined two festivals into one. Our German Day festival, which was started in 1884, used to take place in October and later on Labor Day weekend every year. In 1998, we decided to start doing an Oktoberfest that would be open to the public. At first we were having our German Day on Labor Day weekend and then the next month at the beginning of October we were doing Oktoberfest. We found that it was tough to get volunteers two months in a row, so we decided to combine the two events into one and just call it German Day Oktoberfest. This year is our 142nd German Day, combined with Oktoberfest.
What you can expect is a big festival. We have three areas where we have constant music and we have a big food tent. Admission is $7, but children 13 and under are free. Any active military person with a current ID gets in for free, but they have to show their ID to get free admission.
Is that for dependents and retired military also, or just active-duty military?
Just active.
We’ll have three bands playing all the time: one in the main hall, one in the south hall and another in a tent in the north parking lot. You can sit in the tent and eat while you listen to the band and we’ll have an area where you can get up and dance if you want to. In the main parking lot north of the building, we’ll have two big beer trucks with approximately 10 to 16 German beers. In the south parking lot, we’ll have a large selection of German beers that are going to be on tap. We will also have a large selection of German beers in all three halls.
In the food tent we’ll serve schnitzel, which is a pork cutlet that is breaded and fried and then we’ll have our homemade brats. We also do what’s called currywurst. We make a curry sauce that you can put over your brats, which is a tradition from Germany. We have our own homemade sauerkraut. We do hot German potato salad. We also do the big Bavarian pretzels.
We have a rotisserie where we do whole hogs: six hogs at a time, just like they do in Munich. We can do six whole hogs at a time and 240 whole chickens at a time. We do pork dinners and chicken dinners, but that’s only on Saturday. If you get a brat dinner, it includes a brat and a bun with sauerkraut and hot German potato salad. If you get a schnitzel dinner, you get the schnitzel with a roll with it, hot German potato salad and sauerkraut. We also have a food kiosk on the south side of the building by the garage. If you don’t want to wait in line for a whole dinner and you just want a brat or a schnitzel sandwich, you can get a sandwich and put lettuce and onions and tomato on it, and you don’t have to wait in line. On the south side of the building we’ll have a grill that serves nothing but brats and schnitzel sandwiches. If you just want to have something in your hand and a beer or soft drink in your other hand, you can go over there instead of waiting in line for a full meal.
Outside, we’ll also have a wine booth that sells German wines by the glass or by the bottle. We’ll also have a merchandise booth with German hats, hat pins and T-shirts with this year’s Oktoberfest logo on it, which is beautiful. One of our members helps design it. We also sell glassware directly imported from the breweries in Germany. You can buy half-liter glassware or one-liter glassware. We also have the beer boots, which are one liter or two liters and we also have stone crock beer steins that you can buy.
In the South Hall, we’ll have another band playing and you can go into the Rathskeller on the lower level. We’ll have another bar down there and more seating down there. In our main hall, that’s where our dance group performs and the choir sings.
On the north side of the building, we’ll have a huge tent where people can sit and eat. On the south side of the building, we’ll have another tent where people can sit and eat. We’ll have another beer wagon back there from Spaten, another German beer company.
The building that houses our museum and the library is our torte house. It’s air-conditioned and a little bit quieter and you can go in there and enjoy a piece of German torte and coffee and conversation. From there you can take a walk through the museum.
There will be a lot of activities and on Saturday we’ll have a lot of children’s activities. If you go outside on the west side of the building, we’ll have carnival-style games for the kids. We’ve been doing that for many years. We also have performances with hand-carved marionettes just like they have in Germany. They have a stage that was specially built for them and they do two shows for the kids. We’ll also have face painters back there for the kids.
We try to make Oktoberfest family oriented so you can bring your whole family to the fest. It’s just not a beer-drinking event. You can bring Mom, Dad, kids, Grandma, Grandpa and have a good time. There’s something for everybody to enjoy.
I always tell everybody that there are two aspects to the fest. One is the Oktoberfest aspect with the beer and the food and everything. The other aspect is German Day. When you read the history about German Day, you’ll see that it was celebrated in German communities all over Nebraska. I have souvenir books from celebrations in Lincoln, Falls City, Syracuse, and other German communities across Nebraska. When you go into our museum you can see all kinds of pictures and medals and all kinds of artifacts from German Day festivals across Nebraska.
We have a souvenir book from the German Day Festival here in Omaha in 1913 where they had horse-drawn floats going up Farnam Street. They used to have huge parades in downtown Omaha before the First World War. Of course, when the First World War came along, all of that stopped for a little while.
One reason they started German Day in 1884 when they founded the club was that they wanted to raise funds to build a clubhouse. The other reason was to invite the whole community to come and immerse themselves in the German culture for a day.
That’s actually what German Day is all about: to invite people to come and see what we do and get involved in it for a day or maybe decide to join the club. You don’t even have to be German to join the German American Society.
German American Society
3717 S 120th St.
Omaha, NE 68144
(402) 333-6615
https://www.germanamericansociety.org
