Munich city walk

The synagogue building in the rear courtyard was designed in 1930 by the architect Gustav Meyerstein, who was only 30 years old at the time. He had succeeded in creating a spacious sacred building in the cramped backyard of Reichenbachstrasse 27. The building was commissioned by the Linath Hazedek and Agudas Achim prayer associations, to which almost exclusively eastern Jewish immigrants belonged. From the beginning of the 20th century, they had fled to Munich to escape anti-Semitic persecution in their home countries of Russia, Poland and Ukraine. A lively neighborhood with small businesses and crafts emerged around Gärtnerplatz. In view of the global economic crisis and growing anti-Semitism, the planning of a new synagogue was a remarkable undertaking. The opening ceremony took place on September 5, 1931. The Eastern Jewish worshippers called their new synagogue Reichenbachschul - derived from the Yiddish word Schul for synagogue.

The day before the opening, the newspaper "Das Jüdische Echo" described the new synagogue as follows: "The large prayer room makes an impression as soon as you enter due to the dominant lighting. The gaze is captivated by the rich yellow marble cladding of the large niche. The turquoise-blue tone of the walls provides a pleasant color contrast, which is bridged by the cream-colored ceiling and the balustrade of the women's gallery, which projects far into the room in the same shade. The hall is given a special decorative touch by the stained glass windows in effective, delicate colors."

The company was founded in 1878 by businessman Heinrich Uhlfelder (1853-1928), initially as a store for household items and gallantry goods. The focus was on the lower to middle income brackets. The Upper Bavarian rural population from the area around Munich also liked to buy "from Uhlfelder". Over the next few years, the retail store expanded its sales area by purchasing adjacent properties. The company, which soon became a respectable department store, also included the block of houses on Oberanger and the property at Jakobsplatz 3, in addition to Rosental. In 1924, Heinrich Uhlfelder was appointed a Kommerzienrat for his social commitment. When the company passed to the founder's son Max after his death, the sales and storage space amounted to 7,000 square meters and annual sales reached the ten million mark in the early 1930s. In the meantime, the Uhlfelder department store employed around 1000 people. In 1931, Munich's first escalator was installed, which extended over three floors and was a particular attraction.

Munich's National Socialists had been fighting against the Jewish population and their businesses since the early 1920s. When the NSDAP seized power in January 1933, the slow demise of Jewish businesses began - including that of the Uhlfelder department store. As early as March 1933, 280 Jewish men were arrested in Munich as "protective custody prisoners" - including Max Uhlfelder. On April 1, 1933, SA members staged a "demonstration" in front of the department store and threatened customers who were willing to buy. As the self-proclaimed "capital of the movement", Munich played a pioneering role in the increasingly severe measures against the Jewish population from 1935 onwards. During the pogrom night of November 9-10, 1938, the Uhlfelder department store was looted and set on fire. Owner Max Uhlfelder and his son were imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp at the time. They were released in January 1939 and the family fled to India on a visa. All their assets were confiscated, allegedly to pay for the destruction of the department store. Many people were involved in the so-called "Aryanization" raid. First there was the Munich "Aryanization office". Under the harmless title "Vermögensverwertung München GmbH", the Nazi Gauleiter Adolf Wagner liquidated the Uhlfelder department store via the Chamber of Industry and Commerce. The process was approved by the provisional Reich Economics Minister Hermann Göring. Munich's Lord Mayor Karl Fiehler handed over the warehouse to local retailers. The land was transferred to Löwenbräu AG - as a replacement for the Bürgerbräukeller, which had been forced to sell. The department store buildings were severely damaged during an Allied air raid in 1944.

The "Heinrich Rothschild hat and finery store" was founded by its namesake in 1882 and has been run by the brothers Otto and Joseph Rothschild since 1936. The company specialized in the sale and manufacture of ladies' hats. As the pressure of persecution by the Nazis increased, the Rothschild brothers decided to sell the business to four of their employees in October 1938. However, the events during and after the pogrom night of November 9/10, 1938 prevented this from happening. The Nazi authorities had already ordered the liquidation of the company by a "Munich auditing and trust office". The plan was to sell the stock of goods to local wholesalers at knockdown prices. In February 1939, however, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce also agreed to the sale to the end consumer. However, the Rothschild family saw nothing of these proceeds. The city's historical museum at the time (now the Stadtmuseum München) also profited from the forced liquidation of the store. It acquired 92 historic hats for far below the market price. Responsible for these purchases was Konrad Schießl, who had been in a managerial position since 1916 and officially director of the museum since 1935. He had been taking advantage of the increasingly difficult situation of Jewish businessmen since 1933 to acquire objects for the museum's collection at favorable prices.

