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LMU Munich

Public university in Munich, Germany

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Through Counter-Reformation

In 1800, the university was moved from Ingolstadt to Landshut by King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria when the city was threatened by the French, before being transferred to its present-day location in Munich in 1826 by King Ludwig I of Bavaria. In 1802, the university was officially named Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität by King Maximilian I of Bavaria in honor of himself and Ludwig IX.

LMU is currently the second-largest (and largest on-site) university in Germany in terms of student population. In the 2025/26 winter semester, the university had a total of 52,658 matriculated students. Of these, 7,451 were freshmen, while international students totaled 11,658 or approximately 22% of the student population. The university is organised in 18 faculties, with faculties in theology, law, business administration, economics, medicine, history and the arts, philosophy, psychology, languages and literatures, social sciences, mathematics, informatics, statistics, physics, chemistry, biology, geosciences. As for the operating budget, the university recorded in 2024 a total of 879.0 million euros in funding without the university hospital; with the university hospital, the total university funding for that year amounted to approximately 2.25 billion euros.

As of 2023, LMU Munich is associated with 50 Nobel laureates. Notable alumni, faculty and researchers include Pope Benedict XVI, Rudolf Peierls, Josef Mengele, Richard Strauss, Walter Benjamin, Joseph Campbell, Muhammad Iqbal, Marie Stopes, Wolfgang Pauli, Bertolt Brecht, Max Horkheimer, Karl Loewenstein, Carl Schmitt, Gustav Radbruch, Ernst Cassirer, Ernst Bloch, Hermann Göring, and Konrad Adenauer. LMU has recently been conferred the title of "University of Excellence" under the German Universities Excellence Initiative, and is a member of U15 as well as the LERU.

History

1472–1800

The university was founded with papal blessing in 1472 as the University of Ingolstadt (foundation right of Louis IX the Rich), with faculties of philosophy, medicine, jurisprudence and theology. Its first rector was Christopher Mendel of Steinfels, who later became bishop of Chiemsee.

In the period of German humanism, the university's academics included names such as Conrad Celtes and Petrus Apianus. The theologian Johann Eck also taught at the university. From 1549 to 1773, the university was influenced by the Jesuits and became one of the centres of the Counter-Reformation. The Jesuit Petrus Canisius served as rector of the university.

At the end of the 18th century, the university was influenced by the Enlightenment, which led to a stronger emphasis on natural science.

1800–1933

In 1800, the Prince-Elector Maximilian IV Joseph (the later Maximilian I, King of Bavaria) moved the university to Landshut, due to French aggression that threatened Ingolstadt during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1802, the university was renamed the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in honour of its two founders, Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria and Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria. The Minister of Education, Maximilian von Montgelas, initiated a number of reforms that sought to modernize the rather conservative and Jesuit-influenced university. In 1826, it was moved to Munich, the capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria. The university was situated in the Old Academy until a new building in the Ludwigstraße was completed. The locals were somewhat critical of the number of Protestant professors Maximilian and later Ludwig I invited to Munich. They were dubbed the "Nordlichter" (northern lights), and especially physician Johann Nepomuk von Ringseis was quite angry about them.

In the second half of the 19th century, the university rose to great prominence in the European scientific community, attracting many of the global leading scientists. It was also a period of great expansion. From 1903, women were allowed to study at Bavarian universities, and by 1918, the female proportion of students at LMU had reached 18%. In 1918, Adele Hartmann became with her habilitation (higher doctorate) at this university the first woman in Germany to earn a habilitation.

During the Weimar Republic, the university continued to be one of the world's leading universities, with professors such as Wilhelm Röntgen, Wilhelm Wien, Richard Willstätter, Arnold Sommerfeld and Ferdinand Sauerbruch.

1933–1945

During the Third Reich, academic freedom was severely curtailed. In 1943, the White Rose group, consisting of anti-Nazi students, carried out a campaign opposing the National Socialists at this institution. The university subsequently removed Kurt Huber, a Nazi opposition fighter, from his position and revoked his doctorate upon his arrest.

Between 1933 and 1936, Karl Escherich served as rector at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, followed by Leopold Kölbl from 1936 to 1938, Philipp Broemser from 1938 to 1941, and finally, Walther Wüst from 1941 to 1945.

1945–present

The university has continued to be one of the leading universities of West Germany during the Cold War and in the post-reunification era. In the late 1960s, the university was the scene of protests by radical students.

Today, LMU Munich is part of 24 Collaborative Research Centers funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and is host university of 13 of them. It also hosts 12 DFG Research Training Groups and three international doctorate programs as part of the Elite Network of Bavaria, an educational policy concept of Bavaria for the promotion of gifted pupils and students in the higher education sector. It attracts an additional 120 million euros per year in outside funding and is intensively involved in national and international funding initiatives.

LMU Munich has a wide range of degree programs, with 150 subjects available in numerous combinations. 15% of the 45,000 students who attend the university come from abroad.

In 2005, Germany's state and federal governments launched the German Universities Excellence Initiative, a contest among its universities. With a total of 1.9 billion euros, 75 percent of which comes from the federal state, its architects aim to strategically promote top-level research and scholarship. The money is given to more than 30 research universities in Germany.

The initiative will fund three project-oriented areas: graduate schools to promote the next generation of scholars, clusters of excellence to promote cutting-edge research, and "future concepts" for the project-based expansion of academic excellence at universities as a whole. In order to qualify for this third area, a university had to have at least one internationally recognized academic center of excellence and a new graduate school. After the first round of selections, LMU Munich was invited to submit applications for all three funding lines. It entered the competition with proposals for two graduate schools and four clusters of excellence.

On Friday 13 October 2006, a blue-ribbon panel announced the results of the Germany-wide Excellence Initiative for promoting top university research and education. The panel, composed of the German Research Foundation and the German Science Council, has decided that LMU Munich will receive funding for all three areas covered by the Initiative: one graduate school, three "excellence clusters" and general funding for the university's "future concept".

In January 2012, scientists at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München published details of the most sensitive listening device known so far. This has led to the college being inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records.

In September 2018, the Munich public prosecutor's office investigated a university vice president on suspicion of embezzlement. The vice president should have claimed "excessive travel expenses". The following year, veterinary students reported that the LMU violated animal welfare standards. According to them, the LMU keeps pigs in tight grid boxes, so that some animals showed scratches, bumps and respiratory diseases from lying down. Students who reported these circumstances said that they were threatened with deregistration from the university. In the beginning of 2020, the LMU locked around 80 students in a room who wanted to discuss the topic "Climate Burns, University Burns," about why universities are doing research for companies that are harmful to the climate.

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