In one and a half weeks it will be the start of the Oktoberfest again, and not just in Munich, where they usually write Oktoberfest without an apostrophe. The celebrations will also take place on the Saurüsselalm near Bad Wiessee, in this case with an apostrophe and with “musical accompaniment”, as can be read in the online calendar of the alpine event venue on Lake Tegernsee.
The next real event in relation to the Saurüsselalm is not listed there, although it could certainly cast a certain shadow on the aforementioned “Wies’n start” and the South Tyrolean-style Törggelen and the church fair dinner and the hut evening with St. Martin’s goose. Because this Thursday the Bavarian Administrative Court is negotiating whether the whole Saurüsselalm should even exist.
The property, which is located about three quarters of an hour’s walk from Bad Wiessee in the Söllbachtal, has existed purely as an alpine pasture for a long time. However, for the longest time it was called “Söllbachaualm” and was used solely for livestock farming. It was only in 2021 that the Freising building materials entrepreneur and Bad Wiessee landowner Franz Haslberger had it spruced up as an event location with some effort. Since December 2021, Haslberger has had the former Söllbachaualm used as the “Saurüsselalm” by the luxury caterer Martin Frühauf, who will also serve typical alpine dishes up there, as the municipality of Bad Wiessee had contractually assured Haslberger.
Frühauf runs the restaurant with a certain degree of success and with controversial results. Many local tourism professionals and hoteliers are happy that they can finally offer their day-trippers and overnight guests something a little more like an alpine hut, after Haslberger was not allowed to renovate the old restaurant “Bauer in der Au” to his liking several years ago and had therefore made it a location exclusively for private parties.
The whole leather fuss is controversial
The Association for the Protection of the Mountains and the Tegernsee Valley Conservation Association, on the other hand, are disturbed by all the noisy, raucous, daytime excursions and evening parties, including shuttle bus services through the once so quiet Söllbach Valley. They see all of this as a precedent for the progressive gentrification of the mountains. Haslberger had to remove a number of the building owners’ arbitrary actions, but in principle this did not change anything, which is why the Association for the Protection of the Mountains finally filed a lawsuit against the Miesbach District Office’s approval for the conversion of the alpine pasture.
The Munich Administrative Court, as the first instance, largely rejected this lawsuit two years ago and only declared the approved 15 extra events plus a minibus shuttle service for private parties to be illegal. However, both sides were dissatisfied with this first ruling and pushed for an appeal, which the Administrative Court admitted due to “serious doubts about the correctness of the ruling”. At the same time, the second instance would have liked to have managed without its own ruling, but ultimately both sides were not prepared to reach an agreement. The case will be heard publicly on Thursday. It is not yet clear whether a ruling will be reached.