Election Poster of the Bavarian People´s Party (BVP), late 1918/early 1919

The Bavarian People's Party (BVP) was founded on 12 November 1918, a few days after the revolution in Munich, by Sebastian Schlittenbauer (1874-1936) and Georg Heim (1865-1938), to distinguish themselves from the more Unitarianist Centre Party in Berlin. The former members of the Bavarian Centre joined the new party. It called for early elections for a constituent State Parliament.

The BVP election posters were directed against communism. The poster shows a man characterised as a Mongolian who leans his hand on a Berlin that is already on fire and who points the torch at Munich. To avert the danger, one should give one’s vote to the BVP. The party thus styled itself a bulwark against Bolshevism, which had already arrived in Berlin and would threaten Bavaria. During the election campaign, the party thus behaved as a stronghold of law and order, as a guarantor against further uprisings and as the protective power of Christian-Catholic interests.

The BVP finally emerged as the strongest force in the state elections on 12 January / 2 February 1919. It reached 35% of the votes and represented 66 of 180 deputies. Nevertheless, in accordance with the prevailing mentality of the Conservatives at the time, it was not willing to assume political responsibility in a democratically elected government but simply wanted to control the social-democrat government from the State Parliament. Only after the end of the Soviet republics at the end of May 1919, the BVP participated in subsequent governments.

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