The People's State of Bavaria (German: Volksstaat Bayern)[nb 1] was a short-lived socialist state in Bavaria from 1918 to 1919. The People's State of Bavaria was established on 8 November 1918 during the German Revolution, as an attempt at a socialist state to replace the Kingdom of Bavaria. The state was led by Kurt Eisner until his assassination in February 1919. Its government under Johannes Hoffmann went into exile in Bamberg when the rival Bavarian Soviet Republic was formed on 6 April 1919. The People's State of Bavaria was dissolved upon the establishment of the Free State of Bavaria on 14 August 1919.
Munich soldiers after the proclamation of the republic
The roots of the People's State of Bavaria lay in the German Empire's defeat in the First World War and the social tensions that came to a head shortly thereafter. From this chaos erupted the German Revolution of 1918. At the end of October 1918, German sailors began a series of revolts in Kiel and other naval ports. In early November, these disturbances spread civil unrest across Germany.
Postage stamp of Bavaria's King Ludwig III with the overprintVolksstaat Bayern (People's State of Bavaria)
Munich, the capital of Bavaria, was "an island of anarchic bohemianism and political radicalism in an otherwise predominantly Roman Catholic rural sea of small towns and timber houses scattered across the foothills of the Alps," according to Michael Burleigh.[1]Alan Bullock writes that "Few towns in the Reich were as sensitive to the mood of unrest as Munich: its political atmosphere was unstable and exaggerated towards one extreme or the other,"[2] and, according to Joachim Fest, "No other city in Germany had been so shaken by the events and emotions of the revolution and the first postwar weeks as excitable Munich."[3]
Extensive constitutional reforms of the governing structure of the Kingdom of Bavaria, under discussion between the royal government and all parliamentary groups since September 1917, were agreed to on 2 November 1918. These included, among other things, the introduction of proportional representation and the transformation of the constitutional monarchy into a parliamentary monarchy. However, events on the ground were outpacing these measures.
Beginning on 3 November 1918, protests initiated by the socialist Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) called for peace and demanded the release of detained leaders. On the afternoon of 7 November 1918, the first anniversary of the Russian revolution, Kurt Eisner, an idealistic Independent Social Democratic Party politician[4][5] addressed a crowd estimated to have been about 60,000 on the Theresienwiese – current site of the Oktoberfest – in Munich. He demanded an immediate peace, an eight-hour workday, relief for the unemployed, abdication of Bavarian King Ludwig III and the German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and proposed the formation of workers' and soldiers' councils. The crowd marched to the army barracks and won over most of the soldiers; those who didn't go over to the revolution were too war-weary to mount any resistance to it.[6] The combined group, estimated to be more than 100,000, then marched to the Residenz Palace.[7] That night, King Ludwig, abandoned by the army, fled from the Palace with his family and took up residence in Anif Palace in nearby Salzburg, for what he hoped would be a temporary stay. He was the first of the monarchs in the German Empire to be deposed.
The next day, Eisner, having gotten the approval of the local revolutionary workers' and soldiers' councils,[8] declared Bavaria a "free state" – synonymous to "republic" – a declaration which overthrew the monarchy of the Wittelsbach dynasty, which had ruled Bavaria for over 700 years, and Eisner became Minister-President of Bavaria.[9] Eisner was a middle-class Jew who had been a drama critic in Berlin before he left his wife and family to come to Munich, where he took up with a female journalist, frequented the cafés of the Schwabing district of the city, and wrote reviews for the Müchener Post – although he later lost his job because he was part of the "revisionist right-wing" of the Social Democratic Party, which wanted the party to drop its attachment to Marxist ideology.[8]
Eisner helped found the Munich branch of the Independent Social Democratic Party and became known for his anti-war stance, which had garnered him eight months in jail after he organized a number of peace strikes in January 1918; he was released under a general amnesty in October 1918.[8] Despite his gift for rhetoric and oratory, Eisner had no political or administrative experience when he became minister-president.[3][10]
Eisner government
Kurt Eisner, the Minister-President of the Free People's State of Bavaria
On 12 November 1918, King Ludwig III signed the Anif declaration releasing both civil and military officers from their oaths; the newly-formed Eisner government interpreted this as an abdication, although to date, no member of the royal House of Wittelsbach has ever formally renounced the throne.[12]
On 7 January 1919, a Provisional State Constitution (Vorläufiges Staatsgrundgesetz) was promulgated.
