The King of Maximilianstrasse - Moshammer's Boutique
Behind this glass at Maximilianstrasse 14, Rudolph Moshammer, Munich's flamboyant 'Mosi' with the Ludwig II wig and the Yorkshire terrier Daisy, held court for thirty seven years in his boutique Carnaval de Venise. On the night of 14 January 2005 the 64-year-old designer was strangled with an electric cable in his Gruenwald villa, and within 48 hours a DNA trace on the cable had named his killer.
About this place
Maximilianstrasse, laid out from 1850 by King Maximilian II as a neo Gothic showpiece, became Germany's most expensive shopping mile, and no one embodied it like Rudolph Moshammer. In 1968 the twenty eight year old opened the boutique Carnaval de Venise here at number 14 with his mother Else as partner, arriving at the opening in a horse drawn carriage with a leopard on a lead. For almost four decades his Rolls Royce idled at this kerb opposite the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten while he sold furs, cashmere, silk and a million neckties a year to Arnold Schwarzenegger, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Jose Carreras and Siegfried and Roy, and hosted Christmas dinners for the city's homeless. The crime itself happened far from here: in the night of 13 to 14 January 2005 Moshammer drove to the main railway station, offered a young man 2,000 euros for sex and took him to his villa in Gruenwald, where, after a quarrel over payment, the man strangled him from behind with an electric cable wrapped four times around his neck and fled with cash. His chauffeur found him at nine in the morning; a DNA trace on the cable matched a sample in the federal database, and the 25-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker was arrested the next day and confessed. On 21 November 2005 the Landgericht Muenchen I sentenced him to life for murder and robbery resulting in death. Ten thousand Munich residents lined this boulevard on 22 January 2005 as the hearse passed the boutique on its way to the Ostfriedhof; the shop closed days later and has housed a Blancpain watch store since December 2005.
Key facts
- 1968 year — Rudolph Moshammer opened Carnaval de Venise at Maximilianstrasse 14 with his mother Else, arriving at the opening in a horse drawn carriage with a leopard on a lead.
- 48 hours — The time it took the Munich homicide squad to arrest his killer after the body was found on 14 January 2005, thanks to a DNA trace on the electric cable matched against the federal database.
- 10000 mourners — Lined the streets on 22 January 2005 as the funeral procession rolled along Maximilianstrasse past the boutique to the Ostfriedhof, broadcast live on national television.
📍 Maximilianstraße 14, 80539, München