The first woman to speak in the Bavarian state parliament was called Rosa Kempf and came from Birnbach im Rottal. During the revolution, she was appointed to the “Provisional National Council” by the Eisner government. On December 18, 1918, she spoke in plenary about the historical significance of the introduction of women’s suffrage. “There will be a new tone with the participation of the woman in the negotiations anyway, and if this starts with the variation that the speeches are quiet, then that too is a small pleasant by-product,” she said in the direction of those who specialize in rude manners Men. But good behavior was only a peripheral aspect of political work at the time. “If we look around this room,” Kempf continued, “you will look in vain for women to participate on an equal footing. (…) The whole political work of civic education for women still lies uncompleted before us.”
As a member of the Landtag and church activist, Ellen Ammann (1870-1932) paved the way for modern social work and the women’s movement.
(Photo: House of Bavarian History)
Envelope with a complaint (because of equal rights) from the female BVP deputies Aloisia Eberle, Ellen Ammann and Klara Barth dated January 31, 1921
(Photo: Bavarian Main State Archives, Bavarian State Parliament)
We owe the fact that we know anything at all about the parliamentary engagement of Rosa Kempf, who received her doctorate in 1911 with a dissertation on the “life of young factory girls in Munich”, to the archives of the state parliament. For example, an envelope dated January 31, 1921 containing a complaint from women’s rights activists Aloisia Eberle, Ellen Ammann and Klara Barth is archived there. On the stamp that reads the word Member of Parliament, they put the suffix r in brackets and wrote: “Is that from equality?”
In view of its more than 200-year history, it is imperative that Parliament maintain its own archive. The state parliament is based on the constitution of May 26, 1818, which made it possible for people to be represented by elected representatives in Bavaria. On February 4, 1819, King Max I Joseph opened the first assembly of the estates, as the state parliament was called until 1848.
Unlike today’s state parliament, the assembly of estates consisted of two chambers. The members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected, while the Reichsräte received seats and votes in their Chamber through noble birthright, but also through a high office or through special merits.
Presentation of the archive inventories in the state parliament (from left): Bernhard Grau (Director of the Main State Archives), Margit Ksoll-Marcon (General Director of the Bavarian State Archives), Ilse Aigner, (President of the Bavarian State Parliament) and Markus Blume (Minister of State for Science and Art).
(Photo: Rolf Poss/Image Archive of the Bavarian State Parliament)
A story with all the ups and downs, with all the joys, vices and other aspects of being human slumbers in the state parliament files. The holdings are of outstanding value for research into the history of Bavaria. Since 2004, the files collected between 1818 and 1934 are no longer kept in the state parliament, but in the Bavarian Main State Archive. Now, after many years of directory work, the inventory volumes have been completed there, which provide an overview of the files. The holdings can now be accessed with brief information on almost 10,300 files and volumes. For Art Minister Markus Blume, this was reason enough to emphasize during the presentation of the volumes that the legacy of the state parliament is “a unique testimony to our tradition-rich Bavarian constitutional and democratic history.” The state parliament still maintains its own archive for documents from 1946 to the present day.
As far as the history of democracy mentioned by Blume is concerned, the files show a sudden turning point from 1933 onwards. For example, one can extract from the archive the speech of Deputy Albert Roßhaupter (BVP), who, at the meeting on April 29, 1933, courageously and negatively expressed his opposition to the draft of a law enforced by the Nazis to remedy the plight of the Bavarian people and state. After it was passed, independent political life in Bavaria came to an end. The people were deprived of their democratic rights, which had been especially developed since 1918.
“We demand that every system of government respect every honest belief,” said Rosshaupter, who defended the idea of civil liberty and equal justice. “No people, least of all the German people, can break away from these guiding stars without suffering serious damage,” he said farsightedly.
The files of the Landtag document not only the discussions and decisions in the plenary session, but also the activities of the parliamentary committees and thus the coming about of the plenary resolutions. Submissions and complaints often make it depressingly clear where the citizen’s problem pinches. Part of the tradition is also a magnificent edition of the constitution of 1818, on which the king took the constitutional oath before both chambers of parliament when he took office.
Bavarian main state archive. Bavarian state parliament. Chamber of Reichsräte and Chamber of Deputies, (Bavarian archive inventories 59/1, 59/2, 59/3, 59/4), Munich 2011-2021. All four volumes were edited by Renate Herget and Stefan Thiery, each volume costs 25 euros.