The Bavarian People's Party (German: Bayerische Volkspartei; BVP) was a principally Catholic Christian democratic political party in Bavaria during the Weimar Republic. After the collapse of the German Empire in 1918, it split away from the federal Centre Party and formed the BVP in order to pursue a conservative and regionalist stance. It dominated in state politics; all Ministers-President from 1920 onwards were from the BVP. In the national Reichstag it remained a minor player with only about three percent of total votes in all elections. The BVP disbanded shortly after the Nazi seizure of power in early 1933. It was not reformed after the war; much of its electorate was absorbed by the new centre-right regionalist Christian Social Union in Bavaria.
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👉 Bavarian People's Party in the context of Christian Social Union in Bavaria
The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (German: , CSU) is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. Having a regionalist identity, the CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), operates in the other fifteen states of Germany. It differs from the CDU by being somewhat more conservative in social matters. Founded in 1945, the CSU is considered the de facto successor of the Weimar-era Catholic Bavarian People's Party.
At the federal level, the CSU forms a common faction in the Bundestag with the CDU which is frequently referred to as the Union Faction (die Unionsfraktion) or simply CDU/CSU. The CSU has had 44 seats in the Bundestag since the 2025 federal election, making it currently the sixth largest of the seven parties represented and the largest parliamentary faction as part of CDU/CSU with 208 seats. The CSU is a member of the European People's Party and the International Democracy Union.
Bavarian People's Party in the context of Bavarians
Bavarians are an ethnographic group of Germans native to Bavaria, a state in Germany. The group's dialect or language is known as Bavarian, native to Altbayern ("Old Bavaria"), roughly the territory of the historic Electorate of Bavaria in the 17th century.
Like the neighboring Austrians, Bavarians are traditionally Catholic. In much of Altbayern, membership in the Catholic Church remains above 70%,and the center-right Christian Social Union in Bavaria (successor of the Bavarian People's Party of 1919–1933) has traditionally been the strongest party in the Landtag, and also the party of all minister-presidents of Bavaria since 1946, with the single exception of Wilhelm Hoegner, 1954–1957.