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The history

From servants' festival to Munich tradition

How the free morning hours of cooks and house servants became a folk festival, why it was banned in 1904, and how it returned in 1989.

Chapter I · The origin

The festival of those who had no festivals

The Kocherlball is not an invention of city marketing. It is a piece of Munich's social history, telling of the people whose work kept the bourgeois city running.

In the late 19th century, an army of domestic staff served Munich's households: cooks, the Kocherl, along with nannies, chambermaids, maids and farmhands. They had almost no time off, certainly not in the evenings. What remained were the early hours of summer Sundays, before their masters awoke.

So they met at dawn in the English Garden by the Chinese Tower. The gathering became a dance, the dance became a festival: on good Sundays, established accounts speak of up to eight thousand servants, dancing to brass music between five and eight in the morning, talking, courting and laughing, without supervision.

Chapter II · Ban and silence

1904: Stopped for lack of morals

That very freedom became the ball's undoing. In 1904 the authorities prohibited the gatherings; the recorded justification: lack of morals. An unsupervised amusement of the serving class, with dancing and flirting at dawn, did not fit the era's sense of order.

Nearly nine decades of silence followed. The Chinese Tower remained a beer garden, but Sunday mornings belonged to business again, not to dance. The Kocherlball survived only in memory and stories.

  • 1880s

    Heyday

    Servants meet on Sunday mornings from about 5 am at the Chinese Tower, up to eight thousand guests.

  • 1904

    Ban

    Prohibited for lack of morals. The ball disappears.

  • 1989

    Revival

    The ball returns for the English Garden's 200th anniversary.

  • today

    Folk festival

    Every third Sunday of July, around 10,000 guests in Tracht in good years.

Chapter III · The return

1989: The tower dances again

For the English Garden's 200th anniversary in 1989, the Kocherlball was revived as a conscious homage to the historic original: same place, same early hour, same dances. What began as an anniversary idea instantly became an institution again.

Today the ball is carried by the operators of the beer garden at the Chinese Tower together with the City of Munich's Department of Arts and Culture. It takes place every year on the third Sunday of July from 6 to 10 am, free of charge, and in good years gathers around ten thousand people in traditional dress, many in historic servants' clothing. The servants' festival has become everyone's festival, and it has stayed true to its origins: early, outdoors, for all.

On historic attendance: established accounts speak of up to eight thousand servants, individual reports of up to five thousand. The order of magnitude is certain, the exact number is not.

Questions about the history

In brief

Where does the name Kocherlball come from?
From Kocherl, the Bavarian word for kitchen and household staff. The ball was the servants' festival: cooks, nannies, maids and farmhands.
Why was the Kocherlball banned in 1904?
The authorities officially prohibited it for lack of morals. The early, unsupervised amusement of the serving class did not fit the propriety of the era.
Since when has the Kocherlball existed again?
Since 1989. It was revived for the English Garden's 200th anniversary and has taken place every year since, on the third Sunday of July.
Why does the Kocherlball start so early?
Because servants only had the early morning hours free, before their masters woke and duty began. The early start is the historic core of the festival.

History you can dance along to

Every third Sunday of July, back since 1989.

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