Chronicle
In its more than 150-year history, our university has been part of historical changes. Time and again, it has also driven and shaped reforms and redesigns in university organization and policy.
On 1 October 2019, food chemist and long-standing Senior Vice President – Research and Innovation, Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann, succeeded Prof. Wolfgang A. Herrmann as President of TUM. Together, they had already mapped out the Excellence Strategy for 2019, which would evolve into extensive reforms at the university in the TUM Agenda 2030.
Under these reforms, TUM is expanding technology-oriented humanities and social sciences, in addition to reorganizing its internal structure to drive innovation. By 2024, seven schools linked by Integrative Research Institutes replaced the schools and departments that specialized in individual disciplines. As a platform for exchanging knowledge, the university supports talent from all backgrounds, at all levels, and across disciplinary boundaries. TUM is working in alliances with international partners to solve global challenges with a new orientation toward Europe and the Global South.
The Technical University of Munich has been awarded the “University of Excellence” title on three occasions (in 2006, 2012, and 2019). The first time in 2006, it was honored for its future concept “TUM. The Entrepreneurial University,” which included the introduction of a TUM Graduate School (International Graduate School of Science and Engineering – IGSSE). This school was later augmented by the interdisciplinary TUM Graduate School (TUM-GS). The successful concept also broadened TUM start-up advice and support schemes (TUMForTe – Office for Research and Innovation and Center for Innovation and Business Creation at TUM), which continue to feature in the university’s self-declared vision. In the area of research, five Clusters of Excellence (COTESYS – Cognition for Technical Systems, Universe – Origin and Structure of the Universe, MAP – Munich-Center for Advanced Photonics, NIM – Nanosystems Initiative Munich and CIPSM – Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich) also received the coveted funding.
TUM continued its success in the Excellence Initiative in 2012 when it was again awarded in all three funding lines (graduate schools, Clusters of Excellence, and future concepts for the project-related expansion of top-level university research). It was the first German university to introduce a genuine tenure-track career system for professors based on the model used in English-speaking countries. TUM is also increasingly incorporating social science and humanities approaches into its subjects, among other things by establishing the TUM School of Governance.
In 2019, it was awarded the title of University of Excellence for the third time in a row with its future concept and comprehensive reform program for the “TUM Agenda 2030”.
Clusters of Excellence at TUM
TUM has also set up locations abroad and forged new links. In 2002, it opened the German Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in Singapore, the first foreign branch of a German university. Again in Singapore, the research alliance TUMCREATE was launched in 2010 together with Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Forming a multidisciplinary research platform, the alliance is developing new technologies in areas such as protein research, sustainability, medical diagnostics, mobility, and energy.
TUM’s first international office opened in Beijing (China) in 2006, followed by Sao Paulo (Brazil, 2012), Brussels (Belgium, 2012), Cairo (Egypt, from 2012 to 2020), Mumbai (India, 2014) and San Francisco (USA, 2015). TUM is connected to the world through numerous partnerships with international universities, for example with Imperial College London, Nanyang Technological University, Tsinghua University, the University of Queensland, the Eurotech Universities (EPF Lausanne, DTU Copenhagen, TU Eindhoven, École Polytechnique, and Technion), and KNUST in Africa.
In the winter semester of 2000/01, the former departments of Agriculture and Horticulture, and of Brewing, Food Technology, and Dairy Science merged with the Forestry department, which previously belonged to the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU). As a result, the TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan (WZW) was created in Freising-Weihenstephan with a new scientific orientation and structure.
In addition to Freising-Weihenstephan, Munich, and Garching, the “TUM Campus Straubing for Biotechnology and Sustainability” was set up as a fourth teaching and research site in 2017.
One year later in 2018, TUM opened the Heilbronn Campus in Baden-Württemberg – the first time a German university has set up a location in another federal state. The TUM School of Management is training the next generation of managers in several degree programs at the site. The founding of the Department of Aerospace and Geodesy in the same year, along with buildings in Ottobrunn, saw further important locations open.
Under chemist Prof. Wolfgang A. Herrmann, who was President from 1995 to 2019, the university gained more independence from politics in its decision-making. In addition, the research institutes formed a tighter network on an interdisciplinary level and attracted partners from industry and society. Approaches from humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences were adopted at the university. Students could now choose from a wide range of bachelor’s and master’s degree programs – one year ahead of the official Bologna reforms.
The sixties saw the university confronted with a period of political and social upheaval. The 100th anniversary of the university fell in the midst of the 1968 student protests. THM was also the venue for critical protests and campaigns, in particular among architecture, geography, medicine, and social science students. Worsening study conditions were the main point of contention as cost-cutting measures introduced by the government in the mid-sixties coincided with a massive influx of students. The students’ cries for an increase in the education budget and improved funding possibilities sometimes even went as far as radical criticism of the system. THM made concessions to the students, for example, by giving them more say and allowing representatives to hear the full agenda at Senate meetings. However, they only had the right to vote on matters relating to their group.
