"As you got closer, though, you'd realize the few hundred mostly men dressed in furry brown costumes were not from a galaxy, far, far away, but had instead assembled for a far more traditional, Earth-bound reason: to play, en masse, the alpine character of Krampus, the monstrous horned devilish figure who, according to custom in this part of Europe, accompanies St. Nicholas as he visits children and assesses their behavior from the past year."
"While St. Nick rewards the good boys and girls, his hairy, demonic sidekick punishes the bad children. "It's basically a good cop, bad cop arrangement," says Alexander Hueter, self-proclaimed Uberkrampus of Salzburg's annual Krampus Run, an event when hundreds of Krampuses are let loose throughout the old town of Salzburg, where they terrorize children, adults, and anyone within the range of a swat from their birch branch switches they carry."
"Hueter skips the centuries of Roman, Pagan and early Christian history that, together, morphed into the legend of the Krampus figure and instead cuts straight to the chase: entertainment. "If St. Nicholas comes to town on his own, it's nice," says Hueter with a polite smile, "but there's no excitement. No tension. I mean, St. Nick is all well and good, but at the end of the day, people want to see something darker. They want to see Krampus.""
On the eve of St. Nicholas, hundreds of mostly men gather at Salzburg's Max Aicher Stadium dressed in furry brown Krampus costumes that from a distance resemble Chewbacca. They portray Krampus, the horned, devilish companion of St. Nicholas who punishes bad children while St. Nicholas rewards the good. The annual Krampus Run releases dozens to hundreds of Krampuses into Salzburg's old town to menace residents and visitors with birch branch switches. Alexander Hueter frames the role as a "good cop, bad cop" dynamic and emphasizes entertainment. Participants travel from neighboring regions, including Bavaria, to take part.
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