The Munich City Museum had researched the origins of those 92 historic hats. In 2016, the descendants of Otto Rothschild, who now live in the UK, were traced. They visited the museum to view the hats. They then informed Lilli's family members and intensified their efforts to find Joseph's descendants. Since then, the families of Otto, Lilli and Joseph have been reunited. Together with the Munich City Museum, the family developed a fair and equitable solution for dealing with the 92 hats. Their value was appreciated and they were bought back by the museum. The museum is committed to documenting the family's history and has included an addition on the topic of "Aryanization" in the permanent exhibition "National Socialism in Munich".

More expropriated Jewish retail businesses in Munich:

- Furnishing and art house Bernheimer, Lenbachplatz 3

- Feuchtwanger textile department store, Humboldtstr. 23

- Ludwig Gruber cigar shop, Odeonsplatz 17

- Max Hinzelmann fashion store, Kaufingerstr. 32

- Department store Samuel Karfiol, Reichenbachstr. 6

- Lace and lingerie store Rosa Klauber

- Sigmund Koch music store, Neuhauser Str. 50

- Fabric store Meyer & Lißmann, Weinstr. 14

- Stamp dealer Jakob Littner, Prielmayerstr. 20

- Shoe shop Alfred Rosenberger, Neuhauser Str. 28

- Watch and jewelry store Bernard Rothstein, Sendlinger Str. 21

- Galanteriewaren Adolf Salberg, Neuhauser Str. 30

- Watch and gold store M. Silberthau & Co, Kaufingerstr. 10

- Shoe stores J. Speier, Weinstr. 11 / Kaufingerstr. 15

- Ladies' hat store J. Tauber, Rindermarkt 9

- Perfumery Margarethe Weiß, Wurzererstr. 16

The search for a central building site for a new main synagogue had been going on for a long time before the Bavarian state capital made the unadorned St. Jakob am Anger parking lot available under heritable building rights. The foundation stone was laid on November 9, 2003 and the new main synagogue Ohel Jakob was consecrated exactly three years later. The freestanding house of worship, designed by the Saarbrücken architects Wandel-Höfer-Lorch, forms part of the ensemble with the Jewish Museum and community center. The constellation of these buildings has been chosen to create visual axes that open up completely different perspectives. Trees were planted in the open spaces between the buildings and a fountain was installed. The entire ensemble was awarded the "German Urban Planning Prize 2008". The eye-catcher of the center is the synagogue. Its architecture is impressively characterized by two cubes placed on top of each other: a massive rock base under a filigree glass structure, which is encased in a bronze-coloured metal veil. This interplay of stability and fragility, permanence and provisionality is a structural metaphor for the Jewish leitmotifs of the temple and the tent. The tent stands for the biblical tabernacle in which the people of Israel gathered during their wanderings in the desert, while the temple symbolizes the first Jewish places of worship in historical Israel. The twelve-meter-high glass structure consists of many triangles that can easily be read as Stars of David. Originally, a domed roof was discussed for the Munich synagogue, as was typical for Jewish places of worship in the 19th century. However, a design with such a historicizing approach did not prevail.

The Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria regularly offers guided tours of the synagogue. These include an introduction to the history of Munich's Jewish community, as well as explanations of the architecture of the sacred building and the Orthodox rite of worship. Ritual objects of Jewish religious practice are also presented.

In the immediate vicinity of Marienplatz and Viktualienmarkt, St.-Jakobs-Platz is home to a unique architectural ensemble whose vibrancy and versatility have had a decisive impact on Munich's urban society. With the plans to build a new main synagogue and a community center for the Jewish Community here, the plan for a Jewish Museum also resurfaced. Considerations for such a museum had already been made in Munich at the end of the 1920s, but could no longer be realized in view of the Nazi regime that was soon to be established. After the Shoah, Hans Lamm, the long-standing chairman of the Jewish Community, took up the idea again. However, his efforts still came to nothing. In the 1980s, gallery owner Richard Grimm ran a private Jewish Museum in Maximilianstraße, which was limited to 28 square meters. A few years later, the Jewish Community made larger exhibition rooms available for this purpose in what was then the community center at Reichenbachstraße 27. This "interim museum" was managed by Richard Grimm until 2001, after which it was run as a municipal institution in cooperation with the Munich City Museum and the city archives. The plans to build the new main synagogue and the community center on St.-Jakobs-Platz also led to the planning and construction of the "Jewish Museum of the City of Munich", which, like the other two buildings, was designed by the Saarbrücken architects Wandel, Hoefer and Lorch and financed by the City of Munich to the tune of 13.5 million euros. It opened on March 22, 2007 and has been under the sponsorship of the City of Munich ever since. In the first year after its opening, the museum was visited by 100,000 people.

