Murder hunt begins after 'Germany's Versace' is strangled

He designed clothes for Arnold Schwarzenegger and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, travelled to work each day in a Rolls-Royce with his lapdog, Daisy, and was revered as one of Germany's few genuine eccentrics. But the circumstances of Rudolph Moshammer's death yesterday were anything but glamorous.

He designed clothes for Arnold Schwarzenegger and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, travelled to work each day in a Rolls-Royce with his lapdog, Daisy, and was revered as one of Germany's few genuine eccentrics. But the circumstances of Rudolph Moshammer's death yesterday were anything but glamorous.

At 9am, Moshammer, 64, was found dead in his exquisite Munich villa, apparently strangled with a telephone cable. Germany's answer to Gianni Versace had, it seems, met a similarly grisly end to his murdered Italian counterpart.

There is little doubt that the country's most famous fashion designer was murdered. He was found by his chauffeur, slumped, fully clothed, in the hallway of his villa in the exclusive suburb of Grünwald. The phone cable had been ripped out of a socket and was wound round his neck. His doctor, who had arrived to give Mr Moshammer one of his regular vitamin injections, confirmed the cause of death. His Yorkshire terrier was unharmed.

Friends said they had last seen him in public last Saturday evening when he was dining with the singer, Roberto Blanco, and his wife Mireille.

Police piecing together Mr Moshammer's movements in the hours before his death, are considering several theories. The designer's well-known links to Munich's gay community are being investigated. But Lütz Libbertz, Mr Moshammer's lawyer, told reporters that he assumed his client had been murdered by robbers, although police said they had found no signs of a break-in.

"Mr Moshammer was a wealthy man and had money and valuables stored at his home," Mr Libbertz said. "I don't think he had any enemies. If he had he would have told me. I am deeply shocked by his death."

There was even speculation that the designer may have been the victim of a stalker. Two years ago, Mr Moshammer was sent threatening letters pledging to free him "from the wicked world by sending you to the Moon and to the good world in Heaven". Shortly afterwards, he held an autograph-signing session in a Munich store under police protection. Bodyguards arrested a suspect in the store who had a knife with a 25cm blade. "I was absolutely terrified," Mr Moshammer said at the time.

As the murder investigation got under way, Germans were mourning one of the most colourful figures to grace the fashion, and often the front, pages of their newspapers. Moshammer was outrageous, camp and never dull.

He had a penchant for small dogs, outrageous black bouffant toupees and heavy make-up. In 1968, he opened and ran his boutique, Carneval de Venise, in Munich's fashionable Maximilianstrasse. Appearances on television were frequent, often to campaign and raise funds for the homeless. King Carl Gustaf was a regular client at the shop - reputed to be the most expensive in Europe - as were many of Germany's cultural elite. His calling, Moshammer said, was to sell "beauty and youth".

Police believe Moshammer dined at a restaurant in his neighbourhood with a friend on the evening before his death. He apparently left the restaurant alone and cruised the streets of Munich in his black Rolls-Royce. He was last seen near the railway station.

News bulletins paid tribute to him as one of the most "shimmering" stars of Munich's high society. "He was an institution, somebody whose absence from the public eye was unthinkable," said the film-maker Christian Baudissin, who made a documentary about Moshammer. The Berlin hairdresser Udo Waltz, the country's equivalent of Vidal Sassoon, said: "Rudolph Moshammer was a remarkable and highly amusing man. I am disgusted by what appears to have been his murder and I will miss him."

The Bavarian Prime Minister, Edmund Stoiber, said: "Rudolph Moshammer was a Munich original. He had a big heart and was a very special person."

Nestlé, the food company, said it had withdrawn a television advertising campaign for its products which featured Moshammer.