In Bavarian politics, nothing has changed since 1899

Munich, 1899. Josef Filser, a "normal" farmer from a village in Upper Bavaria, is persuaded by his local priest to run for the Bavarian State Parliament - and gets elected. He experiences politics and the State capital Munich as a sort of a jungle where one has to find his way. His personal trouble: he does not understand anything about politics and lacks any unnecessary education.

The mini-series is based on a book by Ludwig Thoma, "Jozef Filsers Briefwexel", where the story is told in letters and, mhm, political declarations. Both are terribly misspelled and hardly legible even for Germans unless they speak Bavarian dialect. For those who do, it is great fun, even today.

In the hundred years since the publishing of the book, hardly anything has changed: Bavaria still has an arch-conservative and very Catholic Government. Only the King has gone.

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Josef Filser

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