The exhibition area covers 900 square meters and is spread over three floors. The basement houses the permanent exhibition "Voices-Places-Times" on Munich's Jewish history and present. On the two floors above, exhibitions with different themes alternate. The exhibition is complemented by a study room and a specialist library. On the first floor there is a Jewish bookshop and a cafeteria. The individual floors are connected by a staircase without a bend or change of direction, the so-called ladder to heaven. In the medieval city, this was the preferred construction method in most Munich town houses due to the lack of space. Now the team of architects has reinstated this ladder to the heavens in a quasi-historicizing manner, ending in a skylight through which the light shines in.

Despite the three independent buildings of synagogue, community center and museum, an architectural connection has been artfully achieved. This is not least due to the uniform use of travertine, a porous limestone from the Swabian Alb. The impression of unity is also supported by the corresponding design language. Above all, it is brought to life for the public through visual axes and passages between the three buildings.

The Bavarian Land Ordinance of 1553 meant that the last Jewish citizens still residing in the districts of the old Bavarian regional courts lost their right of residence. It was to take two hundred years before Jewish families settled in Munich again. From 1763, they gathered on Shabbatot and holidays in a small prayer room in the apartment of the businessman Abraham Wolf Wertheimer in Tal 13. At the end of the 18th century, there was once again a small Jewish community in Munich, but it was still largely dependent on the benevolence of the authorities. It was not until Elector Max IV Joseph came to power that the situation of the Jewish population gradually improved in the spirit of enlightened absolutism. In 1801, the monarch declared his paternal protection for them. The official constitution of the Jewish community took place at the beginning of 1815 and the inauguration of the synagogue at Westenriederstraße 7 took place on April 21, 1826. It was attended by King Ludwig I. The community grew rapidly and the synagogue soon proved to be too small. As early as the mid-1860s, a new building in a different location was considered.

However, the orthodox believers avoided the services in the main synagogue. They rejected organ music and choral singing, which was part of the ritual there. This prompted a small group of them to found the Ohel Jakob association. They initially met in a prayer room at Kanalstraße 29 (later Herzog-Rudolf-Straße). Using their own funds, the Orthodox eventually financed the construction of the Ohel Jakob synagogue on this site, which was consecrated on March 25, 1892. The neo-Romanesque building, designed by August Exter with a rather simple façade, was 16 meters long and 19 meters high, rather modest in size compared to the main synagogue. It offered space for 150 worshippers. It was set on fire by SA hordes during the November pogrom of 1938. Today, only a massive memorial stone at Herzog-Rudolf-Straße 1 reminds us of the Ohel Jakob synagogue that once stood here.

On June 7, 1938, Adolf Hitler himself gave the order to demolish the main synagogue. Work began on the morning of June 9, 1938. "An eyesore disappears", commented the propaganda newspaper "Der Stürmer" maliciously on the destruction of the main synagogue, which had to make way for a parking lot "for traffic reasons". The buildings belonging to the synagogue complex were originally also to be demolished, but were then taken over by the SS and used by "Lebensborn e.V." of all things.

Sources confirm that a synagogue was built in Munich in 1380/81 in the "Judengasse", later known as Gruftgasse, on the site of today's Marienhof. It is therefore considered to be the oldest synagogue in Munich. However, it can be assumed that the high medieval Jewish community in Munich already had its own prayer room. In the Monancensia - the city's literary archive and a research library on the history and cultural life of Munich - there is also evidence that a synagogue is said to have existed just a few decades after the city was founded, namely in 1210 under Duke Ludwig the Kelheimer. In an article published in 1988 on the history of Munich's Jewish population in the Middle Ages, historian Helmuth Stahleder, on the other hand, calls for a more critical reading of the sources. According to this article, there is only serious evidence for the existence of a synagogue in Munich at the end of the 14th century - the one in the later Gruftgasse with an attached Hekdesch, a so-called "Jewish hospital". As early as 1379, the Jewish community in Munich passed a resolution to pay an additional half tithe annually for a period of three years, which was to be collected by the treasurer in monthly installments. On August 4, 1380, the house on today's Schrammerstraße was purchased for 200 guilders and transferred to the Jewish community on August 9. The property is first mentioned as a synagogue in a document dated April 8, 1404. Little has survived regarding the personnel of that early synagogue, i.e. references to rabbis, cantors, gabbaim (synagogue board members). However, the book "Beth ha-Knesseth Ort der Zusammenkunft" (see bibliography) refers to a "school knocker Simon" for the period around 1415/16: "He had the task of announcing the start of the Sabbath [sic!] to Jewish families on Friday evening by knocking on the door." However, the synagogue (in Yiddish it is usually referred to as a shul) was not destined to survive for long. In 1442 there was a pogrom, as there had been in 1285, 1345, 1349 and 1413, but this time it led to the expulsion of Munich's Jewish inhabitants. Duke Albrecht III of Bavaria gave the building to his personal physician Dr. Hans Hartlieb and his wife Sybille on September 14, 1442. The Catholic doctor had the synagogue converted into a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the building became a popular pilgrimage destination for the people of Munich. In the course of secularization, the chapel was profaned in 1803 and finally fell victim to the expansion of the police headquarters in 1865. The work of the archaeologists, who are currently digging on the site to the north of the New Town Hall on what is now the Marienhof, is expected to provide further information about what is believed to be Munich's first synagogue.