The new republic started out with many strikes against them. None of the leaders were native Bavarians, and they were bohemians and intellectuals – many of them Jewish – who were conspicuous in their anti-bourgeois bias. Those from the right called Eisner a "foreign, racially alien vagabond" and a Bolshevist, and his associates as "unscrupulous alien scoundrels", "Jewish rascals" and "misleaders of labor". Eisner did not help matters by declaring his regime would have "government by kindness", and would create a "realm of light, beauty and reason." There were frequent spectacles such as parades, demonstrations, concerts, and speeches, but the regime's philosophical Utopianism won over few converts. Eisner even admitted to German guilt for World War I at a socialist conference in Bern, Switzerland, and, with his secretary Felix Fechenbach, published papers from the official archives of Bavaria which showed the German complicity in the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in July 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.[nb 2][3][8] Even cabinet ministers were dissatisfied with Eisner's leadership: one of them told him "You are an anarchist ... You are no statesman, you are a fool ... We are being ruined by bad management."[8] An organized campaign for Eisner's removal from office was not long in coming.[3][6]
As the new government was unable to provide basic services, it soon lost the support of the conservative Bavarian countryside, necessary for any government to hold together in the rural province.[6] Eisner's USPD was defeated in the January 1919 election, coming in sixth place, with only 3 per cent of the vote, and only garnering three seats in the Bavarian Parliament (the Landtag), while the Bavarian People's Party got 66 seats. Eisner, apparently because he was loath to give up power, delayed calling the Landtag into session until public pressure from all quarters – including a death threat from the Thule Society if he did not give up his office – forced him to. Finally, he set the legislature to meet on 21 February 1919,[14] more than a month after the election.[15]
As he was on his way to the Landtag to announce his resignation, Eisner was shot dead by the right-wing nationalistAnton Graf von Arco auf Valley, a decorated aristocratic former cavalryman now a student at the University of Munich, who was a believer in the "stab-in-the-back myth", which held that Jews, socialists and other undesirable elements had caused Germany to lose World War I. As a Jew, a socialist, a Bohemian, and a Berliner, Eisner was the perfect target.[8] Arco-Valley had been humiliated when a Leftist mob tore off his cockade from his hat after the war, and then endured further humiliation when he was rejected from membership in the anti-Semitic Thule Society because of Jewish ancestry on his mother's side.[6][14]
After the assassination
After the shooting, Arco-Valley was saved from lynching on the spot by the fast action of Eisner's secretary, Fechenbach. Instead, he was arrested and taken to Stadelheim Prison where, coincidentally, he was put in the same cell that Eisner had served time in earlier.[8] Despite the assassination of Eisner, the Landtag convened, and Erhard Auer – the leader of the Social Democrats and the Minister of the Interior in Eisner's government – began to eulogize Eisner, but rumours had already begun to spread that Auer was behind the assassination. Acting on these false allegations, Alois Lindner, a butcher and saloon waiter, and a member of the Revolutionary Workers' Council who was a fervent supporter of Eisner, shot Auer twice with a rifle, seriously wounding him. This prompted other armed supporters of Eisner to open fire, causing a melee, killing one delegate from the Centre Party and provoking nervous breakdowns in at least two ministers. From this point, there was effectively no government in Bavaria.[1][3][16]
These events caused unrest and lawlessness in Bavaria, and a general strike was proclaimed by the soldiers' and workers' councils, who distributed guns and ammunition, provoking the declaration of a state of emergency. The assassination of Eisner created a martyr for the leftist cause, and prompted demonstrations, the closing of the University of Munich, the kidnapping of aristocrats, and the forced pealing of church bells. "Revenge for Eisner" rang through bullhorns in the streets. The support for the Left was greater than ever before, even greater than Eisner himself had been able to garner.[3][8][16]
The Hoffmann government fled to Bamberg in Northern Bavaria,[15][19] which it declared as the new seat of government – although most of the ministers resigned.[3] An attempt by troops loyal to the Hoffmann government to mount a counter-coup and overthrow the BSR was put down on 13 April[6] by the new "Red Army" created from factory workers and members of the soldiers' and workers' councils. Twenty people died in the fighting.[8]
The rival governments then clashed militarily at Dachau on 18 April when Hoffmann's 8,000 soldiers met the Soviet Republic's 30,000. After a coup six days into Toller's regime, the Soviet Republic was now led by three Russian émigrés,[5] including Eugen Leviné. The BSR forces – led by, of all people, Ernst Toller – was victorious in the first battle at Dachau, but Hoffmann made a deal which gave him the services of 20,000 men of the Freikorps under Lt. General Burghard von Oven[de]. Oven and the Freikorps then took Dachau and surrounded Munich, panicking Egilhofer, who had the hostages he was holding executed, despite the efforts of Toller to prevent it. The Freikorps broke through the Munich defenses on 1 May, and, after the execution of at 1,000-1,200 Communists and anarchists, Oven declared the city to have been secured on 6 May, ending the Bavarian Soviet Republic.[19]
Active participants in the Freikorps units which suppressed the Bavarian Soviet Republic included many future powerful members of the Nazi Party, including Rudolf Hess.[20]
