History of the Jews in Munich
Although Jews lived in Munich as early as the Middle Ages , they were expelled several times in pogroms and, due to the particularly restrictive anti-Jewish policy of the Bavarian Wittelsbachers, could not establish themselves until around 1800. Insofar as some important personalities emerged from the Munich Jewish community and, on the other hand, anti-Semitism acted precisely from Munich as the “ capital of the movement ”, the history of the Jews in Munich is of particular, more than just local importance. This also applies to the period after 1945.
12th century: beginning of Jewish life in Munich
Jews lived in Munich since the Middle Ages . Although the sources are not without doubts, historians agree that the first Jews settled there soon after Munich was founded (1158).
Her stay is first mentioned in documents in 1229. The first Jew in Munich known by name that year was called "Abraham de Municha" or "Abraham der Municher". The first pogrom occurred on October 12, 1285 after a woman " confessed " that the Munich Jews had killed a baptized Christian child and drank his blood. An angry crowd set fire to the synagogue, killing 180 Jews who had fled to the first floor in the flames. Two years later, the Jews were allowed to return to the city. Further pogroms against Jews in Munich followed in 1345, 1349, 1413, 1442 and 1715, which were documented.
14th and 15th centuries: growth, pogroms, displacement
The 14th and 15th centuries were marked by periods of growth in the Jewish community and pogroms against Jews. In 1381 the congregation converted a house in Judengasse (later: Gruftgasse) acquired the year before into a synagogue in Judengasse . In 1442, however, all Jews from Munich and Upper Bavaria were ordered by Duke Albrecht III. expelled. The synagogue in Judengasse was converted into a Marienkapelle (crypt chapel) and rededicated, which disappeared after 1803.
18th century: Return of Jewish life to Munich
After more than 300 years, Jews settled in Munich again in the second half of the 18th century. Their position in society was difficult. The Jewish emancipation , which developed in the course of the French Revolution , could only slowly improve the situation of the Jews in Munich. In 1802 Abraham Uhlfelder and Abraham Wolf Wertheimer employed Rabbi Hessekiel Hessel .
A "Regulativ über die local Jewry" published in 1805 relied on emancipation only under reserve of improvement, which meant that emancipation was placed in the hands of bureaucrats . Permanent residence was only guaranteed by inclusion in the newly created matriculation , whereby the allocated number could only be transferred to one child. Jews were not allowed to enter the guild trades . At least they were now allowed to settle in the whole city area and to practice their religion . 70 Jewish families were given the right to stay; 37 families had to leave Munich. Outside the state Jewish legislation stood the small class of bankers and wholesalers who had proven their usefulness for the Bavarian state through business activities and financial loans; they moved quite naturally within the court and the higher officials.
A request from the Munich police department that the Jewish community should set up their own Jewish schools was rejected by the community leader Uhlfelder on the grounds that he could not tell the members which school they would send their children to; Wealthy Jewish parents hired private tutors for their children. In 1804 Jews were allowed to enter higher and lower educational institutions of the Christian denominations . In 1806, out of the need to create a broader base and at the same time a form of organization for traditional religious life, the "Chewra Talmud Torah " was founded.
1806 to 1871: legal security, establishment of the IKG, cemetery and synagogue construction
In 1806 Maximilian I Joseph from Wittelsbach became the first king of the Kingdom of Bavaria . The board of directors of the Israelite religious community in Munich was the first in the Kingdom of Bavaria to accept the new era without reservation and to try to influence the negotiations and deliberations that were still pending in the ministries through one of Abraham Uhlfelder's head and four deputies who signed “for Immediate submission directed at the highest point ”of April 8, 1812. After the usual flattering introductory phrases they dared to implore the king“ for the emancipation of our co-religionists in the whole kingdom and to ask for the enjoyment of the civil rights of all devout , while at the same time we were the most loyal and The most sacred fulfillment of all civic duties without exception. ”Then follows the rhetorical question:“ Whether the Jews are capable and worthy of enjoying civil rights with regard to their religion ? ”It is also said that this question is theoretically and practically“ an affirmative answer et ”through the successful emancipation of Jews in Napoleon's empire and a number of German states. “And should we stand back in Bavaria? ... Not possible! The Constitution and several earlier and later laws and organic edicts speak out too definitely complete freedom of religion and conscience for us to have anything to fear from this side. "
With the edict of the Jews of 1813 , the royal minister Montgelas made legal security possible for the Jewish community in Bavaria for the first time . It is true that the edict restricted the freedom of movement of Jews and the possibility of starting a family, since a marriage had to be approved by the authorities. Nevertheless, it enabled a regular life and led to a significant increase in the Jewish community in Bavaria.
