The image of the Schützenliesl—the cheerful Bavarian beer girl in a dirndl, balancing steins and bringing a little flirtatious swagger to the beer hall—has been tied to Munich festival culture for well over a century. The original Schützenliesl was not a fictional mascot, but Coletta Möritz, a Munich beer waitress who modeled for artist Friedrich August von Kaulbach. In 1881, Kaulbach depicted her for the 7th German Federal Shooting Festival on Munich’s Theresienwiese, where an enormous version of the painting decorated the Schützenliesl beer tent and Möritz herself reportedly worked as a server. She later became a successful restaurateur and one of Munich’s best-known symbols of beer-hall life.
Over time, the Schützenliesl became an archetype for generations of Oktoberfest beer-hall women: dirndl-clad servers carrying enormous Maßkrüge through packed tents, smiling for photographs, trading jokes with customers, and somehow maneuvering through crowds while hauling more beer than seems physically reasonable. There was never one official historical troupe called the “Schützenliesl girls”; rather, the name and imagery came to represent that distinctly Bavarian combination of toughness, hospitality, traditional dress, and festival glamour. Her popularity was reinforced by postcards, advertising, souvenirs, and the famous “Schützenliesl” song, which became an Oktoberfest hit in the early 1950s.
The tradition is still very much alive. In 2022, the Volkssängerzelt Schützenlisl returned to the Oide Wiesn, the nostalgic section of Oktoberfest devoted to preserving the atmosphere of earlier celebrations. Its music, beer-hall décor, and emphasis on old Munich traditions deliberately recall the world that produced Coletta Möritz and the original Schützenliesl—making the familiar sight of women in elaborate dirndls carrying towering steins feel like part of a tradition stretching directly back to the nineteenth-century Wiesn.
