The White Spider

It was impossible. Even Kurz and Hinterstoisser in their full and unimpaired strength could not have climbed the crack in such conditions. It was a pitch which even in fine weather would have seriously tested these four men, first-class guides, brought up in a great tradition, master-climbers all, but little versed in the technique of modern, artificial climbing. It would have called for just that kind of “acrobatics” against which Chief Guide Bohren had taken such a strong stand.

However, the four guides succeeded in reaching a point only about 130 feet below where Toni Kurz was hanging on the rope. So far did the overhang beetle out over the abyss that they could no longer see him from there. If Kurz had another rope on which to rope himself down, he would be saved. But how to get one to him? Attempts with rockets failed. The rope went shooting past Kurz, far out from the Face. There was only one thing left.

“Can you let a line down,” they asked him, “so that we can attach a rope, rock-pitons and anything else you need?”

“I have no line,” came the reply.

“Climb down as far as you can, then, and cut away Angerer’s body. Then climb up again and cut the rope above you. Then untwist the strands of the piece of rope you have gained, join them and let the resulting line down.”

The answer was a groan: “I’ll try.”

A little while later they heard the strokes of an axe. It seemed incredible that Kurz could hold on with one frozen hand and swing the axe with the other. Yet he managed to cut the rope away; only, Angerer’s body didn’t fall, for it was frozen solid to the rock. Almost in a trance, answering the last dictates of the will to live, Kurz climbed up again, cut away the rope there. The manoeuvre had won him twenty-five feet of rope, frozen stiff. And then began the unbelievable work of untwisting the strands. Every climber knows how difficult that is, even on firm ground, with two sound hands. But Toni Kurz was suspended between heaven and earth, on an ice-glazed cliff, threatened by falling stones, sometimes swept by snow-slides. He worked with one hand and his teeth … for five hours….

A great avalanche fell, narrowly missing the guides. A huge block whizzed close by Schlunegger’s head. And then a body came hurtling past. Toni’s? No it wasn’t Toni’s, but Angerer’s, freed from the imprisoning ice. Those were hours of agony for Toni, fighting for his life, agonising too for the guides, who could do nothing to help, and could only wait for the moment when Kurz might still achieve the incredible.

Presently the fabricated line came swinging down to the rescue party. They fastened a rope to it, with pitons, snap-links, a hammer. Slowly those objects disappeared from the view of the guides. Toni Kurz’s strength was ebbing fast; he could hardly draw up the line, but somehow he managed it. Even now the rope wasn’t long enough. The guides attached a second to it. The knot where the two ropes were spliced swung visible but unreachable out there under the great overhang.

Another hour passed. Then, at last, Toni Kurz was able to start roping down, sitting in a sling attached to the rope by a snap-link. Inch by inch he worked his way downwards. Thirty, forty, fifty feet down … a hundred feet, a hundred and twenty. Now his legs could be seen dangling below the overhang.

At that moment the junction-knot jammed in the snap-link of the sling in which Toni was sitting as he roped down. The knot was too thick and Toni could not force it through the link. They could hear him groaning.

“Try, lad, try!” the frustrated rescuers cried to encourage the exhausted man. Toni, mumbling to himself, made one more effort with all his remaining strength, but he had little left; his incredible efforts had used it almost all up. His will to live had been keyed to the extreme so long as he was active; now, the downward journey in the safety of the rope-sling had eased the tension. He was nearing his rescuers now; now the battle was nearly over, now there were others close at hand to help….

And now this knot … just a single knot … but it won’t go through…. “Just one more try, pal. It’ll go!”

There was a note of desperation in the guides’ appeal. One last revolt against fate; one last call on the last reserves of strength against this last and only obstacle. Toni bent forwards, trying to use his teeth just once more. His frozen left arm with its useless hand stuck out stiff and helpless from his body. His last reserves were gone.

Toni mumbled unintelligibly, his handsome young face dyed purple with frost-bite and exhaustion, his lips just moving. Was he still trying to say something, or had his spirit already passed over to the beyond?

Then he spoke again, quite clearly. “I’m finished,” he said.

His body tipped forward. The sling, almost within reaching distance of the rescuing guides, hung swinging gently far out over the gulf. The man sitting in it was dead.

It will never be known exactly how the whole disaster built up or what precisely happened while Sector-Guard and humanitarian Albert von Allmen was getting his tea ready. The very fact that Andreas Hinterstoisser was off the rope at the moment of his fall leads to the conclusion that he—probably the best technician of the four—was trying to find a specially safe place for pitons to secure the descent on the rope. It was impossible to establish from Toni Kurz’s fragmentary and incoherent sentences whether Hinterstoisser was hit by a stone, or whether they all fell owing to a fall of stone, or whether the others were trying to catch Andreas as he fell and so were all pulled off their holds. The guide from Berchtesgaden needed all his strength for his own preservation, nor could he spare thoughts or words for reports. It is quite clear that all three were on the same rope, and that it ran through a snap-link attached to a piton. The fall jammed Rainer against the piton so that he could not move. Tatters of bandage found on Angerer’s skull, when his body was recovered much later, proved that he had been the injured member of the party, seen on the Face by those who watched.

It was one of the grimmest tricks of fate which left Toni Kurz uninjured at the outset, so that he was forced to endure his agony to its uttermost end. He was like some messenger from the beyond, finding his way back to earth simply because he loved life so well.

The tragedy of Sedlmayer and Mehringer had been enacted behind the curtains of the mountain mists. Men could only guess at it. But Toni Kurz ended his brave and vigorous life before the eyes of his rescuers. It was this that made the tragedy of 1936 so impressive and so shattering that it will never be forgotten.

