After the collapse of the German Empire in 1918, it split away from the national-level Catholic Centre Party and formed the BVP in order to pursue a more conservative and particularist Bavarian course.

The second factor was the Bavarians' clearly more conservative stance, including its assessment of the ongoing revolution which was being led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

[5] The BVP's founding program called for a parliamentary government at the Reich level with a strongly federalist structure, the abolition of "Prussian supremacy", voting rights for women 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.

Kahr resigned as minister president in 1921 when the Law for the Protection of the Republic forced the Civil Guards to disarm.

[8] In 1924 Minister President Knilling appointed Kahr state commissioner general (Generalstaatskommissar) with dictatorial powers.

[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.