Walk through the History of Jews in Medieval Munich

Walk through the History of Jews in Medieval Munich

Munich was first documented in 1158 in the so-called “Augsburger Schied” (“Augsburg Arbitration”) .The first documented Munich Jew is the witness “Abraham de Municha” in a Regensburg document from 1229.

Munich at that time was quite small, but large enough that several dozen Jews lived there in 1285. As the Nuremberg Yizkor reports, at least 67 Munich Jews were slaughtered in a brutal massacre that same year. Other accounts even speak of 180 murdered. The reason was the accusation that “the Jews” had killed a Christian child for ritual purposes. According to this account, the Munich Jews had bought a child from an old woman in order to bleed it to death by pricking it with needles in a cellar. Following this accusation, Jews were attacked everywhere, and their houses and property were searched. Nothing was found that matched the alleged crime, but some possessions were discovered that could be stolen, and it was decided that it would be better to kill the previous owners so they couldn’t complain about the looting. Most of the Jews perished when they fled to the synagogue, which was then surrounded and set on fire with them inside.

Count Palatine Ludwig “the Strict”, father of the future Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian, allowed the survivors to remain in Munich. Emperor Ludwig mortgaged his Munich holdings for substantial loans to two Augsburg Jews, but apparently failed to repay them.

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After the breaching of the first city wall in the 1270s, a Jewish settlement developed in the area between the Front and Rear Schwabing Gates, south of Landschaftstraße (today’s town hall) and north of it (Marienhof), with Judengasse at its center. There, the Munich Jew Samuel (Sanwil/Sanbel) acquired a substantial house which, until the expulsion of the Jews from Munich in 1442 (around the same time as the expulsion of the Jews from Augsburg), housed the “Schul,” that is, the Talmudic school and, according to modern terminology, the “synagogue.”

It is also dated 1442 that Duke Albrecht gifted this very house to his personal physician and son-in-law, Hartlieb, whereupon, out of gratitude, Hartlieb had a chapel built in the cellar. The curiosity of the Christians grew so great that the owner decided to demolish the Jewish house and instead build a church over the apparently immediately “salvific” crypt. Bishops from near and far came to consecrate it. The church was demolished in 1805 during the so-called secularization and subsequently quickly forgotten by the public. The former Judengasse/Gruftgasse corresponds to Albertgasse (today only a path via Marienhof), between Weinstraße and Dienerstraße, as can easily be verified using old city maps.

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It wasn’t until the 18th century that Jews from Kriegshaber (today a district in the northeast of Augsburg) came to Munich again and laid the foundation for a new Jewish community, which was then proclaimed and founded in the living room of the Wertheimer family. Until 1815 however the members of the Jewish Community of Munich were buried at the Jewish cemetery of Pfersee/Kriegshaber.

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Images: Wikipedia, muenchenwiki.de

Munich City Map by Georg Mayer from 1837

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Private tour for international guests: this morning/noon, followed by a stop at Donisl (Weinstraße).

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