The maypole is a piece of living history, and to understand why whole villages will feud over a tree, you have to look back a few centuries.
Where the maypole comes from
The custom is rooted in old spring rites in which the green tree stood for vital force and growth, for the victory of the warm season over the cold. In its present form the maypole is documented in writing only from the 16th century onwards, and it took firm hold above all in the Bavarian and Alpine regions.
What the maypole means
Its real meaning lies less in the tree than in the people who raise it. The metal guild emblems, the figures and plaques show the trades and clubs of a place. A maypole is a directory of the community, hung up high, an expression of pride and sometimes of a small contest over who has the taller, finer tree. More on the page about the meaning of the maypole.
What a maypole looks like
Usually a tall spruce or fir, stripped of branches and peeled, the trunk often painted in a white-and-blue spiral, the colours of Bavaria. A green crown or a wreath is left at the top as a sign of fertility. Heights of around 30 metres are typical; individual record trees exceed 50 metres. Everything else is handwork, built up over weeks, and no two trees are alike. How a tree is decorated is an art of its own.
A maypole is not a monument you set up once and forget. It is felled, decorated, guarded, stolen, ransomed and replaced. The custom lives in these acts, not in the wood.
How long a maypole stands
That varies from place to place. Some trees are taken down again at the end of May; many village maypoles stay up for a year or more, until a new one replaces them. The city maypole at the Viktualienmarkt, for instance, is renewed roughly every five to six years.
The maypole in Munich
At the Viktualienmarkt the maypole has long become a landmark, and in many districts, from Maxvorstadt to the edge of the city, it belongs to spring as firmly as the first radler in the sun. For further cultural-historical background (in German), see the editorial archive Brauchtum München.