Women in Politics and the Public Sphere: Munich 1918/1919

Abstract

Women have never been passive bystanders to the history being made around them and they have always found ways to contribute to shaping their world. Munich in 1918/1919 provides a useful site to examine women's experiences and roles due to the long-standing involvement of women in the peace movement and welfare work, as well as the foundation of the Bavarian Soviet Republic after the First World War. However, Munich in the early years of the Weimar Republic is most commonly associated with Adolf Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, an attempt by right-wing men to seize political power. Moreover, the 1918 revolution is also often told through the lens of male political figures. As a result, politics in the early twentieth century is easy to view as a male-dominated affair with women merely experiencing the effects of male political power. This era, particularly from the perspective of Munich, also becomes viewed through the lens of the rise of fascism, which obscures and distorts the alternative political visions many women held and worked towards. This article centres on women's experiences and roles in politics and the public sphere in revolutionary Munich to ask what opportunities the revolution and its immediate aftermath presented for women and how they were able to influence political decision-making despite huge barriers. Through an understanding of how their world was gendered, their role as political agents comes to the fore.