ABSTRACT
The Bavarian People’s Party was generally recognized among the state’s political groups as by far the leading light of Bavarian federalism. In any case, “Bavarian federalism” remained a cornerstone not only of the state government’s and its dominant parties’ policies, but also of the Bavarian monarchist movement’s basic self-image. This chapter shows, its influence was obvious in the basic approach that Bavarian Konigstreue took toward their self-appointed mission of restoration and toward resolving the problems and conflicts that arose from trying to carry out that mission. In the Bavarian political context, though it most frequently referred to the constitutional model of imperial Germany with its negotiated treaties of membership in the Reich, “federalism” was a nebulous term indeed. It could be taken to mean any permutation in a range from “federal state” through “confederation of states”, encompassing diverse historical examples of subdivided governmental authority.
