No, this is not the world of the great restaurateur Günter Steinberg, you can see that. The Wiesn host of the Hofbräu tent had to appear with his wife Margot before a criminal court at the Munich District Court on Tuesday morning. The upholstered seats in the dock, on which the host couple had to sit in room A 101, have been removed. Not a place of comfort. The public prosecutor’s office accuses Günter Steinberg and his wife of granting advantages as complicity.
For Oktoberfest in the years 2014 to 2018, the two gave 50 vouchers worth around 1,000 euros to the Grünwald Police Inspectorate (PI) responsible for their place of residence, each for a pint of beer and half a chicken. The district court had therefore issued penal orders against the innkeeper couple. In the case of Günter Steinberg, it was 90 daily rates of 300 euros each, and his wife also had 90 daily rates of 100 euros each. Because both lodged an objection, the matter was now heard before the district court. Anton “Toni” Roiderer, the landlord of the hacker tent at the Wiesn, will soon have the same thing: He also gave the Grünwald police Wiesn vouchers and received a penalty order.
The public prosecutor targeted Günter and Margot Steinberger in 2019 in the course of investigations into the then head of the Grünwald police department, Andreas A. He was accused of having received champagne and other gifts from companies and vouchers for the Oktoberfest between 2014 and 2019. A. was then suspended from duty and received a penalty order for taking advantage, which he accepted.
According to Steinberg, it is a tradition in Munich for Oktoberfest landlords to give out vouchers
Shortly after the presiding judge opened the hearing on Tuesday, Günter Steinberg spoke up and asked if he could say something. “You may,” replied the judge – and the 82-year-old started with sweeping arm movements. It is correct that he and his wife donated beer and chicken vouchers to PI Grünwald for the Wiesn. “I wish you a beautiful Wiesn,” they said to the officials.
And anyway: In Munich it is a tradition that the Oktoberfest hosts are asked by the host spokesman to hand out vouchers for the Oktoberfest – to those “who help you all year round”. With this gesture, he and his wife wanted to say “thank you” to the officials for “helping the people and not us”.
The public prosecutor’s office, on the other hand, assumes “climate care”. The vouchers were intended to lead to “general goodwill” between the officials and the host couple. Günter Steinberg said he didn’t know it was illegal to hand over vouchers to the police.
In fact, until recently, the so-called Oktoberfest guard was allowed to accept vouchers for beer and chicken. Wilhelm Schmidbauer, the former president of the Munich police headquarters, expressly approved this in 2011. A former officer of the Grünwalder PI said during his interrogation that since the Wiesn guard was allowed to accept vouchers, he and his colleagues had no pangs of conscience. “They do it in Munich too,” he thought.
Günter Steinberg’s defense attorney, Ulrich Ziegert, told the judge that the Wiesn guard had received 400 vouchers for a beer and 400 vouchers for half a chicken every year from the innkeepers of the large tents alone. The donations from his clients to the Grünwald police station, on the other hand, would appear to be downright modest.
The verdict came in the late afternoon: the presiding judge acquitted Günter Steinberg and his wife. The reason given was that there was no evidence of an “unlawful agreement” between the innkeeper couple and the officials at the Grünwald police station.