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By Matthew Perlman
Brooklyn Daily
Revelers donned their dirndls and laced up their lederhosen on Saturday for a Brooklyn Heights Oktoberfest celebration.
Party-goers poured into the Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church on Henry Street for the occasion, which the church’s pastor said, in decidedly hedonistic terms, had all the ingredients of a good time.
“Good sausage, good pretzels, good beer, and good-looking women,” priest Josef Henning said. “That’s Oktoberfest.”
The original Oktoberfest is held in Munich, Germany each year and lasts more than two weeks. The first, held in 1810, was a celebration of the prince’s marriage. But in modern times it has come to mark the end of summer, and serve an excuse to get together and celebrate, Henning said.
In Brooklyn Heights, the festivities offered area residents a chance to munch strudel and wurst while listening to the sweet sounds of the accordion-like schifferklavier.
“It was a great time,” said Henry Leschke, who played the instrument for the crowd at Zion. “It was packed with people.”
The church, which was founded in 1855, used to help newly arrived Germans get settled here. It has hosted an Oktoberfest celebration for at least the past several decades, Henning said. This year around 200 people turned out, many in German garb — lederhosen for the men and dirndls for the women.
The German-born Henning owns three pairs of the former garments and said they can get pretty uncomfortable at times.
“They’re a pain in the tuchus,” he said. “The straps always crawl up your shoulders.”
But Henning said he had no choice but to wear them.
“My wife would have slapped me upside the head,” he said.