Tapping the Barrel

It was carnival season, and all over West Germany's Roman Catholic areas--the Rhineland, Swabia and Bavaria--respectable Germans were kicking up their heels with Teutonic thoroughness. If Germany's celebrators lack in some measure the Latin spontaneity of those in Rio or New Orleans at Mardi gras time, they make up for it in doggedness. For sheer boisterous hell-raising, carnival time in Bavaria is unsurpassed anywhere. The methodical police methodically overlook the most flagrant disturbances of the peace. The right of every householder and tenant to hold at least one riotous party on his premises is often written into his lease, and a German spouse who attempts to sue for divorce on the ground of infidelity during Bavaria's carnival time is as like as not to be laughed right out of court.

Fool's Rod. In the industrial, urban Rhineland, where the season is called Karneval, the accent is on political satire. Masquerade parties and parades are well larded with speeches whose topical references put their listeners in stitches and often leave outsiders completely bewildered. The rural Swabians celebrate die Fastnacht, as they call it, more in the manner of their pagan ancestors, with many an ancient springtime rite brought up to date. Friendly beatings with "fool's rods" (equivalent to the slapstick of low comedy) are designed to drive out evil demons. To ensure good crops for the coming season on Swabian farms, a maid must sally out in the nude before dawn to dump garbage on a neighbor's manure pile.

But the real storm center of the German carnival spirit is Bavaria, which calls its season Fasching. Every year in Munich, Bavarians let loose in an orgy of mask balls, attended by anywhere from 30 to 3,000 people, all intent on getting their fun where they find it. Political discussion is strictly outlawed, and for those who are married connubial fidelity momentarily abrogated. Some Fasching parties are quite proper affairs, but at others, plenty of sofas, mattresses and love seats are strategically located in dark corners, and costumes are scanty or suggestive or both. At one party in Munich last week, the hostess impulsively offered a prize for the briefest female costume and then proceeded to win it herself by leaving the other girls no way to top her.

Unwritten Law. Despite an early Easter, which cut the season short (Fasching gets going right after Twelfth-night), die Muenchner this year managed to find the money and the strength for more than 2,000 public balls. A partygoer who fails to hit at least five of these routs is slowing up badly. Last week a record 4,200 frolicked at the biggest of all, the Jungle Ball. There is no protocol among the milling, shouting, sweating celebrators on the dance floor at the freer Fasching parties. Anyone can ask anyone to dance, and no holds are barred on the floor or off it. The one unwritten law at each party is that husband and wife part at the door and avoid each other thereafter.

By Ash Wednesday it is all over. Married couples are happily reunited and return, tired but happy, to respectability once more. What makes so many people break loose? A 15th century churchman defending the ancient pre-Lenten customs said: "A wine barrel that is not tapped will surely burst."

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