Between Arcisstraße, Brienner Straße and St.-Jakobs-Platz, Munich's Jewish history can be read as an urban topography. This walk makes three time layers visible: the matter-of-fact Jewish life before 1933, its systematic annihilation — and the return of Jewish life to the centre of the city since 2006. The synagogues stood at the southern edge of the Maxvorstadt; stops 9 and 10 form an optional extension into the old town.
The route- 01 · Bernheimer-Haus
- 02 · Galerie Heinemann
- 03 · Palais Pringsheim / Führerbau
- 04 · Salon Bruckmann
- 05 · Karolinenplatz — Israel & Yad Vashem
- 06 · NS-Dokumentationszentrum
- 07 · Wohnung Lion Feuchtwanger
- 08 · LMU — Lehrstuhl Jüdische Geschichte
- 09 · Gedenkstein Alte Hauptsynagoge
- 10 · Jüdisches Zentrum am St.-Jakobs-Platz
About Apple Maps: Each stop opens as its own pin in the Maps app. Apple Maps can only show one destination per link; for walking directions tap »Directions« in Maps and pick the walking icon. The stops are numbered in a sensible walking order.
Step by step.
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01
Bernheimer-Haus
Lenbachplatz 3, 80333 München
Founded in 1864 and based from 1887 in the house named after it — L. Bernheimer was one of Europe's most renowned firms for antiques and interior furnishing. Otto Bernheimer and his sons were deported to Dachau during the November 1938 pogrom and the business was »Aryanised«. Otto Bernheimer returned in 1945 and rebuilt the house.
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02
Galerie Heinemann
Lenbachplatz 5/6, 80333 München
Founded in 1872 by David Heinemann, it was until 1938 one of the leading addresses for 19th-century painting. The 1904 new building was »Aryanised« in 1938; the holdings remain the subject of intensive provenance research to this day.
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03
Palais Pringsheim / Führerbau
Arcisstraße 12, 80333 München
At the palace on Arcisstraße 12, Alfred and Hedwig Pringsheim ran one of the city's most important salons from 1890; their daughter Katia married Thomas Mann in 1905. In 1933 the 83-year-old Pringsheim was pressured to sell and the palace was demolished. In its place Paul Ludwig Troost built the Führerbau — today the University of Music and Performing Arts, still at Arcisstraße 12.
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04
Salon Bruckmann
Karolinenplatz 5, 80333 München
The publishers' salon of Hugo and Elsa Bruckmann on Karolinenplatz — a place where bourgeois culture and early National Socialism met. The doubly overwritten layer of the city becomes tangible here.
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05
Karolinenplatz — Israel & Yad Vashem
Karolinenplatz, 80333 München
The Consulate General of the State of Israel — the only one in Europe — has been based on Karolinenplatz since 2011, in the middle of the former Nazi party district. On 28 May 2026 the decision was taken to locate here the first Yad Vashem education centre outside Israel. A deliberately chosen symbolic topography.
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06
NS-Dokumentationszentrum
Brienner Straße 34 / Max-Mannheimer-Platz 1, 80333 München
On the site of the »Brown House« — formerly the Jewish Barlow Palais — the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism opened in 2015. The white cube documents »Munich and National Socialism« and marks the void the party district left behind.
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07
Wohnung Lion Feuchtwanger
Georgenstraße 24, 80799 München
From 1918 to 1925 the writer Lion Feuchtwanger lived here on the third floor, on the border with Schwabing. Brecht and the Manns came and went; the first drafts of »Jud Süß« and »Erfolg« were written here. Stripped of his citizenship in 1933, he was deprived of his doctorate by the LMU; he died in 1958 in Californian exile.
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08
LMU — Lehrstuhl Jüdische Geschichte
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 München
At Ludwig Maximilian University the first chair of Jewish History and Culture in Germany was established in 1997. It stands for the Jewish profile of the LMU, which was formative until 1933 and then almost entirely destroyed.
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09
Gedenkstein Alte Hauptsynagoge
Herzog-Max-Straße / Maxburgstraße, 80333 München
Optional extension into the old town: the main synagogue, inaugurated in 1887 with over 1,000 seats, stood here until June 1938. Demolished on Hitler's personal order — five months before the pogrom night — it was the first synagogue destroyed by the National Socialists in Germany. A memorial stone by Herbert Peters has stood here since 1969.
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10
Jüdisches Zentrum am St.-Jakobs-Platz
St.-Jakobs-Platz 16–18, 80331 München
The high and end point: on 9 November 2006 — the 68th anniversary of the pogrom night — the new Ohel Jakob main synagogue was inaugurated (Wandel Hoefer Lorch + Hirsch). Together with the community centre of the IKG and the Jewish Museum it forms the three-part Jewish Centre: Jewish life visible in the heart of the city.