Free State of Anhalt

Origins

Duke Joachim Ernst's regent abdicated in November 1918, and the Duchy of Anhalt became a free state, with a democratic constitution adopted in 1919 and Dessau as capital.

Rule and society

Anhalt was governed by Social Democratic coalitions for most of the 1920s. Its industries included the Junkers aircraft works and chemical plants at Bitterfeld nearby. In 1925 the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau, where Walter Gropius designed its new building. After the Nazis won the 1932 state election, Alfred Freyberg became the first Nazi minister-president of a German state, and the Bauhaus was forced out that year.

Decline and legacy

The Nazis subordinated Anhalt to a Reich governor. In 1945 it was occupied and placed in the Soviet zone, where it was merged with the Prussian Province of Saxony to form the province, later Land, of Saxony-Anhalt.