Gustav Ritter von Kahr (29 November 1862-30 June 1934) was Minister-President of Bavaria from 16 March 1920 to 21 September 1921, succeeding Johannes Hoffmann and preceding Hugo Graf von und zu Lerchenfeld auf Koefering und Schoenberg, as well as State Commissioner of Bavaria from 26 September 1923 to 16 February 1924.
Biography[]
Gustav von Kahr was born in Weissenburg, Kingdom of Bavaria in 1862, and he worked as a lawyer before entering politics. While he was a Protestant, he had links to the Catholic Bavarian People's Party, and he was a committed monarchist. In 1917, he became head of the provincial government of Upper Bavaria, and he helped to call for volunteers to crush the Bavarian Soviet Republic during the German Revolution of 1918-19. In 1920, Von Kahr became Minister-President of Bavaria, and he gave room for all kinds of right-wing groups to hold power in the state. He was forced to resign after the German government passed measures against the right-wing extremists. However, in 1923, Prime Minister of Bavaria Eugen von Knilling declared martial law and gave Von Kahr dictatorial powers as State Commissioner. His desire to install a nationalist dictatorship and to create an independent Bavaria led to increased political militancy in Bavaria, and he crushed the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. In 1924, Wilhelm Marx convinced Von Knilling to end Von Kahr's dictatorship, and he retired from public service three years later. On 30 June 1934, during the Night of the Long Knives, he was abducted by the Nazis, tortured while en route to the Dachau concentration camp, and was shot on the orders of Theodor Eicke.