Another important step for the Jews in Munich was the establishment of the "Israelitische Kultusgemeinde München" in 1815. A year later, the Jewish community was given permission to create a Jewish cemetery , after which the Old Israelite Cemetery was created in 1816 .
The first modern synagogue in Munich was built from 1824 to 1826 on Westenriederstrasse, under massive pressure from the authorities. Up until this point in time, Munich's Jews met in many small private rooms that were spread all over the city. The authorities did not like this situation as they believed that uncontrollable angle meetings would take place in the rooms. The authorities forced the community to build a synagogue under threat of fines and arrest. But this also fulfilled a long-awaited goal of the Jewish community. However, the synagogue was only built on the outskirts of the city at that time, at today's Westenriederstrasse 7, which prevented a representative cult building in the heart of Munich, which could have been a symbol of Jewish emancipation and integration.
1872 to 1900: Legal equality and two new synagogues
As a result of the establishment of the German Empire in 1872, Jewish citizens finally received the same civil rights as Christians in Germany. This legal equality was a decisive impetus for Jewish life in Munich, as a strong influx of Jewish rural population from the entire Bavarian area and beyond began. Many manufacturing and trading companies were founded by Jews in Munich from 1872, such as B. the Freundlich brothers . In the period that followed, the Jewish community in Bavaria developed rapidly.
In 1882, at the instigation of King Ludwig II, the Jewish community, which was flourishing at that time, was given a plot of land in the city center, opposite the Maxburg, for the new building of the main synagogue. The new main synagogue in Herzog-Max-Straße was inaugurated on September 16, 1887 with many official guests and was at that time the third largest synagogue in Germany - in the immediate vicinity of the Frauenkirche . According to the congregation , it belonged to Reform Judaism , was one of the most beautiful synagogues in Europe and gave the Jewish community a new self-confidence, as it was at the same time a symbol of the acceptance and importance of the Jewish population for political and social life in Munich. A phase of integration seemed to have dawned.
However, this development did not take place everywhere in Europe . In Eastern Europe , many Jews had to leave their homeland because of many pogroms and moved west. Many of them emigrated to the United States . A stopover and sometimes also a final stop on this route was Munich.
The Orthodox community , which increasingly stayed away from the meetings of the reform community, built the Ohel Jakob synagogue in Herzog-Rudolf-Strasse (formerly Kanalstrasse) at its own expense in 1891/92 .
1900 to 1919: Immigration from Eastern Europe
Due to the strong immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe , the number of the Jewish population in Munich rose sharply after the turn of the century. In 1910, 11,083 of the city's 590,000 inhabitants belonged to the Jewish faith (just under 2% of the total population). Personalities such as Lion Feuchtwanger , Bruno Walter , Hermann Levi , Max Reinhardt , Julius Spanier , Otto Bernheimer or Kurt Eisner contributed to Munich's international reputation as well as to the cultural, political, scientific and economic life.
Weimar Republic
After the First World War , the life of the Jewish population in Munich began to become much more difficult: In the twenties, there was increasing tension and the ruthless expulsion of Jews of Polish origin. Also perpetrated SA -Trupps in attacks on Jewish people and shops. Although a third synagogue, the synagogue on Reichenbachstrasse, was inaugurated in 1931 , which was intended for the Jews expelled from the East, the Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten, the largest daily newspaper in Munich at the time, did not report on it.