In 1921, the Ohel Jakob association acquired a building in the immediate vicinity of the Orthodox synagogue. An elementary school was to be built here, where Jewish children would be taught and educated separately by gender and according to Orthodox principles. In 1924, the property was converted for the purpose of regular school operations. Just four years later, an additional floor was added to the building as part of expansion measures. The school was primarily attended by children from strictly religious families.

After the fanatical National Socialist Josef Bauer (he had already taken part in the Hitler Putsch ten years earlier in an SA uniform) was appointed provisional city school board member on April 23, 1933 and then chief city school board member on June 20, 1933, the number of Jewish children in public schools was determined on his initiative. This was accompanied by increasing discrimination and humiliation. Bauer's declared aim was to make Munich's schools "Jew-free". As a result, the numbers at the Ohel Jacob elementary school rose sharply in the following years. In 1934, the Jewish Community took over the elementary school and expanded it to eight classes. The following year, the school already had 251 pupils. The community was forced to rent additional rooms at public schools in the nearby Türkenstrasse, Klenzestrasse and Gabelsbergerstrasse. However, after the pogrom night of November 9, 1938, the Nazi school authorities under Josef Bauer refused to allow the community to do so. In addition, the school building at Herzog-Rudolf-Straße 5 had been severely damaged by the fire in the neighboring synagogue. Reconstruction was forbidden, however, as was any further use of the school building at first. It was not until January 1939 that the school, now with over 400 children, was able to resume operations in Herzog-Rudolf-Straße 1 on the premises of the former kindergarten and after-school care center. In the meantime, many Jewish families had left the country and the school population had been decimated. Several classes were combined. The lessons consisted of religious instruction, foreign languages, handicrafts and needlework. From 1937, a further education class was added. As many highly qualified Jewish teachers from secondary schools taught here, who had already been dismissed from their previous jobs in 1933, the standard of the school was comparatively high.

The first major deportation in November 1941 resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of pupils. After the subsequent deportations, only 13 boys and girls were still being taught here in April 1942. The final ban on Jewish schools was announced on June 30, 1942 and ended the history of the Jewish elementary school in Munich.

A Jewish training workshop was set up in Schwabing at Biederstein 7 in 1937 with the aim of training young Jewish men from all over Germany to become carpenters or locksmiths.
By the time the training workshop closed in 1941, around 100 young Jews from all over Germany had received training there, which included foreign languages and prepared them for emigration. As trained craftsmen, it was thought, they would have a better chance of obtaining an emigration visa.

After the devastation of the November pogrom on November 9/10, 1938, the training workshop on Biederstein was provisionally restored and was able to continue operating until September 1939. The building was then expropriated and the Jewish training workshop moved into rooms in the burnt-out synagogue in Reichenbachstraße. In 1942, when the deportations from Munich had already begun, the training workshop was finally closed by the Nazis.

The Israelite Girls' Home stood at Kaiserplatz 61 in the Ludwigsvorstadt district. There had been a Jewish sisterhood in Munich since the end of the 19th century. The hospital and the nurses' home were then founded in 1910 in the building at Hermann-Schmid-Straße 5, which was converted for this purpose. After the Nazis came to power, people of Jewish origin were no longer admitted to state and municipal hospitals. This led to serious space problems at the Israelite Hospital. Since the Reichspogromnacht, the operation of the hospital was monitored by the SS and Gestapo. From then on, only doctors and employees of Jewish origin were allowed to enter the hospital. Jewish girls and women trained as nurses here with the same aim as the men in the training workshop - to emigrate, preferably to Palestine. In June 1942, the hospital was closed down by order of the Nazi administration and the 50 or so patients, including the seriously ill and dying, were transported in a furniture van accompanied by three nurses and the head doctor to the Südbahnhof railway station, from where they were transported on to the Theresienstadt ghetto. From there, they were deported to the extermination camps. The only survivors were the head doctor Julius Spanier, his wife and two of the sisters.

