Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus)
The graceful Gothic council hall on Marienplatz where, on the night of 9 November 1938, Joseph Goebbels delivered the speech that unleashed the Kristallnacht pogrom across Germany. A place of civic beauty turned, for one evening, into the cradle of organised terror.
About this place
The Old Town Hall closes the eastern side of Marienplatz with its slender tower and stepped Gothic gable. Its core is a single great ceremonial hall, redesigned in late Gothic style by Jörg von Halsbach from 1470, with a carved barrel ceiling, a frieze of coats of arms, and the famous Morris dancer figures carved by Erasmus Grasser. For centuries this room hosted the city's grandest banquets and council meetings. On the evening of 9 November 1938, that civic dignity was abused. Gathered for the annual commemoration of the 1923 putsch, the Nazi leadership received word that the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath had died in Paris of wounds inflicted by a young Jewish refugee. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels seized the moment and called from this hall for revenge against Germany's Jews. Within hours, synagogues burned, shops were smashed and thousands were arrested in a coordinated pogrom that historians now see as a decisive step toward the Holocaust. The building was badly damaged in the war and its tower rebuilt between 1971 and 1974; today it houses a toy museum, and a plaque in the foyer, set in 2000, keeps the memory of that night alive.
Key facts
- 1470 year — Jörg von Halsbach began the late Gothic ceremonial hall that became the building's heart
- 1000 people — Munich Jews deported to Dachau concentration camp in the days following the pogrom
- 2000 year — A commemorative plaque recalling the night of 9 November 1938 was unveiled in the foyer
📍 Marienplatz 15, 80331, München