Inventory of the Bayernpartei archives
Two years after the archives of the Bayernpartei were transferred to the ADVN, an inventory is now published.
The Bayernpartei (BP) was founded on 28 October 1946 in Munich (Germany) by Ludwig Max Lallinger and Jakob Fischbacher, but it was not until 1948 that it was officially recognised as a national party. In its party manifesto the BP promoted the independence of the Bavarian state within Europe. Its leaders wanted to free the region from the central power of the central state and strengthten Bavarian national identity. The BP’s appeal reached its peak in the 1950s with more than 25,000 members; the 1948 local elections resulted in about 450 councillors. Under the leadership of Joseph Baumgartner BP became the third most important party in Bavaria, with seventeen members in the Bundestag and two ministers and two state secretaries in the Bavarian state government. However, the 1959 Spielbankenaffäre (a scandal that afterwards proved to be concocted) sparked a period of crisis, and the initial success was never matched again.
The archives of the Bayernpartei are spread over three archival institutes: the Bavarian Central Archives (documents from the 1940s-1990s), the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (miscelleaneous documents, 1945-1972) and the ADVN. The archives held in the ADVN primarly consist of administrative documents such as correspondence, reports, financial accounts and electoral files from the national level as well as the local branches. Alongside these, there are also files from the chairs Max Zierl, Ewal May, Hubert Dorn and Florian Weber. The archives also contain various posters, photos and films. The majority of the archives are from between 1970 and 2010, but there are also items that date back to the origins in the 1940s.
You can read and download the inventory via this link.