The seventies not only brought a change in name – in August 1970, the Technische Hochschule München became the “Technical University of Munich” – but also in the university structure. The Bavarian Higher Education Act was introduced in 1974. While it restricted the autonomy of universities and created more bureaucracy, it did expand the “ordinariate principle” to include the “group principle” whereby four groups – professors, students, assistants, and employees – elected representatives to the Senate and Faculty Council. Furthermore, the Presidential and Executive Vice President Constitution was introduced, and the legislative bodies were separated from the executive offices.
THM continued to grow during the German economic miracle of the fifties and sixties. The main aim was to catch up on the backlogs in research and development caused by the war. Numerous new professorial chairs were set up specializing in the most promising future technologies: atomic physics, electronic computing, microelectronics, aviation, and aerospace.
The university was desperately short of room despite the “main campus” in Munich being condensed and extended between 1954 and 1969 by the “north campus.” A spacious refectory and student accommodation had also been built to the south from 1956 to 1957. Garching came into focus in the search for further suitable locations. In 1956/57, on the initiative of Prof. Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, Professor Ordinarius of Technical Physics, the Forschungsreaktor München (Munich Research Reactor, FRM) was constructed there becoming the first nuclear research reactor in Germany. As a neutron source, it was intended to promote civilian use of nuclear energy in the decades after the war. Known as the “Atomic Egg”, it was primarily used as a teaching reactor.
This laid the foundations for the further development of the Garching campus and gave TH München a third location in addition to Munich and Freising/Weihenstephan (since 1930). Among others, the Physics Department building was constructed between 1967 and 1972, and the new Faculty of Chemistry building between 1973 and 1978. These were followed by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (1994 to 1997), Mathematics and Computer Science (2000 to 2002), and the Leibniz Computing Center (2003 to 2012). In 2004, the new “Research Neutron Source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz” (FRM II) replaced the previous reactor. This ushered in a new era of neutron research with many applications in science, technology, and medicine.
In 1967, the new School of Medicine was founded with two sites at Munich-Haidhausen (TUM University Hospital) and at Munich-Schwabing (Biederstein Hospital and Schwabing Children’s Hospital).
The legal standing of the university continued to progress in the fifties and it gained more independence: in December 1957, it was granted the long-sought status of a “public body.” The first regulations drawn up by the university itself came into force a year later.
The twelve years of National Socialism had a serious impact on TH München. Since the Nazi regime relied not only on military and industrial resources but also on science to achieve its goals, Germany’s technical universities became deeply involved in war and weapons research. In October 1933, the Führerprinzip, which gave Hitler unconditional authority, came into force at Bavarian universities, and academic self-administration was abolished. The rectors of THM – Anton Schwaiger (elected under the old law in 1933), Anton Wolfgang Schmidt, and Lutz Pistor – were appointed by and answerable to the Bavarian Ministry of Education. As of 1934, the Reich Minister of Education took charge.
Academic autonomy was constrained not only by ministries enforcing the NS party line but also by actions taken from below, initially primarily by student activists. The “National Socialist German Student Association” (NSDStB) had become the strongest group on the THM student council as early as the winter semester of 1930/31. The book “THM im NS” examines the history of the university during the Nazi era. It describes how “the Munich university group, made up of students from both LMU and the TH, organized propaganda campaigns and boycotts of lectures given by staff who did not fit in with their racial and political ideology. Even long before 1933, they acted ruthlessly in their efforts to ‘cleanse’ colleges of Jewish and socialist students” (Quote from “THM im NS,” p. 64).
In 1933, the universities were reorganized by the newly founded “Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and National Education.” Alongside “forcible-coordination” and the reworking of teaching material to fit Nazi ideology, measures included putting party-compliant figures in key positions and staff purges. On the basis of the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” enacted in April 1933, civil servants of Jewish faith or origin, described as “non-Aryans,” or university lecturers with differing political views could be dismissed. “A total of 17 professors were fired on grounds of race or political views, and some were literally driven to their deaths.” (Quote from “THM im NS,” p.84) Jewish students also saw their rights removed and could only enroll in exceptional cases from 1938 onwards.
The stances of university teachers ranged from proactive support for the Nazi regime and opportunistic conformity on the one hand to critical distancing and inward emigration on the other. Individual professors, employees, and students dared to show defiance and act obstructively.
The Second World War left 80 percent of the buildings on the main campus in ruins. Teaching resumed in April 1946 under extremely difficult conditions. A “Reconstruction Service” was formed, and around 4,000 enrolled students joined to help rebuild the university over several years.
