Bavarian style

"We didn't realize the right side of the heart would be so difficult," says Bernhard Mumm. At just 50 years of age, the technology chief is already considered an institution at his Munich firm, TomTec.

On a wide screen behind him dances an image of a blood-red heart, the right chamber bent around the left chamber. Creating the beating heart - which can be manipulated and viewed from all sides - was no easy task.

Innovative and tech-savvy

With his 130 TomTec employees, Mumm makes three-dimensional ultrasound images that can be turned and manipulated. You can view the heart from above or below, or even see sections and slices of it. They are the kind of images you usually see on MRIs, not ultrasounds. Few people in the world can produce such images. Mumm is one of them.

Mumm and his team are the kind of people Bavaria's government stands behind: young, innovative, and international. Bavaria is trying to shed its poor, backwoods farmer image, and it is succeeding.

Siemens was its first big catch when the giant corporation moved from Berlin to Munich in 1953 (a particular triumph for Bavaria, a historic rival of Prussia.) It laid the foundation for what would become known as Bavaria's Silicon Valley. Thousands of high-tech, biotech and IT companies today not only have offices in Munich but also the surrounding towns and cities: Nuremburg, Wuerzburg, and Erlangen.

Despite these changes, the farmers have stayed put. The state has some 3.5 million hectares of farmland.

Conservatives at the polls

Anton Kreitmair farms 160 hectares of this land. Along with a biogas complex, he has 700 chickens and a farm stand. He had to give up the pigs, though. "It was the smell," he explains. The people in his village, Kleinberghofen, cling to tradition. There is the local town traditional social club and the hunting club, both of which Kreitmar is a member.

In the voting booth, Bavarians have steadily put the right-wing Christian Social Union in power for the past 50 years, with very few exceptions. Kleinberghofen regularly votes CSU, and people from the countryside are the backbone of the Bavarian conservative movement. The opposition Social Democrat party is essentially wasting its time looking for votes here, many say. They say the SPD only has a chance in Bavaria's big cities.

Even if they don't meet at a political crossroad, the city and country mice - the Mumms and the Kreitmars - do meet in one place in Bavaria: Oktoberfest. The legendary German beer-drinking festival is a must, like a fifth season of the year. Mumm says his employees expect to go there once a year to have a good time together.

Oktoberfest -- a realistic cliche

For tourists, Oktoberfest is one of those key things that make up Bavaria. Other "typically Bavarian" things are the famous brew-pub restaurant Hofbraeuhaus; Bavarias signature dish, pork knuckle; the gorgeous lake, the Chiemsee; Bavaria's highest mountain, the Zugspitze, and the state's best-known castle, Neuschwanstein.

"They're all cliches, but they are also a reflection of our reality," says Mumm with a laugh.

And it is a reality that neither Kreitmar nor Mumm are prepared to give up. Kreitmar cannot imagine life elsewhere but on his farm, or without his regular table at his regular pub with the enormous mugs of beer that he drinks with his buddies.

For his part, Bernhard Mumm once had a visa for the US, when TomTec's headquarters moved there. But at the last minute he thought better of the move, and he stayed - because of his friends, but also because of the mountains, lakes and local food. In the end, he brought the headquarters back to Munich.