The immediate effect of the existence of the People's State of Bavaria and the Bavarian Soviet Republic was to inculcate in the Bavarian people a hatred of left-wing rule. They saw the period in which these two states existed as one of privation and shortages, censorship and restrictions on their freedoms, and general chaos and disorder. It was seen as Schreckenensherrschaft, the "rule of horror". These feelings were then constantly to be reinforced by right-wing propaganda not only in Bavaria, but throughout the Reich, where "Red Bavaria" was held up as an object lesson in the horrors of socialism and communism. In this way, the radical right was able to provoke and feed the fears of the peasants and the middle class. The separate strands of Bavarian right-wing extremism found a common enemy in despising the Left, and Bavaria became profoundly "reactionary, anti-Republican, [and] counter-revolutionary."[6]
The Left itself had been neutralized after the demise of the two socialist states, and in such a way that there continued to be bad blood between the Communist Party (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) that prevented them from working together throughout Germany. This lack of cooperation, with the Communists seeing the Social Democrats as betrayers of the Revolution, and the Social Democrats seeing the Communists as under the control of Moscow, was later to redound to the advantage of the Nazi Party, since only a parliamentary coalition of the KPD and SPD could have prevented the Nazis from coming to power. Even at the height of their influence in the Reichstag, they did not have enough delegates to resist such a coalition.[21]
Wilhelm Johann Harald Hoegner was the second Bavarian minister-president after World War II, and the father of the Bavarian constitution. He has been the only Social Democrat to hold this office since 1920.
Kurt Eisner was a German politician, revolutionary, journalist, and theatre critic. As a socialist journalist, he organized the socialist revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy in Bavaria in November 1918, which led to him being described as "the symbol of the Bavarian revolution". He is used as an example of charismatic authority by Max Weber. Eisner subsequently proclaimed the People's State of Bavaria but was assassinated by far-right German nationalist Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley in Munich on 21 February 1919.
Gregor Strasser was a German politician and early leader of the Nazi Party. Along with his younger brother Otto, he was a leading member of the party's left-wing faction, which brought them into conflict with the dominant faction led by Adolf Hitler, resulting in his murder in 1934. The brothers' strand of the Nazi ideology is known as Strasserism.
The Bavarian People's Party was a Catholic political party in Bavaria during the Weimar Republic. After the collapse of the German Empire in 1918, it split away from the national-level Catholic Centre Party and formed the BVP in order to pursue a more conservative and particularist Bavarian course. It consistently had more seats in the Bavarian state parliament than any other party and provided all Bavarian minister presidents from 1920 on. In the national Reichstag it remained a minor player with only about three percent of total votes in all elections. The BVP disbanded shortly after the Nazi seizure of power in early 1933.
A soviet was a workers' council in the late Russian Empire, primarily associated with the Russian Revolution, which gave the name to the latter state of the Soviet Union.
Hermann Esser was an early member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). A journalist, Esser was the editor of the Nazi paper, Völkischer Beobachter, a Propaganda Leader, and a Vice President of the Reichstag. In the early days of the party, he was a de facto deputy of Adolf Hitler. As one of Hitler's earliest followers and friends, he held influential positions in the party during the Weimar Republic, but increasingly lost influence during the Nazi era.
The Bavarian Soviet Republic, or Munich Soviet Republic, was a short-lived unrecognised socialist state in Bavaria during the German Revolution of 1918–1919. It took the form of a workers' council republic. Its name is also sometimes rendered in English as the Bavarian Council Republic; the German term Räterepublik means a republic of councils or committees, and council or committee is also the meaning of the Russian word soviet. It was established in April 1919 after the demise of Kurt Eisner's People's State of Bavaria and sought to establish a socialist republic in Bavaria. It was overthrown less than a month later by elements of the German Army and the paramilitary Freikorps. Several individuals involved in its overthrow later joined the Nazi Party during its subsequent rise to power, even though Adolf Hitler himself had been, at least publicly, a supporter of the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
Johannes Hoffmann was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party from Bavaria. He served as a Minister in the revolutionary government of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and subsequently in the People's State of Bavaria administration, 1919–20.
Hermann Ehrhardt was a German naval officer in World War I who became an anti-republican and anti-Semitic German nationalist Freikorps leader during the Weimar Republic. As head of the Marine Brigade Ehrhardt, he was among the best-known Freikorps leaders in the immediate postwar years. The Brigade fought against the local soviet republics that arose during the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and later was among the key players in the anti-democratic Kapp Putsch of March 1920. After the Brigade's forced disbanding, Ehrhardt used the remnants of his unit to found the Organisation Consul, a secret group that committed numerous politically motivated assassinations. After it was banned in 1922, Ehrhardt formed other less successful groups such as the Bund Viking. Because of his opposition to Adolf Hitler, Ehrhardt was forced to flee Germany in 1934 and lived apolitically in Austria until his death in 1971.
