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The synagogue in the Fasanenstraße, Charlottenburg, photographed by Waldemar Titzenthaler, who died in 1937. It burned out in the pogrom night of 1938; its ruin was pulled down in 1957/58.Waldemar Titzenthaler (1869–1937). Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Berlin’s great synagogues · 1938–1959

More of Berlin’s great synagogues fell to peacetime demolition than to the pogrom’s fires

Of ten of the city’s largest synagogues, two burned out in the pogrom night of 9–10 November 1938, or four by the widest reading of the record. Seven were pulled down between 1955 and 1959, in a city at peace.

2–4
of the ten burned out on 9–10 November 1938, depending on the source
7
pulled down in peacetime, 1955–59
2
still hold services in full today; parts of two more are in use
more than17,000
seats between them, in a city of about 160,000 Jews in 1933

01Mitte · Charlottenburg · Kreuzberg · Moabit

Between them, these houses of prayer held more than 17,000 people

In June 1933 about 160,000 Jews lived in Berlin. The memorial on the site of the Levetzowstraße synagogue has a floor plate for each of 34 synagogues, and the city also had 80 private prayer halls. This story follows ten of the largest synagogues, from the oldest, in the Heidereutergasse, to the newest, in the Prinzregentenstraße.

Their records come from the institutions that keep them: the Centrum Judaicum, the Landesdenkmalamt, the district offices and the plaques on the sites. Where those records disagree, this story says so and names each source.

Rusted iron floor plates, each with a relief of a synagogue front and an inscription giving its address, seats and fate.
Floor plates of the Levetzowstraße memorial of 1988, one for each synagogue. Bottom left, Fasanenstraße: “1720 seats … damaged 1938, destroyed in the Second World War”.Molgreen, 2015. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Seats, synagogue by synagogue

seats on recordwhere sources give different figures: the range

One scale for all ten; each bar is drawn to the figure on record. The memorial plate gives the Neue Synagoge 3,000 seats and the Centrum Judaicum 3,200. For the Fraenkelufer the record runs from 1,700 to 2,300: about 1,700 (Landesdenkmalamt), about 2,000 (the synagogue), 2,300 (memorial plate).

021714–today

The night of the pogrom was not the end of most of them

Each line below is one synagogue, from the year it opened. Scroll on, and the timeline adds what happened to each building: on the night of 9–10 November 1938, under the Nazi state, in the air war, and in the fifteen years after it.

Ten synagogues, 1860 to today

in use as a synagogue
A timeline from 1860 to today with one line for each of ten Berlin synagogues. As the reader scrolls it marks when each opened, what happened to it on the night of 9 to 10 November 1938, its seizure by the Nazi state, its damage in the air war, its demolition between 1955 and 1959, and which still stand.

03Synagogue by synagogue

What the record says about each, and where it disagrees

The memorial plates of 1988 call even the Fasanenstraße only “damaged” in 1938; the district office says it burned out. The Fraenkelufer plaque says the synagogue was burned down, though its main building stood until the 1950s. Each card names its sources; tap a line to see them.

049–10 November 1938 · 1955–59

Peacetime Berlin pulled down more of them than the pogrom burned out

Count the buildings, not the flames. The pogrom gutted two, or four by the widest reading. Bombs finished one, the Alte Synagoge. Between 1955 and 1959, seven came down: ruins of the pogrom, and buildings it had barely touched. The two that burned out on the night were among them.

Three counts on one scale: one square per synagogue

burned out, all sourcesburned out in some sourcesdestroyed by bombsdemolished

One square per synagogue; the empty outlines make up the ten. Hatched: Pestalozzistraße and Fraenkelufer, burned out according to the Landesdenkmalamt and a memorial plaque but not according to other records. Rykestraße and Pestalozzistraße were never demolished.

Why? Mostly for housing, the Centrum Judaicum says, in a city that had lost much of its housing in the war. The Jewish communities took part: at the Fraenkelufer the community itself decided to clear the main building, and at the Neue Synagoge the East Berlin community consented on condition that the street front was kept. Of about 160,000 Berlin Jews in 1933, more than 60,000 had been deported.

The Münchener Straße synagogue survived the pogrom because it stood among flats. It was demolished in 1956.

A blocky grey stone sculpture crowned with a menorah relief, a plaque at its foot, a school fence behind.
Gerson Fehrenbach’s memorial stone of 1963 at Münchener Straße 37, Schöneberg, where the synagogue stood until 1956. Photographed in 2010.OTFW, Berlin, 2010. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.
A low modern building with a flat roof; at its centre stands an ornate carved stone portal, snow on the steps.
The Jewish community centre on the Fasanenstraße, opened in 1959 on the site of the synagogue, with remains of the synagogue’s portal at its door.Roger W from Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0.

05Oranienburger Straße · Mitte

At the Neue Synagoge, the local police put the fire out

On the pogrom night fire was set inside the Neue Synagoge. Officers of the 16th police precinct, at the Hackescher Markt, stood up to the SA, pointing out that the building was a protected monument, and called the fire brigade. Their chief, Wilhelm Krützfeld, is honoured by a plaque on the building as the man who saved it. How much of the credit is his alone is contested: the memorial museum that tells the story names the officers of the precinct.

The building it saved was hit by bombs in November 1943, and its hall was blown up in 1958. The night itself, and how its orders went out, are told in the November pogrom in Berlin.

An old sepia photograph of a synagogue front with a large ribbed dome and two smaller towers.
The Neue Synagoge on the Oranienburger Straße, Mitte, about 1866, the year it opened. The gilded dome stood over the entrance; the prayer hall lay behind.Unknown author, 1866. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
A grey metal plaque with a German inscription honouring the police officer Wilhelm Krützfeld (1880–1953) for saving the synagogue in the pogrom night of 9/10 November 1938.
The plaque on the Neue Synagoge put up by Berlin’s police president, honouring Wilhelm Krützfeld, chief of the 16th precinct.OTFW, Berlin, 2009. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.
The front of the Neue Synagoge with its gilded ribbed dome against a blue sky.
The same street front in 2005. The hall behind it was blown up in 1958.Andreas Praefcke, 2005. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0.

The pogrom set Berlin’s synagogues alight. Most of the buildings, or their ruins, were still standing when the war ended.

Seven of these ten were pulled down in peacetime, between 1955 and 1959.

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Berlinfographics (2026). “Berlin’s destroyed synagogues”. Berlin Experiences. https://berlinfographics.com/berlin-destroyed-synagogues/

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{{cite web |title=Berlin’s destroyed synagogues |url=https://berlinfographics.com/berlin-destroyed-synagogues/ |website=Berlinfographics |publisher=Berlin Experiences |date=2026-11-09 |access-date=2026-11-09}}