"This is my downfall now": Munich has lived in his car for three years
Created: 01/13/2023 07:43
By: Julian Limmer
A man has been living in Munich in his Honda for three years.
A place in a dormitory was still out of the question for him.
Munich – Edgar S. (77) turns on the lights of his dwarf Christmas tree.
He lovingly placed it between the steering wheel and dashboard of his Honda Civic.
Right in front of his bed - the driver's seat of his car.
Edgar S. has been sleeping and living in his car for three years – currently in a parking lot in the southwest of Munich.
Edgar S. in front of his "home".
© Goetzfried
The interior has become something like an apartment for him: around two meters long, one and a half meters wide and one meter high, "my roof over my head," he says.
And a little decoration doesn't hurt: a passer-by gave him the Christmas tree, which protrudes around 30 centimeters from a flower pot: "A nice gesture", thinks Edgar S. - especially in winter.
In general: without the help of the many passers-by, his "angels", as he calls them, it would not be possible: "They often bring me coffee or breakfast, sometimes leave a little money there." He lives mostly from that, he says lightly Berlin dialect.
Man from Munich lives in the car: "I never paid into the pension insurance"
Edgar S. came to Munich from East Berlin in the 1970s – with a foreign French passport and without a single mark in his pocket, as he says.
He has worked as a masseur all his life, self-employed for over 30 years.
His problem: “I never paid into the pension insurance.
That's my downfall now.” Three years ago, he lost his apartment in Sendling in the course of a change of ownership and couldn't find a new one.
He says: "At the time, I underestimated how difficult it was in Munich to find an apartment with little money." He did receive an offer to stay in a dormitory for homeless men on Pilgersheimer Strasse in Untergiesing.
"But that's not the case," he says.
The many roommates, the hustle and bustle – he declined.
Instead, he bought a 20-year-old Honda for around 2,500 euros.
Edgar S. has stowed everything he owns in it: clothing, cigarettes, creams and countless plastic bags that take up almost the entire car.
The passenger window has been destroyed – so that it doesn't rain in, S. closed the hole with adhesive tape.
It should stay dry in his kingdom on four wheels.
However, the car itself no longer runs: engine damage.
Edgar S. does the shopping with his women's bicycle, on whose luggage rack he has mounted a basket.
He washes himself in the toilets of supermarkets.
And if he wants to read the newspaper, he goes to amusement arcades – they're free there.
Munich about his life in the Honda: "As a former soldier, I'm hardened"
And the cold in winter?
It doesn't bother him much, he says.
After all, he was once in the army: "As a former soldier, I'm hardened." He almost never feels sick.
The only thing he doesn't like very much is his new parking space: it used to be more central - a few hundred meters away.
Then it was parked by a tow truck a few months ago.
Does he have to pay for that?
He doesn't know exactly.
"I don't have any money anyway," he says resignedly.
"Then I'll just go to Stadelheim."
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But why is Edgar S. doing this to himself?
At least he could get basic security from the office.
S.: “A lot of people tell me that. But I don't want that.
My motto is: Help yourself, then God will help.” His greatest wish remains his own apartment.
But no one knows what the way there should look like - least of all he himself.
