Free State of Bavaria (Weimar Republic)

The Free State of Bavaria (German: Freistaat Bayern) (1919–1933) was one of the constituent states of the federally organized Weimar Republic. The Free State was established in November 1918 and lasted until the Nazi regime absorbed all of Germany's federal states in April 1933. Following the end of World War II, the name "Free State of Bavaria" was taken up again in the Bavarian constitution of 1946. It remains Bavaria's official name today.

The Free State of Bavaria grew out of the German Empire's defeat in World War I and the German revolution of 1918–1919. King Ludwig III of Bavaria fled in the face of mass protests in November 1918, and workers' and soldiers' councils under the leadership of Kurt Eisner took over in Munich and Bavaria's other large cities. The Eisner government promised a non-revolutionary transition to socialism. Shortly after Eisner's party placed last among the major parties in the election for a state constitutional assembly, he was assassinated by a right-wing extremist. In March 1919, a new government was formed under the moderate socialist Johannes Hoffmann, but on 6 April the declaration of the Bavarian Soviet Republic forced it to flee Munich. After government and Freikorps troops violently suppressed the soviets, the Hoffmann government returned to Munich and enacted a republican constitution which officially made the Free State of Bavaria part of the Weimar Republic.

During the March 1920 Kapp Putsch in Berlin, Hoffmann was replaced by Gustav Ritter von Kahr. Intent on creating a Bavarian "cell of order", Kahr sparked a crisis with the federal government when he refused to obey certain of its directives. In November 1923, Adolf Hitler initiated his Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, in part to forestall similar plans by Kahr. Although the putsch failed, Hitler won considerable sympathy in Bavaria. The Free State became a focal point for right-wing extremists from across Germany.

In the mid to late 1920s, Bavaria enjoyed a short-lived period of political and economic stability (the "Golden Twenties"). It ended in 1929 with the onset of the Great Depression. High unemployment and economic privation led to a resurgence of radical parties, most notably the Nazis. After Adolf Hitler became German chancellor in January 1933, Bavaria's anti-Nazi political leadership was replaced by Franz von Epp as Reich commissioner for Bavaria. The two Gleichschaltung (synchronization) laws of March and April 1933 brought Bavaria and all the other German states fully under Nazi control and effectively ended both the Weimar Republic and the Free State of Bavaria.