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.

The first was the Bavarian representatives' strong federalism, in contrast to the national Centre Party under Matthias Erzberger, which tended towards centralization.

The second factor was the Bavarians' more conservative stance and negative assessment of the then-proceeding revolution guided (at least initially) by the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

[3] The founding members of the BVP included the party's agrarian wing and, despite initial skepticism, the workers' representatives.

[5] The BVP's programme called for a decentralized federal parliamentary system, the abolition of "Prussian supremacy", women's suffrage and the introduction of plebiscites.

BVP Minister President Kahr was responsible for the idea of establishing Bavaria as an Ordnungszelle (cell of order) within the "Marxist chaos" and completely "Judaized" Weimar Republic.

[9] Kahr then stopped enforcing the Law for the Protection of the Republic, which increased the punishments for politically motivated acts of violence and banned organizations that opposed the "constitutional republican form of government" along with their printed matter and meetings.

[10] In spite of his right-wing stances, he helped put down Adolf Hitler's November 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.

Under Held, the Bavarian conflicts with the Reich government ended, the economy stabilized, the state administration was reformed and infrastructure expanded.

[5] At the national level, the BVP voted in 1925 against Centre Party Reich presidential candidate Wilhelm Marx and for Paul von Hindenburg since it feared socialist-driven centralization.