19th century In 1868, King
Ludwig II of Bavaria founded the
Polytechnische Schule München with
Karl Maximilian von Bauernfeind as founding director. The new school had its premises at Arcisstraße, where it is still located today. At that time, around 350 students were supervised by 24 professors and 21 lecturers. The institution was divided into six departments: The "General Department" (
mathematics,
natural sciences,
humanities,
law and
economics), the "Engineering Department" (
civil engineering and
surveying), the "Building Construction Department" (
architecture), the "Mechanical-Technical Department" (
mechanical engineering), the "Chemical-Technical Department" (
chemistry), and the "Agricultural Department". In 1877, the
Polytechnische Schule München became the
Technische Hochschule München (TH München), and in 1901 it was granted the right to award
doctorates. With an average of 2,600 to 2,800 students, the TH München was Germany's largest
technical university, ahead of the
TH Berlin. In 1970 the institution was renamed
Technische Universität München.
20th century in 1909. An early version of the
periodic table can be seen on the wall. In 1906,
Anna Boyksen became the first female student to enroll in
electrical engineering, after the Bavarian government had allowed women to study at technical universities in the
German Empire.
Martha Schneider-Bürger became the first German female
civil engineer to graduate from the university in 1927. In 1913,
Jonathan Zenneck became director of the newly created
Physics Institute. During the
Weimar Republic, the TH München faced the challenge of limited resources and was drawn into radical political conflicts during the
November Revolution, the
Great Depression, and the
rise of Adolf Hitler. Two of the 16 Nazis killed in
Hitler's failed coup attempt in 1923 were students at the university. The
National Socialist German Students' League became the strongest faction in the
General Students' Committee in 1930, and Jewish and politically unpopular professors were terrorized by the young students. After Hitler took power, the TH was soon
aligned and a "Führer rector" was appointed, with the deans directly responsible to him. The
Führerprinzip was also imposed on universities, resulting in a significant restriction of the autonomy of the TH München. In 1933, the newly enacted
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service led to the dismissal of staff deemed "non-
Aryan" or married to "non-Aryans," as well as politically "undesirable" professors.
Jewish students lost their rights and were banned from enrolling after 1938. The university was deeply involved in the crimes of the Nazi regime. For instance, Heinz Henseler, a professor in charge of animal breeding at the university, headed a new "Colonial Science Seminar" from 1940. The seminar focused on exploring how to "Germanize" the landscapes of Poland and Russia for
future colonization and settlement during the war. The entire Faculty of Agriculture was influenced by the ideology of
blood and soil, and agricultural scientists had no qualms about using forced laborers and prisoners of war on university experimental farms. Henseler repeatedly asked his former student and SS chief
Heinrich Himmler for additional land and led several excursions to the SS herb garden on the grounds of the
Dachau concentration camp with his students.
Post World War II FRM I, nicknamed the
atomic egg, has become a landmark of the city of
Garching, even being featured in its coat of arms. During the war, 80 percent of the university's facilities in Munich had been
destroyed. Under these difficult conditions, teaching resumed in April 1946. In 1956, the construction of a
research reactor in
Garching was the beginning of the Garching campus. In 1969, the
physics department building was opened there, followed in 1977 by new buildings for the
chemistry,
biology and
geoscience departments. Between 1868 and 1870 the architect
Arnold Zenetti oversaw the construction of several hospital buildings which are today attached to the Munich universities or form part of the TUM campus. In 1967, a
TUM School of Medicine was founded with campuses in the buildings of
Rechts der Isar Hospital. By 1968, the so called TH München comprised six faculties, 8,400 students, and 5,700 staff. In 1972, the
Zentrale Hochschulsportanlage, a 45-hectare sports center, was built on the grounds of the
1972 Summer Olympics. In 1970, the TH München was renamed to its present name
Technische Universität München. When the Bavarian Higher Education Act came into force in 1974, the six faculties were replaced by eleven departments. In 1992, the field of
computer science was established as an independent
Department of Informatics, having previously been part of the
Department of Mathematics since 1967.
21st century with the
Department of Mechanical Engineering to right In 2002,
TUM Asia was founded in Singapore, in cooperation with the
Nanyang Technological University and the
National University of Singapore. It was the first time that a German university had established a subsidiary abroad. The
Department of Sport and Health Sciences and the
School of Management were established in 2002. The
Weihenstephan departments were combined into the "Weihenstephan Centre of Life and Food Sciences" (WZW), which would later become the
School of Life Sciences. With the establishment of the
School of Education in 2009, the
School of Governance in 2016, the
Department of Aerospace and Geodesy in 2018, the
School of Natural Sciences in 2023, the university comprises 7 schools and 29 research departments. Since the inception of the
German Universities Excellence Initiative in 2006, TUM has won every round of evaluation and the title
University of Excellence. In
2024 and
2025, TUM won
A2RL, an autonomous racing league held in Abu Dhabi, in the car racing format. == Campuses ==