Bavaria: Bavaria since World War I

King Louis III, successor to the mad Otto I, was dethroned in Nov., 1918, by Kurt Eisner, who established a socialist republic. The assassination (Feb., 1919) of Eisner led to a Communist revolution (Apr., 1919), which was bloodily suppressed by the German army. Bavaria then joined the Weimar Republic. In the early 1920s, Munich became the center of the National Socialist (Nazi) movement; in 1923 the National Socialists made an abortive attempt (Beer Hall Putsch) in that city to seize power. Catholic Bavaria as a whole gave little support to the movement until Adolf Hitler came to national power in 1933. Under the National Socialist regime Bavaria lost its autonomy.

After World War II, Bavaria became part of the American occupation zone. The Rhenish Palatinate was separated from Bavaria and was later made part of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. A new constitution for Bavaria was drawn up in 1946. Since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, the conservative Christian Social Union, allied nationally with the Christian Democratic Union, has been the strongest Bavarian political party.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Bavaria since World War I
• Bavaria under the Wittelsbachs
• From the Romans to the Wittelsbachs
• Economy and People
• Land

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