bavarikon4UJobless Demonstration on Munich´s Theresienwiese, January 1919
The young republic faced major economic and social challenges in the winter of 1918-19. During the course of the industry's conversion to peace-time production and through military demobilisation, mass unemployment threatened. The revolutionary governments in the Reich and in Bavaria took dirigiste measures against this menace. Employers were obliged to take war returnees back into their old jobs. The eight-hour day introduced in Bavaria on 13 November 1918 was intended to bring additional relief.
Nevertheless, unemployment rose sharply in Bavaria and reached its peak in February 1919 with 1.1 million unemployed. Although they received unemployment assistance, it was hardly enough to survive on due to the food shortage and to the high black-market prices. This circumstance significantly destabilised the political situation in Munich in January and February 1919. Left- and right-wing radical opponents of the new political order tried to enlist the unemployed to their cause and fought against an early transfer of power to a democratically elected State Parliament.
On 7 January 1919, a demonstration of the unemployed took place on Theresienwiese. There, 4,000 people had gathered and subsequently marched to the Ministry of Social Welfare to present Minister Hans Unterleitner (1890-1971) with their demands for an increase in unemployment care. They overran the guard and stormed the building, so that the military security guard and the Republican Protection Force intervened and drove the crowd apart by gunfire. Three people died, eight were injured.