The training workshop for Jewish men had been run by the qualified civil engineer Fritz Sänger since 1939. He was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp after the Reichspogromnacht and forced by the SS to sell the Augsburg construction company inherited from his parents for far less than it was worth. After his release, he came to Munich and took over the Jewish training workshop. At the same time, he tried to obtain a visa for the USA for himself and his wife. However, he was unable to obtain the guarantee of a US citizen, other documents required for a visa and, last but not least, the money for the ship passages. On April 4, 1942, Fritz Sänger, his wife, his eight-year-old daughter and his sister Berta were deported to the ghetto in Piaski, Poland. As a member of the Jewish Council, Fritz Sänger fought to improve conditions in the overcrowded ghetto. Amazingly, he succeeded in having the ghetto baths repaired, which helped to contain typhus. In autumn 1942, Fritz Sänger was sent to the nearby Sawin forced labor camp, where he was put to work draining swamps. His trail was lost in November 1942 and it is still unclear today when, where and how the former head of the Jewish training workshop was murdered.

A private Jewish kindergarten was founded as early as 1904. In fact, this date also marks the beginning of the history of the Jewish children's home in Munich. In 1908, three Jewish children were permanently accommodated here for the first time. However, it was not until 1925 that the "Israelitische Jugendhilfe e.V." association succeeded in acquiring a former office building with a large garden in Antonienstraße in Schwabing. In May 1926, after extensive renovations, the children's home with dormitories, a dining room with adjoining kitchen and storerooms was officially opened. In addition to a recreation room for the boys and girls living here, there was also a prayer room, where adult worshippers from the Schwabing area attended the services alongside the children from the home. Here in the "Antonienheim", as the facility was popularly known, orphans and illegitimate children, as well as those from socially disadvantaged Jewish families, were originally accommodated. When the Nazis came to power, children from rural areas were also brought here by their parents to protect them from the increasing discrimination in the countryside. Soon, children of parents who had already emigrated were also waiting to be brought here. After the Night of Broken Glass on November 9/10, 1938, girls and boys whose parents had lost their livelihoods and homes were taken in here. By the beginning of the war in September 1939, the Jewish Community had managed to bring some of the children to safety with various Kindertransports to England. However, not all the girls and boys from the Jewish children's home were so fortunate. On November 20, 1941, 20 of them were deported to Kaunas in Lithuania together with four of the people looking after them. A further deportation took place on April 4, 1942. Finally, the Antonienheim shelter was dissolved on April 15, 1942 and the remaining 13 children were resettled in the "Milbertshofen Jewish settlement". When this camp was closed in August 1942, they found new quarters in the "Home for Jews" in Berg am Laim. The Gestapo had most of these children and the last caregivers deported to Auschwitz on March 13, 1943, where they were murdered in the gas chambers immediately after their arrival. The authorities had forced the Jewish Community to sell the building to the Nazi organization "Lebensborn e.V." to set up a "mother's home". The purchase price dictated by the Nazis was never paid.

After 1945, the few surviving former residents of the children's home remembered that the home's management had given them a sense of security despite the external threat. Since April 2002, a memorial stele here has commemorated the children of the Antonienheim and their fate.

With the Nazi regime coming to power, it became increasingly difficult for Jewish cultural workers to exist in Germany. As early as 22 September 1933, the Reich Chamber of Culture Act was passed, according to which Jewish cultural workers were henceforth denied membership of this central professional organization. This was effectively a professional ban. A year later, the "Jüdische Rundschau" quoted Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels in its November 5, 1935 issue: "The Reich Chamber of Culture is now free of Jews. There is no longer a Jew active in the cultural life of our people." However, the final statement was only partially true at the time. Even after the law had been passed, the Association of Bavarian-Israelite Communities had been looking for ways in which professional artistic activity would still be possible under the given circumstances. The conductor Erich Erck (actually Erich Eisner), representing the Jewish Community of Munich, entered into negotiations with the Bavarian Ministry of Education and Worship after an initial application to the Political Police had remained unanswered. Erck now told the Ministry that "lectures and concerts were the preferred options. Stage events, however, only in very individual cases." He also emphasized that the planned character of the company was not only "completely apolitical, but rather exclusively cultural and social". The application was finally approved by the Ministry of State on January 16, 1934 and officially confirmed on February 9, 1934. Erck's residence at Adelheidstr. 33 became the organizational center of the Jewish Cultural Association, which only existed from March 1934 to November 1938. The Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung wrote shortly after its foundation that the Jewish Cultural Association was an institution whose "idea had inevitably arisen from the course of events of the previous year". Only under the umbrella of the Kulturbund did Jewish artists still have the opportunity to maintain a degree of normality and continuity despite all resistance. However, this association was a strange hybrid: founded by Jewish musicians and artists themselves, but also welcomed by the Nazis. Although only Jewish members of the community were allowed to take part in the events of the Jewish Cultural Association and advertising was only permitted in their own community newspaper, this structure made it even easier for them to pursue their surveillance and control mania over Jewish cultural workers.