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In 2018, in a joint initiative with TUM, the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism presented the exhibition "Die Technische Hochschule München im Nationalsozialismus" (The THM under National Socialism), which shed light on the role of the Technical University of Munich (TUM since 1970) during the Nazi era based on an extensive reappraisal and research project.
Free download of the book “Die THM im NS”:
Online book version "Die THM im NS" (PDF, 79 MB, in German)
The reappraisal of the university's history during the Nazi era continues. Today, TUM remains committed to education and transparency regarding its history. For this reason, a commission of experts appointed in May 2023 has drawn up recommendations for the future treatment of how to deal with former members of the university convicted of Nazi crimes related to buildings and rooms that bear their names. These recommendations have been and are being implemented. In July 2024, a new place of remembrance for members of the former Technical University of Munich (THM) who were dismissed and persecuted by the Nazi regime was opened.
Further information: History of TUM
After a phase of prosperity at the beginning of the 20th century, the First World War created a deep caesura in the history of THM. Many students and staff were swept up by a wave of patriotism: alongside their Catholic and Protestant classmates, Jewish students also volunteered for military service. They included Felix Berliner and Leopold Klopfer, who were killed in action soon after arriving at the front.
Student numbers fell from just under 2,800 to around 500 over the course of 1914. Teaching was also greatly limited as professors, lecturers, and assistants enlisted to fight. Although the specialist knowledge of university lecturers was called upon for the war effort, Germany’s Technische Hochschulen were not involved in armaments research like they were during the Second World War. The First World War did, however, push research forward later on, particularly in the fields of chemistry, communications engineering, automotive engineering, and aviation.
During the Weimar Republic era, TH München had to make do with scarce resources and faced radical disputes over political direction. Student numbers soon grew again, and many of them became affiliated with right-wing political groups. They took part in demonstrations against the Treaty of Versailles and the violent suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic. Despite the majority of lecturers and professors at TH München taking a more reserved position, the political climate at the universities contributed to Munich becoming a reactionary center in the 1920s.
King Ludwig II laid the foundation stone for an international technical university of distinction in the first year of his reign after decreeing a reform of the school system. The primary goal was to improve education in scientific and technological fields and promote modern branches of science. This would in turn advance industrialization in the Kingdom of Bavaria. In 1868, the Neue Polytechnische Schule (New Polytechnic School) was opened in the royal capital of Munich as the “pinnacle of technical education” (quoted from: “Neue Schul-Ordnung,” 1864, p. 63).
Grammar schools were established across Bavaria to pave the way. This followed developments that could be seen across Europe: the École Polytechnique in Paris, which had already been founded in the 18th century, as well as the polytechnic schools in Vienna (1815), Karlsruhe (1832), Stuttgart (1840), and Zurich (1854) are regarded as models for the Munich Polytechnic.
Steps to professionalize technical and scientific education in Bavaria had already been taken under Ludwig I and Maximilian II. In 1833, for example, three polytechnic schools holding the status of technical lyceums were established in Augsburg, Munich, and Nuremberg. Also, a Technische Hochschule was affiliated to the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich to continue the training of higher-level technical civil servants. However, this institute did not manage to live up to its ambitious name and was closed just a few years later.
Restructuring and the successful establishment of a central technical institution in Bavaria did not come until 1868 under Ludwig II with the New Polytechnic School. It held Hochschule status (institution of higher education) from its foundation, but was not allowed to use the official name Technische Hochschule München (THM) until ten years later. The first director was geodesist and civil engineer Karl Max von Bauernfeind, a student of Georg Simon Ohm and Joseph von Utzschneider. The prestigious building on Arcisstrasse, designed by architect Gottfried von Neureuther, shows the great importance attached to the new educational institution. The school moved into the premises in its founding year. Only small parts of it survive today.
After the turn of the century, Prince Regent Luitpold granted THM two long-standing wishes: in 1901, it obtained the right to award doctorates, and it was allowed to introduce the Rectorate Constitution in 1902. A full-time rector and a college of part-time vice-rectors then took the helm. The Rectorate Constitution gave THM staff the right to elect a rector for a two-year term of office, i.e., the candidate elected by an absolute majority was proposed to the Ministry of Education, which approved the nomination. From 1928, the rector proposed by the entire college was confirmed by ministerial resolution and no longer nominated.
Boasting an average of 2,600 to 2,800 students, THM was Germany’s largest technical university for a while surpassing its counterpart in Berlin. THM was able to expand its range of subjects by taking over smaller universities that were no longer profitable.
In 1905, the Bavarian government allowed women to study at THM. This made it the first technical university in Germany to admit women – although the proportion of female students remained very low to begin with. That year, Agnes Mackensen became the first regular female student to enroll in an architecture course. She was awarded her diploma in 1915, making her the first woman to graduate from THM. The first female student to take electrical engineering was Anna Helene Boyksen.