When big politicians come to the country, the guests from Berlin or Munich like to flatter the respective district administrator as the little king of his district. Someone like Olaf von Löwis of Menar in the Miesbach district may not have the entertainment value of some royalty, but as a kind Royal The 69-year-old CSU politician has already been able to pass among all 71 district administrators in Bavaria. By Monday at the latest, however, it became clear that Löwis cannot currently count on flattery: In the 3,700-inhabitant community of Warngau, where he wants to set up container accommodation for 500 refugees, the Miesbach district administrator found himself exposed to the wrath of those at a citizens’ meeting. who shouted at him that they were “the people”. In the end, the police escorted him out of the hall and drove him out of town in a patrol car.
The people in Bavarian districts elect their district administrators directly, but this only gives the district administrators real independence to a limited extent. Because they are both the head of a so-called local self-government authority and the head of a state authority – namely the lowest one. The chain of command extends from the State Chancellery and the Ministry of the Interior through the district governments down to them. They have to make decisions a reality, something that has never pleased everyone. However, Bavaria’s district administrators were not used to disbelief, provocations, scorn and malice such as those met with by Olaf von Löwis in Warngau, and the massive police presence around the citizens’ meeting would have previously indicated guests from Berlin or Munich.
The elected state officials have to create accommodation for refugees and in doing so make themselves unpopular with some citizens. Every two weeks the government sends such a bus with new refugees to the district, it is said, especially in Miesbach and everywhere in Upper Bavaria. In his own words, Olaf von Löwis once sent a bus that people didn’t want to get out of back to Munich. It didn’t take long until he drove up to Miesbach again.
But to pass the refugees through according to quotas, as the federal government does with the states, the Free State with the district governments and these with the district governments, this option does not yet exist for the district administrators in Bavaria. The individual communities are only vaguely obliged to participate. A district administrator cannot force them to do anything, which the small Greiling in the neighboring district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen recently had the administrative court confirm. In confidential meetings, more and more district administrators have been demanding legal action from their state government in order to encourage reluctant communities to show more solidarity. Olaf von Löwis now publicly wishes for such instruments.
In the Miesbach district there is no exhibition center and no empty barracks for the arriving refugees
Because in the Miesbach district there is no exhibition center and no empty barracks that could be occupied, and hardly anyone wants to pull up the shutters and let refugees move in in all the second homes and third villas on Tegernsee. The owners of some dilapidated hotels and many an empty guesthouse suspect that they can get a lot out of the state, and the negotiations are dragging on. In order to finally free up three gymnasiums in Miesbach and Tegernsee, the Miesbach district administrator can’t think of anything other than to temporarily build a container facility for 500 people in the middle of nowhere on the last district-owned property next to the recycling center, which he himself doesn’t think is a good idea holds.
As soon as he was elected in 2020, Olaf von Löwis, actually a forester, had to impose the Corona measures on the people of Miesbach, something that was just held against him again in Warngau. A year ago he flirted with running again in 2026 because now the better times of district administrator life would hopefully begin. He still hopes so. He wants to announce his decision at the end of the year.