English-speaking Campers Expelled

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31178, 30 September 1966, Page 13

English-speaking Campers Expelled

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) MUNICH, Sept. 28. The Munich police today ordered more than 300 English-speaking people to leave the city’s main camping grounds after what they called “a week of Australian hooliganism.”

The campers were accused of being among a group of 200 Australians who staged an hour long brawl in the famous Hofbrauhaus beer hall this week, and a near riot in one of the huge beer tents at the Oktoberfest beer festival the next night. The expulsion order was made after a midnight brawl in the camping grounds. Among those expelled are Britons, Canadians and Americans. Most have moved to another camping ground on the outskirts of the city. In the Hofbrauhaus brawl, young men and women, identified by the management as

Australians, smashed beer mugs, shouted obscenities at women, and brawled with attendants. It took 30 police and 15 beer-hall attendants to restore order.

Tonight many Australians complained that they were the scapegoats for a hoodlum element among Australian tourists and said they bad been treated as hoodlums by the police. They included engineers, an architect and two dentists. However, many of the Australians at the camp said they were “just free-wheeling around Europe,” drifting from city to city, and working when they had to do so.