Jewish Cultural Museum

The Jüdisches Kulturmuseum (Jewish Culture Museum) of Augsburg traces the history of Jewish communities in the area and includes a tour of Augsburg's main synagogue (1917), an Art Nouveau building with a central dome.

Thanks to an ambiguous political position on the outskirts of the Habsburg empire, Augsburg and the surrounding area hosted thriving Jewish communities in the 19th century. In 1914, Augsburg's Jewish community hired the architects Lömpel and Landauer to build a grand synagogue in the city center. Built in the Art Nouveau style, it was completed in 1917.

Tragically, the Jewish community in Augsburg was wiped out on Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938) and the synagogue was burned, though not destroyed. The post-war Jewish community remained very small until just the last few decades.

Beginning in the 1980s, immigrants from the former Soviet Union have now brought the Jewish population up to about 1600 - higher than it was before the Holocaust. After years of restoration work, the Augsburg Synagogue reopened in 1985, along with the new Jewish Culture Museum.

The Jüdisches Kulturmuseum displays artifacts and artwork from the Jewish community of Augsburg and surrounding areas, including beautiful ritual objects crafted by Augsburg goldsmiths and silversmiths.

The museum ends at the synagogue itself, a Byzantine-influenced Art Nouveau structure. It is built on a central plan with a shallow dome decorated in gold.