Münster, Texas, has been hosting a German heritage festival for almost 50 years. But then some locals rebelled.
WHY WE ARE HERE
We explore how America defines itself one place at a time. In Muenster, Texas, a contract dispute revealed deeper concerns about changing traditions.
Reporting from Münster, Texas, where he ate sausage and sauerkraut but did not wear lederhosen.
Social media attacks. Unyielding factions. An anonymous letter complaining about the damage some neighbors have done to the harmony of a rural Texas town.
The divisions that have erupted in recent months in Münster, Texas, a farming and ranching community north of Dallas, are similar to the political polarization that has torn many communities across the country.
But the struggle in Münster, a city where German immigrants lived, was not about politics. It was about beer.
Or rather, about how to divide the proceeds from beer sales during the biggest event that happens in Münster every year: the city's three-day Germanfest. The dispute has bitterly divided neighbors in a city proud of its Texas German heritage and spirit of volunteerism.
Suddenly, instead of one party on the last weekend of April, there were two – two places for the town's 1,600 residents to enjoy beer, sausages and music, each a short walk from the other, on either side of Division Street.
Not only were competing visions of the city's signature event at stake, but also the survival of the kind of old-fashioned community volunteer groups that have historically been part of the backbone of American cities. They still do that in Münster – and Germanfest has long been their biggest moneymaker.
“It brought tears to my eyes,” said William Fisher, 83, as he ate breakfast at Rohmer's, the town's wood-paneled restaurant serving schnitzels. “Suddenly it seems like the city is in disarray.”
For some, the split marked the culmination of growing dissatisfaction with the growth of the festival, which attracts about 20,000 visitors.
This was especially true after 2018 when the festival moved to a newly built, cavernous interior space on an extensive site on the edge of the city.
“It became more of an outsider thing and lost that local flavor,” said Leslie Hess Eddleman, a dental hygienist and former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. “They made a big show of it for out-of-towners, but not for us.”
But what ultimately led to the split was not who attended the festival, but a dispute over the beer contract, which was up for renewal.
The Jaycees, a civic organization, had long sold the beer, used its members as volunteers and got a nearly 80 percent discount.
The Münster Chamber of Commerce, which manages Germanfest, wanted to renegotiate, first proposing an even split and then offering the Jaycees 70 percent — if they helped decorate.
“We have 100 percent of the risk,” said Matt Sicking, the chamber's chairman and a county commissioner. “If it rains, we lose everything.”
No deal. No one would give in.
'Have you ever heard of a stubborn German? They had made up their minds,” said Wayne Klement, 74, a Jaycee senator. “Then we decided that we would just make it our own party.”
The group was encouraged as others joined them. Many did: the Knights of Columbus, the Boy Scouts, a local meat vendor, the family that plays a hammer-and-nail-in-a-block game they call “nägelschlagen.”
Soon it had become an all-out rebellion.
Who lays claim to Germanfest couldn't be more important in a city like Münster, nestled in the rolling farmland near Texas' Red River border with Oklahoma.
Businesses bear the German names of families who arrived long ago – the Fishers, the Flusches – and never left. The letters on police cars promise 'Zu Serveen und Beschützen' to serve and protect. Every year the high school football team battles its rival in Lindsay, another city with German heritage, in a grudge match known as the 'Kraut Bowl.”
Texas experienced several waves of German immigration in the 19th century. Many settled around the Hill Country towns of Fredricksburg and New Braunfels, near Austin, where some schools taught primarily in German.
“The German language survived longer and more persistently in Texas than anywhere else in the United States,” says Walter Kamphoefner, professor of history at Texas A&M University.
The founding of Münster was primarily driven by friars who wanted to create an explicitly German-Catholic community. They faced some challenges early on: the first church in town was destroyed by a tornado. This also applied to the second one, about three years later.
Life in Münster still revolves around the church. The city has both a Catholic school and a public school. Families with six children or more are not unusual.
“It's just like Europe,” says Chuck Bartush, one of 13 siblings and one of the only lawyers in town. “It's old-fashioned. Almost medieval.”
Münster is also home to a sustainable culture of volunteerism. The Jaycees, a national junior civic organization whose members are community-minded adults age 40 and younger, feature prominently. Local members include city council members, entrepreneurs and the mayor.
Like many volunteer groups in the United States, the Jaycees have dwindled. In Texas there were once dozens of chapters. Now there are only twelve.
The idea for a festival that spotlights the city's German heritage came about as the country prepared to celebrate its bicentennial in 1976. It was an almost instant success, drawing people from Dallas and beyond. There was tug-of-war and arm wrestling and at least once a beauty pageant.
The Jaycees provided perhaps the most important part: the beer. The organization has a refrigerated trailer with space for approximately 200 kegs and 32 beer taps, and a similar but smaller trailer was recently added.
“We depend on this weekend for our club,” Mr. Klement said, adding that the Jaycees had given $165,000 in donations last year, mostly to local families in need.
Chamber of Commerce figures show the Jaycees received about $120,000 from last year's Germanfest, while the Chamber earned $164,000. Mr Sicking said the costs of organizing the festival were increasing.
On the first day of the chamber festival, the rows of tables were filled with people eating sausages on a stick and listening to polka music. Women in dirndls and men in lederhosen toasted each other in synchronized calls of “Prost!”
Down the street at the Jaycee festival in Münster's city park, bands played classic rock as many in the crowd of hundreds reminisced about the past. The enormous beer cart, with its many taps, took a prominent place on the lawn.
“I've traveled all over the world and I haven't found a city as traditional as Münster,” says Shishana Barnhill, who grew up in Alaska and married into the family that owns Rohmer's. “The sense of family in this town is crazy,” she said.
Ms. Barnhill was one of the city's few black residents when a group of white supremacists passed through Munster and stopped at the restaurant. It made her feel uncomfortable, she said, but the response in the city made her feel supported: “They were not welcome,” she said.
As she spoke, people headed to the stands for the tug-of-war tournament.
“Pull!” many in the crowd shouted.
Then the competitors fell to the ground. An audience member proposed to his girlfriend. She accepted.
In the end, the two competing festivals mostly did a good job of ignoring each other. There was plenty of beer around.
Mr. Sicking, the speaker of the House, seemed tired of the fight.
“We can sit here and moan all day, but it won't change anything,” he said. “It will work out the way the good Lord wants it to.”