Portrait of German Prime Minister Kurt Eisner
A German Jew, born in Berlin in 1867, Eisner was both a socialist and a pacifist. He worked as writer and editor in Munich and Nuremberg and in 1914 agitated against Germany being involved in the dispute between Austria and Serbia. In 1918 he was briefly imprisoned for being a leader of one of the strikes which were beginning to cripple the German war effort. Eisner felt that Bavaria, whose capital Munich had been his home for many years, should break away from Germany. On the night of 7 November 1918 he declared Bavaria to be a Republic and became its first Prime Minister. Although Hitler was at that time still a junior NCO in the army, there can be little doubt that Eisners actions fuelled the future dictators hatred of the Jews. In February 1919 Eisner was assassinated
