Free State of Bavaria

Origins

On 7 November 1918 the Independent Socialist Kurt Eisner proclaimed the Free State of Bavaria in Munich, ending the Wittelsbach monarchy. Eisner was assassinated in February 1919, and a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic was crushed that spring. The Bamberg constitution of 1919 established Bavaria as a parliamentary free state.

Rule and society

Inter-war Bavaria became a conservative stronghold and refuge of the extreme right, where Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch failed in 1923. After 1933 the Nazis took control and Munich became the capital of the movement. After 1945 Bavaria was in the American zone; its 1946 constitution created a state long dominated by the Christian Social Union, which built a high-technology economy.

To the present

Bavaria joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, though its Landtag rejected the Basic Law while accepting its validity. It remains one of Germany's sixteen states, with Munich as capital.