Bavarian Brinkmanship as Von Kahr Refuses Taxes to Berlin
An “International News Service” dispatch from 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
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.