1933 to 1945: repression, persecution, expulsion and death
Before 1933 there were 12,000 Jewish citizens in Munich. The National Socialist seizure of power was followed directly by state-ordered, massive repression in January 1933, which finally led to the Nuremberg Race Laws in 1935 and ended in the systematic extermination of European Jews. In 1936 the Jewish community in Munich still had 9,000 members, but two years later this number had halved.
This difficult time is also reflected in the commemorative publication of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde on the 50th anniversary of their synagogue on September 5, 1937: "To celebrate the 50th anniversary of this day is not the time today." Nine months later, the Main synagogue demolished on June 9, 1938 on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler - five months before the Reichspogromnacht . This was justified with the traffic-related necessity of a parking lot, a connection with the “Day of German Art”, which was supposed to be celebrated in the neighboring Deutsches Künstlerhaus , is assumed . The demolition was started just two days later. The costs for this were imposed on the Jewish community. In the Nazi organ “ Der Stürmer ” one could read: “An eyesore is disappearing”. The buildings that also belonged to the synagogue complex were supposed to be demolished, but instead these houses were converted: From then on, the SS used these rooms for the “ Lebensborn eV”.
On November 9, 1938, Joseph Goebbels rang in the " Reichspogromnacht " (also known under the National Socialist name "Reichskristallnacht") with a speech in the old town hall in Munich . The synagogue of the orthodox association Ohel Jakob in Herzog-Rudolf-Strasse burned down , and the synagogue in Reichenbachstrasse was only spared from the fire because of the dense development in the Gärtnerplatzviertel - but nevertheless fell victim to vandalism by SA troops. Most of the windows in the Jewish shops were broken. On November 10th, the Munich district leadership of the NSDAP declared:
“ The Jews who have become naughty are arrested. National Socialist Munich demonstrates today at 8 p.m. in 20 mass rallies against world Jewry and its black and red allies "
From then on, no facilities or synagogues of the Israelite religious community were listed in the Munich address book. The Jews in Munich no longer existed on paper. Many Munich Jews were expelled in the following years.
In August 1941, 3249 people persecuted as Jews were still living in Munich. In that year the NSDAP set up a collection camp in Milbertshofen , and a little later one in Berg am Laim . On November 20, 1941, 1,000 Munich Jews were deported to Kaunas , 94 of them children. These were after five days in the IX. Murdered away from Kaunas. In April 1942 the Jewish children's home was forcibly closed and the children were deported. Shortly afterwards, the Israelite hospital and nurses' home was also closed and its patients and sisters, some of whom were seriously ill, were transported to the extermination camps. It is known that around 3,000 Munich Jews were deported between June 1942 and February 23, 1945, and most of them murdered. On April 30, 1945, the American liberators found only 84 surviving Jews in Munich. Of the 1550 or so Munich people who were liberated from Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1945, 160 returned to their hometown.
1945 until today
Shortly after the liberation from National Socialism , the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde München und Oberbayern (IKG) was founded on July 19, 1945 in the former old people's home on Kaulbachstrasse, and the restored synagogue at Reichenbachstrasse 27 was inaugurated on May 20, 1947.
Also shortly after the liberation, Jewish life returned to the former “ capital of the movement ”, as Munich became a refuge for “ displaced persons ” (DPs). As a result, many Jews and those persecuted by the Nazi dictatorship in Munich were housed in residential areas for DPs. In addition to survivors from concentration camps, many came from Eastern Europe, as well as a considerable number of Jewish refugees from all over Europe . For many, Munich was only a stopover on their way to the USA or Palestine . In spite of this, the Jewish community in Munich had around 2,800 members again by March 1946. Gradually, Munich became home again for Jews.