The conductor Erich Erck, initially assistant to Bruno Walter, General Music Director of the Royal Court Opera in Munich, took over the musical direction of the Jewish Chamber Orchestra in Munich in 1931. The orchestra had originally been founded by amateurs, but was rededicated by the Nazis in 1934 to become the official orchestra of the Jewish Cultural Association in Bavaria. As the established concert halls were no longer available to Jews, alternative venues had to be found. Many concerts took place in gymnasiums or privately rented halls, of which only a few remained after the war. Music was also played in synagogues, such as at the opening concert of the Jewish Cultural Association in Munich on March 4, 1934 in the main synagogue on Herzog-Max-Straße. On this evening, two concertos by Handel and a cantata by Bach were performed. The soloist Irma Stern also performed. In general, the music department of the Jewish Cultural Association was its most active part. It consisted of Erich Erck's 30-piece orchestra, the synagogue choir, a vocal quartet and a chamber music trio.

In 1935, the "Munich Puppet Theater of Jewish Artists", founded by businessman Berthold Wolff together with Maria Luiko (real name: Marie Luise Kohn), made its debut. The painter Maria Luiko designed the puppets and stage sets in a sometimes whimsically exaggerated, sometimes expressionist style. Between 1934 and March 1937, five plays and three one-act musical-dramatic productions were created. The two founders emphasized that this was not a Punch and Judy show, but rather "experimental theater of high artistic value." An article in the Munich community newspaper pointed out that the puppet theater was bringing "something new for Munich, namely a drama of a purely Jewish milieu" to the stage. In fact, the repertoire was mainly based on biblical stories, such as the books of Ruth and Esther. The ensemble gave opera tenors, actors, actresses and sopranos the opportunity to be artistically active.

After the nationwide pogrom of November 9/10, 1938, the cultural associations, including those in Munich, were placed under the control of the Gestapo and the security service for the purpose of liquidation. At the end of the year, the Munich branch of the Jewish Cultural Association in Bavaria ceased its work. In a letter to the Secret State Police, it was announced that the Kulturbund would be dissolved with effect from December 31, 1938. In the almost four years of its existence, the Jewish Cultural Association in Munich had organized and carried out 110 events. The conductor Erich Erck managed to emigrate to Bolivia via Great Britain in January 1939. Maria Luiko, the artistic director of the puppet theater, was deported to the Kaunas ghetto on November 20, 1941 and murdered there.

In 1965, the Jewish sports club TSV Maccabi München was founded by active Shoa survivors and today has around 750 active members. In addition to the soccer section, nine other sporting activities are offered - from ballet to self-defense, from gymnastics and hip hop dance to karate, table tennis and Maccabi skiing.

The term Maccabi is derived from the name of a priestly family, the Maccabees, whose members are regarded as freedom fighters in Jewish history. Charlotte Knobloch, President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, is quoted on the club's website: 
"TSV Maccabi Munich is a club that is not only committed to sporting activities, but also acts as an ambassador for democracy and tolerance. It is not for nothing that Jewish and non-Jewish sports enthusiasts are equally welcome."

This new foundation was a continuation of the very eventful history of Jewish sport in the Bavarian capital, as it existed before the Shoa:

• As early as 10 April 1903, the "Allgemeine Zeitung" reported.
• The "Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums" reported on gymnastics evenings of the "Jüdischer Turnverein Esra" in Munich on April 10, 1903.
• In its issue of June 14, 1912, the "Jüdische Rundschau" reported on a foundation celebration for the Jüdischer Turn- und Sportverein (JTSV) München, in which there was "a men's and women's section, a tennis section and a youth soccer team".
• The Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung of September 8, 1926, reported that the Bar Kochba Munich Jewish Gymnastics and Sports Club was organizing a Jewish sports event on October 3, 1926.
• On January 15, 1933, the handball team from JTSV Munich won the autumn championship of the A-Class Munich with a victory. The team was thus promoted to the Bezirksliga, the highest Bavarian league.

