Reich Representative in Bavaria

As part of the so-called ‘enforced conformity’, Franz Xaver von Epp was appointed Reich Representative in Bavaria by Reich President Hindenburg on April 12, 1933. The task of this new type of authority, at the intersection between Reich and states, was to enforce the policy of the Reich government in the states. It was a Reich authority, which was initially equipped with some enforcement tasks such as the naming and firing of the State Premier, the right to dissolve the state parliament, to draw up and publish local laws, and to exert the right to pardon.

The offices of the Reich Representative were in the Prinz-Carl Palace in Munich for a few months, between the English Garden and the Court Garden. At the beginning of August 1933, the office and its 17 employees moved into the building of the former Prussian Mission at Prinzregentenstraße 7.

This is how Epp, whose popularity helped the National Socialists on their path to power, and was exceptionally useful during the seizure of power in Munich on March 9, 1933, was soon put out to political pasture. Epp was the only Reich Representative who was not also Regional Leader (Gauleiter), and in the large area for which he was responsible, he had to deal with several strong personalities from the Nazi Party such as Adolf Wagner and Josef Bürckel, against whom he could not prevail. With the completion of the ‘enorced conformity’ of states and the dissolution of the state parliament in January 1935, the office of the Reich Representative lost its original task and was reduced to mere powers of cooperation. Epp, who always tried to gain new skills but was unable to do this, finally shifted his activities to representative tasks. When the Reich Defense Commissars were appointed at the beginning of the war, Epp also came away empty-handed.

His colleague Günther Caracciola-Delbrück tried to recruit him for the ‘Freiheitsaktion Bayern’ (Freedom Action Bavaria) in April 1945, but Epp refused. Epp was arrested by US soldiers in 1945 and died in 1947. The Bavarian State Chancellery moved into the former building of the Reich Representative after the state parliament elections in 1946.