Bavarian Brinkmanship as Von Kahr Refuses Taxes to Berlin

An “International News Service” dispatch from this date in 1923 concerns some brinkmanship in Bavaria about a month before Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch. Excerpts:

Bavaria Defiant.

Premier Von Kahr, of Bavaria, who holds the double post of prime minister and dictator, signed an order to Bavarians not to pay taxes to the Reich (the German state as considered apart from Bavaria).

Later Von Kahr sent a telegram to Berlin demanding Bavaria’s temporary exemption from federal taxation. The Bavarian official then held up the tax defiance order pending a reply from Berlin.

News that Von Kahr had signed an order to Bavarians not to pay taxes to Berlin was not published throughout Germany, the censor fearing to aggravate a situation that is already critical.

Von Kahr had only recently been appointed to be the local dictator, and was a right-wing rival of Hitler, who would later have him murdered for his role in suppressing the Putsch.

This letter-to-the-editor, signed “A Lover of Truth” and found in the 14 October 1843 Cambrian, seems deliberately to fail to grasp the breadth of the Rebeccaite grievances:

There appeared in the pages of one of your late numbers an account of the destruction of the Fishguard turnpike gates and toll-houses, together with that of the garden wall, &c., the property of Mr. John Mackennell, the surveyor to the Fishguard turnpike trust. Now, as I have some reason to believe that the Lady Rebecca and her Daughters who committed the outrage are inhabitants of the town of Fishguard and its vicinity, I am quite at a loss to account for the destruction of the Surveyor’s property, as it must be acknowledged by all, that the streets and roads leading to and from Fishguard are in good repair, which, previous to the residence of Mr. Mackennel, were proverbial for their roughness and disagreeableness.