Mönchsturm

The Mönchsturm was a defensive tower in Frankfurt am Main’s old city wall. It stood on the south-eastern edge of the medieval Staufenmauer, built in the 12th century. The tower took its name from the nearby Dominican monastery, which shared the same block. Across the wall lay the Judengasse, the Jewish ghetto established in the 15th century, giving the tower a position between monastery and ghetto. Built in 1356 and raised again in 1406, the tower watched over the cramped Jewish quarter until the fortifications were removed in the late 18th century. In 1795 the structure collapsed, leaving only a stump that survived until the Judengasse itself was demolished in 1884–85. The tower’s round base supported a smooth stone shaft topped by a battlemented platform and a tall conical roof. Today the Mönchsturm is gone, its site buried beneath the busy Kurt-Schumacher-Straße. The rebuilt Dominican church choir marks the western edge of Börneplatz, where the tower once stood roughly in the road’s centre. Excavations in 2011 uncovered surviving foundations, now outlined in the asphalt by a ring of paving stones. Nearby, the Museum Judengasse entrance and the monastery building on the opposite side show where the tower once rose above the old city.