What is the Radlsteg, and why does its story still circle Munich’s Altstadt?

Tucked in Munich’s historic Altstadt Lehel district, the Radlsteg is a modest footbridge with an outsized reputation. Long before it became a quiet crossing point near the Isar River, the Radlsteg spanned the Katzenbach, a small stream whose name translates directly to “cat stream.” Records place the bridge’s first mention in the 1500s, when it served as a passage blocked to carts and wagons by a turnstile, locally called a “Radl,” Bavarian for “little wheel.” That mechanical detail gave the bridge its name. The stream running beneath it, however, is said to carry a far darker story.

Where does the Katzenbach’s unsettling name come from?

According to local lore passed down through generations of Munich residents, the Katzenbach earned its name from a grim practice: unwanted kittens, particularly black ones, were said to have been drowned in its waters (not confirmed yet). Historians note an alternate, more mundane theory, that the name may trace back to several mill wheels, or “Radln,” built along the stream, but it’s the darker version that has endured in neighborhood storytelling. A second branch of the waterway, the Einschüttbach, once ran behind a high bridge through what is now Hochbrückenstraße, where bathhouses operated as early as 1731.

What happened to the physical stream itself?

By 1872, the city had covered and paved over the Einschütt, deepened and vaulted the Katzenbach, and demolished the high bridge entirely, leveling the street above it. The stream never disappeared, it simply vanished underground, flowing invisibly beneath the modern city center. A fresco by artist Hans Wißmeyer, added to a house wall along the Radlsteg in the 1990s, still nods to the area’s layered past, depicting the bridge as it looked around 1880.

What do people claim happens on the Radlsteg today?

The legend persists that girls and young women crossing the alley are sometimes joined by small, ghostly kittens trailing at their feet. Witnesses describe the cats as appearing suddenly and silently, only to vanish without a trace the moment anyone reaches down to pet them. According to the tale, the phantom kittens are selective, choosing only to accompany women, and always guiding them in the same direction: toward the town center, the exact path the buried Katzenbach still flows to this day.

Is there any way to confirm the legend?

As with most urban folklore, no formal record ties specific drownings to the Katzenbach’s name, and municipal history archives list the stream with little more than passing references. What is documented is the bridge’s genuine age, its turnstile origin, and the 19th century engineering that buried the waterway beneath the city. The rest survives the way most ghost stories do, passed along by locals, repeated on Munich’s walking tours, and kept alive by anyone who’s ever felt a chill crossing the Radlsteg alone.

FOU News develop this article under the folklore story-telling of The Haunt Munich’s Radlsteg Bridge legend, and some documents, barely confirmed for some locals, we hope you enjoy it.

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