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<p>The only known case of a&#xa0;person falling from one of the towers of Munich’s <i>Frauenkirche</i> occurred on Friday 14 January 1785. The cause and circumstances of this fall have been the subject of controversial debate ever since, with the majority of the debaters assuming that it was a&#xa0;suicidal fall by the 17-year-old Baroness Franziska “Fanny” von Ickstatt, whose love story had gone unfulfilled. In contrast, her family as well as the church and state authorities regarded it as an accidental fall of a pleasure-loving and active young woman. As the incident has never been forensically investigated, we reconstructed the fall biomechanically and determined in particular the chronological sequence of the fall phases: after a&#xa0;fall of about 2s onto the church roof (impact speed 94 km/h) and sliding down the roof (for ca. 2.5s, final speed 44 km/h), the body struck the roof of a&#xa0;neighboring house at a&#xa0;speed of ca. 84 km/h after another 1.25 s. The case was finally clarified by the statement of a&#xa0;credible witness indicating that the baroness’s bonnet fell to the ground before her body reached the eaves. A&#xa0;drop test on site showed that there must have been a&#xa0;time delay of at least 3.5s due to greater air resistance between the bonnet and the body. This difference proves that Fanny von Ickstatt lost her bonnet well before she left the tower window, most likely by actively throwing it and that the fall was therefore undoubtedly with suicidal intent.</p>

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Der Fall der Fanny von Ickstatt – die historisch-forensische Aufklärung eines tödlichen Sturzes

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年1月21日

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  • Andreas G. Nerlich,
  • Oliver K. Peschel,
  • Matthias Graw,
  • Jiri Adamec

摘要

The only known case of a person falling from one of the towers of Munich’s Frauenkirche occurred on Friday 14 January 1785. The cause and circumstances of this fall have been the subject of controversial debate ever since, with the majority of the debaters assuming that it was a suicidal fall by the 17-year-old Baroness Franziska “Fanny” von Ickstatt, whose love story had gone unfulfilled. In contrast, her family as well as the church and state authorities regarded it as an accidental fall of a pleasure-loving and active young woman. As the incident has never been forensically investigated, we reconstructed the fall biomechanically and determined in particular the chronological sequence of the fall phases: after a fall of about 2s onto the church roof (impact speed 94 km/h) and sliding down the roof (for ca. 2.5s, final speed 44 km/h), the body struck the roof of a neighboring house at a speed of ca. 84 km/h after another 1.25 s. The case was finally clarified by the statement of a credible witness indicating that the baroness’s bonnet fell to the ground before her body reached the eaves. A drop test on site showed that there must have been a time delay of at least 3.5s due to greater air resistance between the bonnet and the body. This difference proves that Fanny von Ickstatt lost her bonnet well before she left the tower window, most likely by actively throwing it and that the fall was therefore undoubtedly with suicidal intent.