The Ethnic Chauvinist Block (Völkischer Block) was founded on January 6, 1924 as an electoral alliance for the Bavarian Parliament. It provided the Nazi Party, which was banned at the time, with an effective platform for its continued public presence; Since the failed Hitler-Ludendorff Putsch and under the conditions of the prohibition period, the National Socialists increasingly favored the parliamentary stage as a field of political activity.
With 23 MPs, including six Nazi Party members, The Ethnic Chauvinist Block became the strongest parliamentary group of a ethnic chauvinist grouping in the Reich. The basis of the alliance was provided by the Munich German Nationals, who had split from the Bavarian Central Party (BMP) at the end of 1922. They included the publisher Julius Friedrich Lehmann, General Krafft von Dellmensingen, his former adjutant Robert von Xylander and his right-hand man Rudolf Buttmann. On the day of the secession, November 20, 1922, Buttmann noted in his diary: “Meeting with Hitler: H. said: he supported us in every way and did not want us to go over to him. [...] We should fight in the party. He needed a party in parliament that would support him” (BayHStA, NL Buttmann).
The Ethnic Chauvinist Block took part in the Reichstag elections in 1924 as one of seven nationalist groups, as a result of which Gregor Straßer, among others, won his Reichstag mandate. Following the lifting of the ban on the Nazi Party and its re-establishment in February 1925, the Ethnic Chauvinist Block fell apart. The members of the state parliament who belonged to the Nazi Party formed their own parliamentary group in September 1925. Their main representatives were Buttmann, Adolf Wagner and Julius Streicher.
The Ethnic Chauvinist Block, an antisemitic electoral alliance, served as a proxy organization for the Nazi Party. After the split from the Central Party, the parliamentary path was initiated and realized via The Ethnic Chauvinist Block. This marked the beginning of the Nazi Party's course towards legality.