Gustav Ritter von Kahr was a German jurist and right-wing politician. During his career he was district president of Upper Bavaria, Bavarian minister president and, from September 1923 to February 1924, Bavarian state commissioner general with dictatorial powers. In that role he openly opposed the government of the Weimar Republic in several instances, including by ceasing to enforce the Law for the Protection of the Republic. He was also making plans with General Otto von Lossow and Bavarian police commander Hans von Seisser to topple the Reich government in Berlin. In November 1923, before they could act, Adolf Hitler instigated the Beer Hall Putsch. The three turned against Hitler and helped stop the attempted coup. After being forced to resign as state commissioner general in 1924, Kahr served as president of the Bavarian Administrative Court until 1930. Because of his actions during the Beer Hall Putsch, he was murdered during the Nazi purge known as the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934.
Rudolf Buttmann was a German lawyer, Bavarian State Library director and Nazi politician.
Eugen Leviné, also known as Dr. Eugen Leviné, was a German communist revolutionary and one of the leaders of the short-lived Second Bavarian Soviet Republic.
Franz Ritter von Epp was a German general and politician who started his military career in the Bavarian Army. Successful wartime military service earned him a knighthood in 1916. After the end of World War I and the dissolution of the German Empire, Epp was a commanding officer in the Freikorps and the Reichswehr. His unit, the Freikorps Epp, was responsible for numerous massacres during the crushing of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. He was a member of Bavarian People's Party, before joining the Nazi Party in 1928, when he was elected as a member of the German parliament or Reichstag, a position he held until the fall of Nazi Germany. He was the Reichskommissar, later Reichsstatthalter, for Bavaria, and a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party. During the Nazi era, Epp, who'd participated in the Herero and Namaqua genocide as a young man, shared responsibility for the liquidation of virtually all Bavarian Jews and Romas as the governor of Bavaria.
Anton von Padua Alfred Emil Hubert Georg Graf von Arco auf Valley, commonly known as Anton Arco-Valley, was a German far-right activist, Bavarian nationalist and nobleman. He assassinated socialist Bavarian prime minister Kurt Eisner, the first premier of the People's State of Bavaria, on 21 February 1919.
The military career of Adolf Hitler, who was the dictator of Germany from 1933 until 1945, can be divided into two distinct portions of his life. Mainly, the period during World War I when Hitler served as a Gefreiter in the Bavarian Army, and the era of World War II when he served as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht through his position as Führer of Nazi Germany.
Erich Mühsam was a German antimilitarist anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic, for which he served five years in prison.
The Einwohnerwehr, or "Citizens' Defense," also called the Civil Guard or Civil Defense, was a far-right paramilitary in Weimar Germany that existed in violation of the Treaty of Versailles from the German Revolution of 1918-19 until 29 June 1921. It was established with the goal of defending Germany against Communist uprisings and foreign attacks, though it was also hostile to the Weimar Republic. It was based in Bavaria, where anti-Berlin and anti-republican sentiment attracted such activity. On 29 June 1921 the German government gave in to Allied demands and dissolved the Citizens' Defense. Its militants moved on to fight in other far-right paramilitaries with similar goals.
Erhard Auer was a Bavarian politician, member of the state parliament, first Minister of the Interior of the Free State of Bavaria, and leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Bavaria.
The Würzburg Soviet Republic was an unrecognized, short-lived state organized under council communism in Würzburg, Germany in April 1919. It had little support among the local citizenry or political parties and was quickly put down by a unit of the Bavarian Army.
The Palm Sunday Putsch was an attempt by the Republican Protection Force under the command of Alfred Seyffertitz to overthrow the Bavarian Soviet Republic and to restore the government of Johannes Hoffmann, which had fled to Bamberg, that was appointed by the Landtag of Bavaria.
References
Informational notes
↑ Also referred to as the Freier Volksstaat Bayern (Free People's State of Bavaria) or later simply as Freistaat Bayern (the present-day official name of Bavaria); the name of the state has also been translated as the People's Republic of Bavaria and Bavarian Republic; for further discussion of the terms Volksstaat and Freistaat, see Free state: Germany and Johannes Merz. "‘Freistaat Bayern’: Metamorphosen eines Staatsnamen."Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 45 (1997). pp. 121–142. (in German)
↑ Fechenbach was tried in October 1922 for violation of a press law, although his acts were framed as "high treason". His sentence of 11 years in prison was a blatant miscarriage of justice, especially considering that in February 1924, Adolf Hitler and the other participants in the Beer Hall Putsch were tried on actual charges of high treason and received considerably milder sentences, of which they served only a small part. With Fechenbach, on the other hand, did not even get his case reviewed by a higher court for four years. In the end, he was murdered by a Nazi death squad in 1933.[13]
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