He is said to have disgusted the tenants of the house and commissioned a building contractor to intentionally destroy the watchmaker’s house with an excavator. Now the buyer has to answer in court.
The demolition of the listed watchmaker’s house in Munich is once again a case for the court. The trial began on Monday against the buyer of the house, who is said to have hired a developer to intentionally demolish the house with an excavator in 2017 so that it could then be demolished. “This should give third parties the impression that the construction process (…) was a mistake,” said the prosecutor.
The accused denied this intention at the beginning of the proceedings through his lawyers: “There was no demolition order.” The man is being made “the scapegoat” for gentrification in Munich, his defense attorney said. “He’s not a real estate shark, he bought the watchmaker’s house in order to move in himself after the renovation.”
The demolition of the watchmaker’s house was “an accident,” said his second defense attorney. “No more and no less.” His client was unfairly branded as “a symbol of unrestrained greed for profit”. He did not commission the entrepreneur accused of being an alleged accomplice with the demolition. The man alone is responsible for “the tragic accident”. The reason is an exceptional psychological situation, “a dropout”.
The proceedings also deal with the buyer’s dealings with the previous tenants of the house. He is said to have pissed them off by turning off the water, turning off the electricity, unhinging the front door and removing roof tiles to let rain in. For years, the Uhrmacherhäusl in the district of Giesing has employed residents, preservationists and the judiciary. In the summer of last year, the Bavarian Administrative Court (BayVGH) ruled that the small house must be rebuilt in its historic building dimensions.