More like mid-september and ends first week in October. It ties into the harvest season. Munich isn't the only harvest festival. Most other villages, towns and cities have them, especially in the farming areas of the country. It's just that Munich's became the best known because of it's size. The fact that US servicemen were stationed largely in southern Germany, helped tremendously with American's exposure to southern German traditions too. In Germany though, Bavaria and Saxony are considered kind of like the "red-neck hill-billies" of the country.