Some dazzling personalities roamed the streets of Munich or were part of the chic crowd, such as designer Rudolph Moshammer. But when it came to extravagance and conspicuousness , a pair of twins outdid them all. They always appeared in pairs and you often heard them before you saw them – although they were really hard to miss. Everyone in Munich knew them and anyone who had never seen them was not a true Munich resident. Both have since passed away, but the legend lives on.
Twins in hot pants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA7rIUuCuyQ
Stephan and Christian were born in 1950 and spent the first 26 years of their lives in Berlin and Hanover. According to their own statements , their father was the actor Heinz Ohlsen and they grew up in a villa, but this has not been verified. They both trained as hairdressers and moved to Munich together in 1976. Here they not only cut hair, but also worked as models.
Among the city’s residents, however, they were known less for their modeling jobs and more for their public appearances. No matter what the temperature, no matter what the season, they always wore hot pants, which quickly earned them the nickname “Hotpants Boys”. After a vacation in the mountains at the tender age of 7 , they stopped wearing long pants. They went to Berchtesgaden with their grandfather and climbed the Watzmann. There they stripped naked and noticed that they didn’t freeze despite the snow. The hotpants twins were born.
But the twins’ appearance was also striking away from their bare legs. They wore their hair long and blonde, their clothes often in bright colors, with sequins or in leopard print, and they liked to be bare-chested. If you turned your back on them, you still knew they were there, as they often argued loudly with each other and rioted. This behavior was not without consequences: they had to move 18 times and were repeatedly banned from the premises.
The tragic last years of the Öhlschläger twins
In 2015, they both lost their apartment again and were unable to find a new place to live. At this point, the two had long been unable to work, and the contributions from the authorities were not enough. They lived in ever-changing emergency accommodation. Here, too, they were sometimes evicted from the house, for example because of open fires. Most of their possessions were seized, including family photos and 300 pairs of hot pants, so they didn’t have much left except for a few items of clothing. But even in this precarious situation, they remained faithful to their hot pants.
After several long years of homelessness, they were relieved when they moved into a new apartment in Sendling together. The joy was short-lived, however, because on January 9, 2022, shortly after moving in, Stefan Öhlschläger died of natural causes in his apartment. His brother Christian then suffered a collapse and required medical care. He also died six months later. They had always been together, their whole lives. According to Christian, they never argued, he just had a loud voice. The Öhlschläger twins may have been polarizing, but one thing is certain after their deaths: Munich is less colourful without them.