Before 1970, Jewish institutions in Munich, as elsewhere in Germany, were freely accessible. On February 10, 1970, one person was killed in an attack by Arab terrorists on an El-Al machine that had come from Tel-Aviv . In a hitherto unexplained arson attack on February 13, 1970 shortly after the Sabbath began on the old people's home of the Israelite religious community, seven people died. In June 1970, a Torah scroll and other cult objects were desecrated in the Munich main synagogue. During the Summer Olympics in Munich on September 5, 1972, eleven Israeli athletes and a security officer were murdered as part of a hostage-taking by Arab terrorists demanding the release of 200 Arab prisoners from Israeli prisons. These acts of terrorism had an impact on Jewish life in Munich: impartiality was also impossible, especially since thirteen people were killed and over 200 injured in the right-wing terrorist attack on the Oktoberfest on September 26, 1980 - accidental visitors to the Munich Oktoberfest - and here the most prominent Right-wing extremists in Germany, Gerhard Frey and Franz Schönhuber , lived and worked.
The Jewish community finally had around 4,000 members at the end of the 1980s and around 8,000 members ten years later. By 2006 the number had increased to around 11,000 members - in particular due to the increased immigration from the former Soviet Union since the 1990s . The rooms of the community center in Reichenbachstrasse were therefore no longer sufficient.
It is thanks to the commitment of Charlotte Knobloch , President of the Munich community and from June 7, 2006 to November 28, 2010, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, that on November 9, 2006, exactly 68 years after the pogrom night , in which the old orthodox synagogue Ohel Jakob was destroyed, the new main synagogue Ohel Jakob (Jacob's tent) was opened on Sankt-Jakobs-Platz in the center of Munich. The new synagogue is part of the new Jewish center .
In March 2007, the IKG was able to merge all its facilities (youth and cultural center with Jewish adult education center , social department, etc.) in the community hall in the Jewish center on Jakobsplatz, after they had previously been scattered all over Munich.
Since then, the Jewish Museum in Munich has also been under municipal sponsorship. It is also thanks to Charlotte Knobloch that this Jewish Museum became part of the new Jewish Center, as her commitment to setting up such a museum was an important driving force behind it. Before that there was only a temporary arrangement in the form of a small exhibition on Jewish history and culture in the former community center (Reichenbachstrasse).
The IKG now has the necessary infrastructure to guarantee the preservation of Jewish traditions and the practice of religion. In Munich, this includes three synagogues, a kosher restaurant, a kosher butcher's, two mikwaot (ritual immersion baths), a kindergarten, a primary school with after-school care, a senior citizens' home, a youth and cultural center with a library and a Jewish adult education center as well as an integration department for new immigrants from the States of the former Soviet Union, a social department and two cemeteries: the old Israelite and the new Israelite cemetery . As a unitary community, the IKG is home to Jewish members of all religious orientations and is run in accordance with the Jewish religious law, the Halacha .
In addition to the orthodox unified congregation, there has been the liberal Jewish congregation Beth Shalom in Munich since 1995 , chaired by Jan Mühlstein . The community intends to build a synagogue on Reitmorstrasse in Lehel , for which Daniel Libeskind has been won over as an architect. Also Chabad is represented by its own community in Munich.
literature
(sorted chronologically)
- Piritta Kleiner: Jewish, Young and Now: Identities and lifeworlds of young Jews in Munich. Utz Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-8316-4003-4 .
- Miriam Magall : “How good are your tents, Jakob!” Walks in Jewish Munich. MünchenVerlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-937090-29-0 (A panorama of Jewish life in Munich from the Middle Ages to the present day).
- Gudrun Azar u. a .: Moved into the light. Jewish life in the west of Munich. Edited for the history workshop of Jewish life in Pasing by B. Schoßig . Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8316-0787-7 .
- Ilse Macek (ed.): Marginalized - disenfranchised - deported. Schwabing and Schwabing fates 1933–1945. Volk Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-937200-43-9 (was awarded the Simon Snopkowski Prize 2008).
- Doris Seidel: The Jewish Community of Munich 1933–1945. In: Angelika Baumann, Andreas Heusler (Ed.): Munich Aryanized. Disenfranchisement and expropriation of the Jews during the Nazi era. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-51756-0 , pp. 31-53.
