bavarikon4UMinutes of the Constituent Meeting of the Tegernsee Volksrat, 11 December 1918
The decisive stages of the revolution in Bavaria occurred in the big cities. In rural areas, where the vast majority of the Bavarian population still lived, however, the revolution mostly met with a cautious response. It was particularly true in places where there were no significant numbers of workers.
In the Upper Bavarian community of Tegernsee, for example, it took a good month after the revolutionary change in Bavaria before a so-called "People's Council" was formed. This was elected in a meeting called by the Social Democratic Party Tegernsee on 11 December 1918 and consisted of nine members in accordance with the guidelines of the Bavarian Home Office. Of these, five members represented the workers and one member each represented small businesses, farmers, the bourgeoisie and academics.
In contrast to what happened in the large cities, the social-democratic workers’ councils sought to include the bourgeoisie, which is why the committee did not call itself "Workers' Council" but "People's Council". The fact that the People's Council in Tegernsee had no major cravings for power or radical revolutionary aspirations is also demonstrated by the other three items on the agenda, recorded in the minutes of the meeting. While the largest single point No. 3 deals with the imposition of a dance ban, No. 4 deals primarily with pragmatic issues regarding food supply. The initiative for a people's and defence guard, to be set up in Tegernsee, did not come from the People's Council but from the municipal administration. The People's Council did not claim any authority over the latter, but limited itself exclusively to its right of nomination and right to information.