Heinrich Held | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Held, circa 1933 | |
| Minister President of Bavaria | |
| In office 2 July 1924 – 9 March 1933 | |
| Preceded by | Eugen Ritter von Knilling |
| Succeeded by | Ludwig Siebert |
| Minister for Commerce, Industry and Trade | |
| In office 1927–1932 | |
| Minister for Agriculture | |
| In office 1930–1932 | |
| Minister for Economy | |
| In office 1932–1933 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1868-06-06)6 June 1868 |
| Died | 4 August 1938(1938-08-04) (aged 70) |
| Nationality | German |
| Party | Bavarian People's Party |
| Residence(s) | Regensburg,Bavaria |
| Occupation | Journalist |
Heinrich Held (6 June 1868 – 4 August 1938) was a GermanCatholicpolitician andMinister President ofBavaria. He was forced out of office by theNazi takeover inGermany in 1933.
Heinrich Held was born inErbach in theTaunus, then a part of thePrussian province ofHesse-Nassau. His father, Johannes Held, was a local farmer andmusician, his mother was Susanne Held née Kaiser.
Held studied law at the universities ofStrasbourg,Marburg andHeidelberg before becoming a journalist in Strasbourg in 1896. He moved to Heidelberg the year after and became editor of theRegensburger Morgenblatts, a newspaper in the Bavarian city of Regensburg, in 1899. He moved to take up the same position at theRegensburger Anzeiger the year after. From 1906, he became a co-owner of those two newspapers and began his political career as a speaker in the conservative-Christian workers' movements.From 1921, Held also served as the president of theDeutscher Katholikentag, a regular gathering and discussion forum for Roman Catholics throughout Germany.
In 1933, Held's son Philipp became one of the first inmates at theDachau concentration camp.[1] On 4 August 1938, Heinrich Held died in Regensburg.[2]
Held was elected to theBavarian parliament in 1907, standing for the Bavarian branch of theCentre Party, and he held his seat there until 1933. He belonged to the left wing of his party and was mainly interested in fiscal politics. He quickly rose to power within the party, becoming his party's leader in the parliament in 1914 and leader of the party itself shortly afterwards. In 1917, Held was elevated to the title ofGeheimer Hofrat, a member of the Bavarianprivy council.
In 1918, after the end of the monarchy in Bavaria, Held was one of the co-founders of theBavarian People's Party (BVP), transforming the Centre's Bavarian branch into a new party which emphasized conservative elements andstates' rights. Held remained the parliamentary leader of the new party. In July 1924, after the resignation ofEugen Ritter von Knilling, Held became prime minister ofBavaria. His government was supported by his own party, the national-conservativeGerman National People's Party, the national-liberalGerman People's Party and theBavarian Peasants' League. His policies as prime minister were aimed at reconciliation with the federal government and moving away from separatism. In 1924, he also signed aconcordat with theHoly See.
Held ran in the first round of the1925 German presidential elections and achieved 3.7 percent of the votes. In the second round, his party supported the right-wing candidatePaul von Hindenburg instead of the Centre Party's candidateWilhelm Marx. In 1930, Held's government lost its majority in the Bavarian parliament but continued in office as a minority administration. From 1930 to 1932, Held also held the offices of Minister of State for Commerce, Industry and Trade and Minister of State for Agriculture. Both were merged to form the Ministry for the Economy which he held from 1932 to 1933.[3]
Held continued to advocate states rights within the German republic, publishing papers on the subject. In 1932 he sharply criticized the removal of thePrussian prime ministerOtto Braun by ChancellorFranz von Papen, a move he considered an unlawful interference by the federal government in state matters.[4] Later in 1932 an attempt, supported by a wide coalition of parties, to counter the Nazis by establishingRupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, as aStaatskommisar for Bavaria with dictatorial powers failed due to the hesitance of the Bavarian government under Held.[5][6]
On 9 March 1933, the Bavarian government itself was forcibly removed from office by theNazis. Initially Held resisted the attempts by theSA to overthrow his government, but he received no support from the German army, who had orders from Berlin to stay out of domestic politics, so that ultimately he could not hold off the Nazis.[7] The office of Bavarian prime minister was abolished and replaced by aReichsstatthalter, a purely administrative position with no political power.[3] Held retired from politics, first escaping toLugano,Switzerland, where his son Josef lived, later withdrawing toRegensburg. His government pension as a former prime minister was revoked by the Nazis.[8]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Prime Minister of Bavaria 1924 – 1933 | Succeeded by |
Minister-presidents of the Free State ofBavaria | ||
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| Revolutionary period (1918–19) |  | |
| Weimar period (1919–33) | ||
| Nazi period (1933–45) | ||
| Modern Bavaria (since 1945) | ||
* Acting | ||
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