- City Archives Munich (ed.), Edited by Andreas Heusler, Brigitte Schmidt and others: Biographisches Gedenkbuch der Münchner Juden 1933–1945. Eos Verlag et al., St. Ottilien et al
- Volume 1: (A-L). 2003, ISBN 3-8306-7290-X ;
- Volume 2: (M-Z). 2007, ISBN 978-3-8306-7280-7 (the fates of a total of 4579 Munich residents persecuted as Jews during the Nazi era.)
- Richard Bauer , Michael Brenner (ed.): Jewish Munich. From the Middle Ages to the present. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54979-9 .
- Beth ha-Knesseth - meeting place. On the history of the Munich synagogues, their rabbis and cantors. Catalog for the exhibition in the Jewish Museum Munich (December 2, 1999– May 31, 2000). Buchendorfer Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-934036-09-0 .
- Stefan Wimmer: Past days. Jewish life in Munich. Published by StattReisen Munich. Buchendorfer Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-927984-92-2 .
- Juliane Wetzel : Jewish life in Munich 1945–1951. Transit station or reconstruction? Kommissions-Verlag Uni-Druck, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-87821-218-6 ( New series of publications of the Munich City Archives. Miscellanea Bavarica Monacensia 135), (At the same time: Munich, Univ., Diss., 1986).
- Hans Lamm (Ed.): From Jews in Munich. A memorial book. Ner Tamid Verlag, Munich 1958 (extended edition: Past days. Jewish culture in Munich. Langen Müller, Munich et al. 1982, ISBN 3-7844-1867-8 ).
- Gerd Thumser: Homesick for Munich. The fate of the emigrated Jewish citizens of Munich. 2nd Edition. Wurm, Munich 1967 ( Munich in focus 3).
Web links
- Parishes and communities
- Israelite community in Munich and Upper Bavaria
- Beth Shalom Liberal Jewish Community
- Chabad Lubavitch Munich
- Chaverim Circle of Friends in Support of Liberal Judaism in Munich
- information
- Jewish Museum Munich
- History of the Jewish community in Munich on the homepage of the IKG
- History of the Jews in Munich ( Memento from November 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on BR.de
- History of the Jews in Munich on the website of the Jewish Center Jakobsplatz
- Jewish life on www.muenchen.de
- weissekoffer.de : Jewish life in Neuhausen
Individual evidence
- ↑ Files of the board of directors of the Israelite association in Fürth (Rep. Tit. II No. 155), concerning the circumstances of the Israelite co-religionists (quoted from Eckstein, p. 16 ff.)
- ↑ Bernhard Koch: Delivered to compliant executors. The Holzhandlung Gebrüder Freundlich . In: Gudrun Azar u. a .: Moved into the light. Jewish life in the west of Munich. Edited for the history workshop of Jewish life in Pasing by B. Schoßig . Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8316-0787-7 . P. 85
- ↑ Saskia Rohde: The destruction of the synagogues under National Socialism. S. 156. In: Arno Herzig, Ina Lorenz (Hrsg.): Displacement and extermination of the Jews under National Socialism. Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-7672-1173-4
- ↑ Hans F. Nöhbauer: The Chronicle of Bavaria . Chronik Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich, 3rd updated and revised edition, 1994, p. 496
- ↑ Michael Brenner: Departure into the Future (1970-2006) in: Richard Bauer and Michael Brenner (eds.): Jewish Munich. From the Middle Ages to the Present Munich 2006; P. 209 ff.
- ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: The dream of your own synagogue. The liberal Jewish community Beth Shalom is looking for a new domicile - financing is still unclear , February 23, 2009, p. 53
- ↑ Munich liberal community Beth Shalom ( Memento from June 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) - BR-Online from October 15, 2009, accessed on December 28, 2009, accessed on September 11, 2012
- ↑ Meron Mendel , Jewish Youth in Germany, Frankfurt / Main 2010, page 101
- ↑ Simon Snopkowski Prize 2008 from November 16, 2008