With the Nazis' rise to power on January 30, 1933, Jewish athletes were no longer allowed to belong to "German" sports clubs. On January 19, 1934, the Jewish Gymnastics and Sports Club (JTUS) Munich was granted a permit by the representative of the Reich Sports Commissioner of the Bavarian state government and officially founded at the end of the month. After being entered in the register of associations, the club was able to open its gymnasium at Plinganserstraße 76 on May 6, 1934 with a dignified inauguration ceremony. The tennis department was able to hold a large summer club tournament on the courts on Marbachstrasse from July 6 to 8, 1934. However, sporting competition was only permitted between Jewish clubs. On July 4, 1937, for example, JTUS Munich hosted the athletics championships of the Bavarian state association. On July 11, 1937, JTUS Munich held a games day for Jewish youth on the sports fields on Marbachstraße. On October 20, 1938, the list of the best Jewish athletes of the year from all over Germany was published. Jewish sporting history in Munich, Bavaria and the entire Reich came to an end with the Reichspogromnacht on November 9-10.

In the course of the 19th century, not only the population of Munich grew rapidly, but also the number of members of the Jewish community. A suitable site for a second Jewish cemetery was soon sought. In addition, during the cholera epidemic, many people died in Munich in a short space of time, including many children. The cemeteries for children still bear eloquent witness to this today.

In 1896, the Jewish Community first acquired a four-hectare site directly adjacent to the North Cemetery on Ungererstrasse. Eight years later, it swapped this area for the "Groh'schen Gründe" diagonally opposite - an abandoned gravel plot on the outskirts of the city. Hans Grässel (1860 - 1939), who later became the municipal building director, was commissioned with the planning and construction of the new cemetery, which began in 1904. The cemetery was handed over to the Jewish community on May 8, 1908; the first burial took place there a few weeks later. The five-hectare cemetery area with 30 grave sections offers space for 15,000 to 16,000 graves. There are currently around 7,500 graves. Grässel also built the baroque-style mortuary and funeral hall, which was completed in 1907 and has a large square assembly hall at its center. It offers space for a large congregation of mourners. The cemetery wall with a three-part portal bears an inscription designed by the sculptor Bruno Diamant (1867 - 1942):

"The dust returns to the dust - as it was. 
But the spirit returns to God who gave it." (Kohelet 12:7) 

A memorial to 180 Jewish soldiers from Munich who died in the First World War has stood opposite the main entrance since 1925. It was designed by the architect Fritz Landauer (1883 - 1968), who also designed and built the magnificent synagogue in Augsburg. The memorial here consists of a sarcophagus, supported by lions, with a shield of David and a sword, with the inscription: "Den Gefallen". Below it are the five Hebrew letters, which stand for five Hebrew words that mean the following in German:

"His soul be bound into the covenant of eternal life." (1 Samuel 25:29)

At the end of the 1930s, the Jewish community used parts of the cemetery as a sports field because the Jewish clubs no longer had any other areas available for sports activities. Physical education classes at the Jewish elementary school were also held here. During the war, the cemetery was not spared from desecration: metal parts and gravestones "important to the war effort" were stolen. A nursery was built on part of the site.

It is thanks to Karl Schörghofer, the cemetery caretaker for many years, that burials according to Jewish rites could be carried out in the cemetery until the end of the war despite severe restrictions. He also prevented the removal of gravestones. And although Schörghofer had already attracted the attention of the Gestapo and was threatened with being sent to Dachau concentration camp, he managed to hide six Jews who had gone into hiding over a period of 14 months. In December 2014, Munich's Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter unveiled a memorial plaque designed by Toni Preis in memory of Karl Schörghofer. Since November 10, 1946, a memorial stone for the murdered Munich Jews with the inscription "Opfer schwerer Verfolgungszeit 1933-1945" (Victims of severe persecution 1933-1945) has stood in the cemetery in the immediate vicinity of the mourning hall.

