Bavarian Central Party (BMP)/German National People’s Party (DNVP)

The Bavarian Central Party was founded on November 24, 1918 in Nuremberg at the initiative of various groups. Its members were mainly members of the Protestant bourgeois segments of society and the farming classes in Franconia. A party of few members consisting of dignitaries, the Bavarian Farmers’ League was its true backbone. In Munich the core membership consisted of bourgeois municipal representatives, including the lawyer Ignaz Schön, a man of liberal leanings. Unifying elements included the rejection of Weimar democracy and nationalism, while anti-semitic tendencies were also widespread.

In 1920 it was agreed at Reich level to divide the party into two groups for southern and northern Bavaria, with each having the status of regional associations of the Reich party. The party now called itself the ‘Bavarian Central Party (DNVP in Bavaria)’. It was still based in Nuremberg in 1920, but in 1922 it moved its headquarters to Munich. The Rhineland-Palatinate was added as the third regional association in 1922.

After the 1920 elections , Christian Roth took over the Ministry of Justice in the Kahr government. He supported the provocative behavior of the local militias, ensuring the greatest possible restraint on the part of the judiciary in uncovering the ‘Feme’ murders – illegal killings committed by radical nationalists. In September 1921, von Kahr and Roth resigned in protest against the emergency law passed by the Reich government to protect the Republic on the occasion of Erzberger’s assassination. In the government formed by Knilling in August 1922, however, the German Nationals once again controlled the justice department with Franz Gürtner. The latter was willing to compromise in negotiations with the Reich, and the ethnic-chauvinist wing of the party sharply criticized him for this, breaking away in November 1922. But after the Hitler coup, Gürtner was accommodating towards the National Socialists, too. Since Heinrich Held fundamentally rejected the alternative of a coalition with the SPD, he had Gürtner join the government in 1924, even though large sections of the BVP protested.

From 1924 onwards, the party called itself simply the ‘German National People’s Party in Bavaria’. Its chairman Hans Hilpert advocated government participation in the Reich since he hoped this would bring about a fundamental transformation of the democratic state, but in fact it was followed by defeat in the 1928 elections. After Alfred Hugenberg’s election as Reich party chairman, the DNVP attempted to form a radical ‘national opposition’ together with the Nazi Party. Those in opposition to this move left the party as a result, especially the ‘Rural League (Landbund), which was vital to the DNVP in Bavaria. In 1930, a split occurred in the pro-government Conservative People’s Party (KVP), which supported the Brüning government.

The DNVP resigned from the Bavarian government on August 26, 1931. Since this government had only been provisional anyway, Gürtner was able to remain in office until becoming head of the Reich Ministry of Justice in the Papen government in June 1932. In the subsequent elections the DNVP in Bavaria was no more than a dwarf party.