Muenchen, Germany

MUNICH (Muenchen), Upper Bavaria, Germany. Jews were present in the early 13th century, living in a Jewish quarter with a synagogue, cemetery, and other communal facilities. Most of the trade between east and west passing through the town was in the hands of Jews. They also served the rulers of Bavaria as moneylenders. In 1285 the community was wiped out in a blood libel when 180 Jews, refusing to convert, were burned alive in the synagogue. Persecution continued throughout the 14th century alongside various ducal privileges. With the expulsion of the community in 1442, followed in 1450 by the expulsion of the rest of the Jews of Bavaria, Jewish property was impounded and the synagogue converted into a church. In the 18th century, a number of Court Jews were allowed to settle in Munich. Jews continued to finance Bavaria's wars into the 19th century, providing the state treasury with 80% of its budget in the Napoleonic era. In 1805 Jews were permitted to live in all parts of the city, engage in crafts, trade in certain goods, and conduct public prayer. A "Jew decree" in 1813 allowed 30 additional well-to-do families to settle in Munich but limited the right to start new families in the city to eldest sons. By 1848 the Jewish population stood at 842 (total 87,000). In the first half of the 19th century, a number of Jewish schools were established. In the face of the restrictions of the 1813 "Jew decree", many disqualified from starting families left the city, mainly for the U.S. After it was rescinded in 1861 the Jewish population began to grow rapidly, reaching 4,144 in 1880, making the community the largest in Bavaria. After 1885 immigration from Eastern Europe, first mostly from Austro-Hungary and then from Russia, pushed the Jewish population up to its peak of 11,083 in 1910 (total 596,467). The community was economically well off and strongly assimilated with intermarriage amounting to 24% in 1880 and 50% in 1915. The department store opened by Hermann Tietz in 1888 led to the spread of such stores throughout Ger-many. The community operated a broad range of social services, including an old age home, summer camps, and welfare and employment agencies. With the secularization of Jewish life, the Reform movement grew stronger under the leadership of Rabbi Dr. Josef Perles (1871-94), a noted Orientalist, and Rabbi Dr. Cosman Werner (1895-1918). A magnificent synagogue was completed in 1887, incorporating an organ and changing the prayer service. The Orthodox countered by forming their own Jeshurun congregation. Anti-Semitism, always rife in Bavaria, intensified during WWl and continued unabated in the Weimar Republic when Munich became the cradle of the Nazi movement and Hitler's home, with the major Nazi organ, the Voelkischer Beobachter; published there. A particular hotbed of anti-Semitism was the university, where Jewish students were attacked and Jewish candidates for teaching positions rejected on racial grounds. Between the World Wars a declining birthrate and increasing intermarriage (59% in 1931) continued to contribute to the drop in the Jewish population. In 1933 the Jewish population was 9,005 (total 735,388). With the advent of Nazi rule a regime of severe persecution was instituted. Jews were arrested and sent to Dachau, the first of Germany's concentration camps. A strict economic boycott was enforced and Germans were kept away from Jewish stores while nearly half the city's Jewish lawyers were barred from appearing in court and Jewish civil servants sneer fired. In May 1935 Jewish store windows were smashed throughout the city and the stores forcibly closed. Despite Nazi actions, Jewish community life was maintained. The Jewish public school system was expanded to accommodate 407 children by 1935-36 and various vocational schools were in operation. A branch of the Jewish Cultural Association (Juedischer Kulturbund) supported the arts and invited such figures as Martin Buber to deliver lectures. During the 1933-38 period, 3,574 Jews left the city while another 803 died. In June 1938, the local authorities razed the Great Synagogue. Community institutions were transferred to an abandoned Jewish cigarette factory, with the production floor serving as a synagogue. On 9 Nov. 1938, Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels delivered a virulent anti-Semitic speech in Munich that sparked the Kristallnacht riots throughout Germany. In Munich, store windows were smashed, the interior of the Orthodox Ohel Yaakov synagogue was destroyed along with other communal property, and 1,000 Jews were arrested. Until fall 1941, Jews were evicted from 1,440 apartments, Jews were subjected to forced labor, many in the construction of the Milbertshofen camp about 4 miles from the city, where 450 Jews were sent to live in 1941. Milbertshofen also served as a transit camp for Jews being deported to the Riga and Theresienstadt ghettoes. Another 300 Jews, mostly sick and old, were sent to the Berg-am-Laim camp under a regime of hard labor. Expulsions reduced the number of Jews in the city from 4,407 in June 1939 645 in December 1942. The Jews were sent to Theresienstadt, Riga, Piaski (Lublin district of Poland) and to Auschwitz. At the end of the war, 400 Jews with non-Jewish spouses remained in Munich. Munich became the center for the Jewish organizations aiding survivors of the Holocaust, including the Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency. Between 1945 and 1951, 120,000 Jews passed through the city, many on the way to Palestine/Israel. In 1947, 57,731 Jews were in Displaced Persons camps and other localities in the area.