ABSTRACT
The bitter leadership controversy in the Bavarian Royalist Party in 1920–1921 gave rise to the Bayerische Heimat- und Konigsbund (HKB), which became the leading monarchist organization in Weimar Bavaria. Bavarian Königstreue left the battered Bavarian Royalist Party en masse for the new King and Country League in 1921–1922. The Royalist Party’s Ansbach, Rosenhelm, and Würzburg local branches all quickly went over to the HKB. In terms of social make-up, the King and Country League began as, and remained, primarily a bastion of urban and rural local notables from the middle and upper classes. The King and Country League’s initial major formative period came to a close with the assumption of the chairmanship by Rudolf Kanzler at the beginning of 1923. The League as a body could afford a certain amount of equivocation in the matter, since the “Freiheitsgesetz” did not directly touch on the Bund’s keystone issue of Bavarian “monarchy versus republic.”.
