On 24 February 1924, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Center Party, the German Democratic Party (DDP) and several smaller parties founded the non-partisan paramilitary republican protection force ‘Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold – League of German War Veterans and Republicans’. The Reich League of Jewish Frontline Soldiers and the League of Bavarian Farmers (BB) likewise joined, but unlike the Center Party, the Bavarian People’s Party (BVP) categorically refused to participate in the Reichsbanner. The Reichsbanner’s most important mission was to protect political meetings from being disrupted; it also actively promoted commitment to the Weimar Republic through marches and rallies.
At the end of the 1920s, membership of the Reichsbanner numbered some 80,000 to 90,000, including prominent leaders of the SPD such as Wilhelm Hoegner, Waldemar von Knoeringen, Thomas Wimmer, Erhard Auer and Hans Unterleitner , as well as leading DDP members such as Thomas Dehler and Hermann Luppe, and also August Schwingenstein, press officer of the League of Bavarian Farmers (BB) at the time. The Munich section was founded on July 7, 1924 in the Bürgerbräukeller, with local groups forming in Bavarian towns and municipalities in the weeks that followed.
