People's State of Bavaria
People's State of Bavaria Volksstaat Bayern | |||||||||||||
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1918–1919 | |||||||||||||
Johannes Hoffmann | |||||||||||||
Legislature | Landtag of Bavaria | ||||||||||||
Historical era | World War I · Revolutions of 1917–1923 | ||||||||||||
• Established | 8 November 1918 | ||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 6 April 1919 | ||||||||||||
Currency | German Papiermark (ℳ) | ||||||||||||
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Today part of | Germany (Bavaria) |
The People's State of Bavaria (
Background
The roots of the People's State lay in the
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.[2] 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,"[3] 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."[4]
Extensive constitutional reforms of the governing structure of the
Beginning on 3 November 1918, protests initiated by the socialist
The next day, Eisner, having gotten the approval of the local revolutionary workers' and soldiers' councils,
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.[9] Despite his gift for rhetoric and oratory, Eisner had no political or administrative experience when he became minister-president.[4][11]
Eisner government
The government consisted of: [12]
Portfolio | Minister | Took office | Left office | Party | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Independent Social Democratic Party | |||||
Vice Premier of the People's State of Bavaria | 8 November 1918 | 21 February 1919 | SPD | ||
Ministry of Finance | Adolf Hoffmann | 8 November 1918 | 21 February 1919 | SPD | |
People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs | 8 November 1918 | 21 February 1919 | KPD | ||
Ministry of the Interior | 8 November 1918 | 21 February 1919 | SPD | ||
Ministry of Justice | 8 November 1918 | 21 February 1919 | SPD | ||
Ministry for Public Works | Independent Social Democratic Party | ||||
Ministry of War | 8 November 1918 | 21 February 1919 | SPD |
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.[13]
Though he advocated a
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
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.[7] 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,[15] more than a month after the election.[16]
As he was on his way to the Landtag to announce his resignation, Eisner was shot dead by the right-wing nationalist Anton 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.[9] 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.[7][15]
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.[9] 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.[2][4][17]
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
For a month, a Central Council (
The Hoffmann government fled to Bamberg in Northern Bavaria,[16][20] which it declared as the new seat of government – although most of the ministers resigned.[4] An attempt by troops loyal to the Hoffmann government to mount a counter-coup and overthrow the BSR was put down on 13 April[7] by the new "Red Army" created from factory workers and members of the soldiers' and workers' councils. Twenty people died in the fighting.[9]
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,[6] 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 . 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.[20]
Active participants in the Freikorps units which suppressed the Bavarian Soviet Republic included many future powerful members of the Nazi Party, including Rudolf Hess.[21]
The
Aftermath
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."[7]
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
See also
- Aftermath of World War I
- German Revolution of 1918–19
- History of Bavaria
- Bavarian Soviet Republic
References
Informational notes
- 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.[14]
Citations
- ^ Sturm, Reinhard (23 December 2011). "Vom Kaiserreich zur Republik 1918/19" [From Empire to Republic 1918/19]. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (in German). Retrieved 24 March 2024.
- ^ a b Burleigh 2000, p. 39.
- ISBN 0-06-131123-5.
- ^ Fest, Joachim C. (1973). Hitler. Translated by Winston, Richard; Winston, Clara. New York: Vintage Books. pp. 109–111, 774–775 n.1.
- ^ Gaab, Jeffrey S. (2006). Munich: Hofbräuhaus & History. Peter Lang / International Academic Publishers. p. 58.
- ^ ISBN 0-394-58601-8.
- ^ a b c d e f Kershaw 1999, pp. 112–116.
- ^ Mitcham 1996, p. 11.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Evans 2003, pp. 158–161.
- ^ Schuler, Thomas (December 2008). "The Unsung Hero: Bavaria's amnesia about the man who abolished the monarchy". The Atlantic Times. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013.
- ^ Kershaw (1999), pp. 112–116; Mitcham (1996), p. 11 ; Evans (2003), pp. 158–161; Mitcham (1996), p. 30
- ^ "Chapter 9: Kurt Eisner is proclaimed Bavaria's first Premier under revolutionary law". Münchner Stadtmuseum. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
- ^ Karacs, Imre (13 July 1996). "Bavaria buries the royal dream Funeral of Prince Albrechty". The Independent. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022.
- ISBN 0-14-013724-6.
- ^ a b Mitcham 1996, p. 31.
- ^ a b Burleigh 2000, p. 40.
- ^ a b Mitcham 1996, p. 32.
- ^ Mühsam, Erich (1929). Von Eisner bis Leviné [From Eisner to Leviné] (in German). Berlin-Britz: Fanal Verlag. p. 47.
- ^ Mitcham 1996, pp. 32–33.
- ^ a b Mitcham 1996, pp. 34–35.
- ^ Mitcham 1996, p. 35.
- ^ Burleigh 2000, pp. 40–41.
Bibliography
- ISBN 0-8090-9325-1.
- ISBN 0-14-303469-3.
- ISBN 0-393-04671-0.
- ISBN 0-275-95485-4