Oberlandesgericht München

The Oberlandesgericht München is one of three higher regional courts in Bavaria, alongside those in Nuremberg and Bamberg. It sits in Munich and serves the regions of Upper Bavaria, Swabia and most of Lower Bavaria. The court oversees ten regional courts and their district courts below them. More than twenty-two thousand lawyers practise within its jurisdiction. The court’s history includes periods of both resistance and compliance during the 1930s and 1940s. Several judges were removed in 1933 because of their Jewish heritage, and others were later murdered or forced into exile. After 1945 the court struggled with the return of former Nazi-era jurists under the 131er rule. Only in the 1990s did a fuller reckoning begin under President Karl Huber. The court also hosts special senates for cartel law, agriculture and capital-market test cases. Visitors approach the main building in central Munich, the Neue Justizgebäude, where most civil proceedings take place. Criminal benches sit nearby in the Strafjustizzentrum on Nymphenburger Strasse and in Schleissheimer Strasse. Some civil and family panels sit in Augsburg for the southern districts. The court’s internal IT service once operated from multiple sites across Bavaria before moving to Amberg.