The cemetery contains the graves of the following celebrities (source Wikipedia):

• Lehmann Bernheimer (1841-1918), art dealer
• Hans Borchardt (1865-1917), painter
• Leo Brauner (1898-1974), botanist and director of the Munich Botanical Gardens
• Kurt Eisner (1867-1919), socialist German politician, Bavarian Minister President
• David Heinemann (1819-1902), painter, art expert and gallery owner
• Towje Kleiner (1948-2012), actor and screenwriter
• Hans Lamm (1913-1985), head of department at the Munich Adult Education Center, president of the Jewish Community of Munich
• Gustav Landauer (1870-1919), German writer and theorist of anarchism
• Kurt Landauer (1884-1961), president and posthumous honorary president of FC Bayern Munich
• Johanna Lenz (1915-2010), German art historian
• Sonja Lerch (1882-1918), German socialist and peace activist
• Eugen Leviné (1883-1919), revolutionary and KPD politician
• Peter Lilienthal (1927-2023), German film director
• Max Mannheimer (1920-2016), Holocaust survivor
• Karl Neumeyer (1869-1941), German jurist
• Abi Ofarim (1937-2018), dancer, singer, guitarist, music producer and choreographer
• Joseph Schülein (1854-1938), Brewery owner and benefactor for (Alt-) Haidhausen
• Henny Seidemann (1922-2021), Chairwoman/Honorary Chairwoman of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation Munich-Augsburg-Regensburg
• Simon Snopkowski (1925-2001), Chief Physician, President of the Jewish Community in Bavaria
• Julius Spanier (1880-1959), Pediatrician, Senator, President of the Jewish Community

Since 1997, there has been an area for 250 graves on the grounds of the New Forest Cemetery, where the independent liberal Jewish community "Beth Shalom" carries out burials.

A Jewish cemetery already existed in the middle of the 13th century - presumably on the site of today's Maßmannplatz (Maxvorstadt). After the Jewish population of Munich was expelled from the city in 1442, the cemetery and the synagogue were destroyed.

It was not until the end of the 18th century that Jewish families were allowed to settle in the city again. Shortly after the founding of the Jewish community in 1816, a decree by Bavarian King Max I Joseph (1756 - 1825) allowed the construction of a Jewish cemetery in Thalkirchner Straße. The area was extended a total of three times - in 1854, 1871 and 1881 - and each time the extended cemetery was surrounded by a new wall. The brick wall from 1881 surrounds an area of two and a half hectares. The Tahara House, built of solid brickwork, is located on the southern wall of the cemetery. This is where the ritual washing of the dead once took place. The building is constructed in the round arch style and the façade leads into a colonnade in a higher central section. Shortly after the opening of the New Israelite Cemetery in Freimann in 1908, the "place of eternal light" was closed. Since then, the imposing entrance gate on Thalkirchner Straße has not been opened. Only in rare cases is it possible to enter the cemetery through a side entrance, for example for descendants of the families buried here. After the closure, deceased Jewish people were only buried here if a family grave already existed. The gravestones in the Old Jewish Cemetery bear witness to the rise of the Jewish community in Munich from the 19th century until its decline in the 1930s/40s. Guided tours are occasionally offered by the Jewish Adult Education Center.

The cemetery contains the graves of the following celebrities (source Wikipedia): 

• Hirsch Aub (1796-1875), rabbi in Munich
• Heinrich Aufhäuser (1842-1917), banker, chairman of the Jewish community in Munich
• Michael Beer (1800-1833), poet, brother of Giacomo Meyerbeer
• Max Grünbaum (1817-1898), orientalist and Hebraist
• Hessekiel Hessel (1755-1824), rabbi, first head of the Munich Jewish community
• Salomon Hirschfelder (1831-1903) genre painter, inventor of a special camera
• Carl Maison (1840-1896), merchant
• Otto Perutz (1847-1922), chemist and founder of Perutz-Photowerke
• Jacques Rosenthal (1854-1937), bookseller and antiquarian bookseller
• Julius Thannhauser (1860-1921), hat maker and folk singer

There are also nine graves of victims who perished in the Shoah and were buried here between 1933 and 1940. After the war, the Bavarian Palace Administration designated them as concentration camp gravesites and took over their care.

The buried (source Wikipedia):

• Karl Bick (1878-1940), merchant, suicide
• Gustav Böhm (1880-1938), lawyer, murdered in Dachau concentration camp
• Karl Feust (1887-1938), lawyer, died after mistreatment in Dachau concentration camp
• Bernhard Haas (1871-1938), landowner, murdered in Dachau concentration camp
• Erwin Kahn (1900-1933), shot and died "on the run" in Dachau concentration camp
• Max Luber (1869-1939), murdered in Dachau concentration camp
• Albert Neustätter (1874-1938), merchant, murdered in Dachau concentration camp
• Hans Schloss (1901-1938), merchant, murdered in Dachau concentration camp
• Alfred Strauss (1902-1933), lawyer, murdered in Dachau concentration camp