Arnold Glatthard, that reserved and silent guide, said: “It was the saddest moment of my life.”

Unfortunately, not everybody showed that respect and reserve which death—and particularly death in such a manner—commands.

One newspaper wrote of Toni Kurz’s death: “Kurz spent his fourth night complaining. When the search for notoriety and obstinate willpower conspire to bring a man to grief, one cannot really register regret….”

Another, dated July 24th 1936, produced the following remarkable description of the men who climb the Eiger’s Face and the motives that impel them:

Perhaps these young men have nothing more to lose … what is to become of a generation to which Society offers no social existence and which has only one thing left to look to, a single day’s glory, the swiftly tarnishing highlight of a single hour? To be a bit of a hero, a bit of a soldier, sportsman or record-breaker, a gladiator, victorious one day, defeated the next…. The four recent victims of the Eiger’s North Face were poor creatures. When some kindly folk in Grindelwald invited them to dinner, they tucked in to the proffered meal like true warriors; afterwards, they said they hadn’t had such a good meal for three years. When asked what was the purpose of their risky venture, they replied that its main object was to improve their positions. They believed that such an exceptional feat would bring them honour and glory, and make people take notice of them….

Another article bearing the same date and headlined “Climbing under Orders” gives the matter a bizarre twist in the opposite direction.

Kleine Scheidegg, July 24th. A report is current here that the four climbers had been ordered to make the ascent. It has been said that they were very excited on Friday evening; that they would never have taken such a grave risk as free agents. Perhaps their records will reveal this or that secret which did not pass their lips, now numbed and frozen into silence.

This was, of course, the direct reverse of the truth. Kurz and Hinterstoisser were at this time on the strength of the Mountain-Ranger (Jäger)-Regiment No. 100 and on leave from Bad Reichenhall. When their commanding officer Col. R. Konrad, who had experience of climbing in the Bernese Oberland, learned of their plans he telephoned Grindelwald and, in the strictest terms, vetoed any attempt on the Eiger. That was on the Friday evening. The message reached the tents on the Kleine Scheidegg too late. Kurz and Hinterstoisser had started up the Face a few hours earlier….

In the context of previous tragedies on the Eiger’s North Face a great many things were invented and written-up at various desks, which served to poison the atmosphere and made mutual understanding more difficult. Genuine mountaineers in Germany, Austria or Switzerland wrote on common lines, irrespective of whether they were for or against “Operation Eigerwand”. They used the language of understanding, humanity and respect for the dead. While various papers were trying to drive a permanent wedge between German climbers and Swiss Guides, Gunther Lange was writing in Bergsteiger, the official organ of the German and Austrian Alpine Club: “I know the Swiss guides, who have shown typical mountaineering qualities in such an outstanding manner. I spent several weeks last year with Arnold Glatthard on difficult rock; a man carved from the best and hardest wood, with enough pluck for three. The Eigerwand guides deserve the recognition and gratitude of all climbers for what they did!” And as a postscript, Gunther Langes published a letter from Glatthard, which summarised the judgment of all the guides on the four men who died on the Face in 1936: “I watched them climbing and can only praise the lads. The North Face dealt harshly with our comrades….”

It is safe to say that guides, of whatever nationality, are fine men. It is nothing against them that they often exhibit a rugged exterior and don’t speak in the smooth phraseology of diplomats.

On the fly-leaf of his guide’s record-book Toni Kurz, when only nineteen, had written a little poem, the fruit of his fine, serious nature. It told of his love for the mountains, of the sober approach to every climb, and of the sacred obligation—

“never to give one’s life away to death.”

To round off my report on the tragedy of 1936 I propose to quote the words of Sir Arnold Lunn, an enemy of unhealthy pathos and all forms of false heroics. This is what he wrote about Toni Kurz’s death in his book A Century of Mountaineering.1

His valiant heart had resisted the terrors of storm and solitude and misery such as mountaineers have seldom been called on to endure. He had hung in his rope-sling buffeted by the storm, but determined not to surrender. And he did not surrender He died. In the annals of mountaineering there is no record of a more heroic endurance.

1“Murder-Face” for “North Face”—Translator’s note.

1Arnold Lunn, A Century of Mountaineering, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1957.

1937 On the Eiger

THE Eiger’s Face is still covered in sheets of snow. It is snowing as if here were winter’s last defence-bastion, against which spring and summer are launching their attacks in vain. But the new Eiger-teams have already moved into the huts and inns of Alpiglen and the Kleine Scheidegg. Tents are springing up on the Alp. The German dialects of Bavarians and Austrians, to a lesser degree Italian and Schwyzerdütch, are to be heard everywhere.

Samuel Brawand, himself once a guide, later a lecturer and now a member of parliament, has raised his warning voice, a voice well respected among mountaineers. Brawand has special knowledge of the Eiger, for in 1921 he and his brother-guides Fritz Amatter and Fritz Steuri led the young Japanese climber Yuko Maki up the Mittellegi Ridge, to achieve the first ascent of that exacting route.

In an interview given to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Brawand said:

It is a fact that several ropes are again interested in attempts on the North Face of the Eiger. Here in Grindelwald, we have so far heard of four parties.

Your paper has asked me to state the position of the Rescue-Service in the event of a new attempt on the Face. To date, neither the local corps of guides nor the Section of the Swiss Alpine Club have made a serious pronouncement on the subject. In my view it is unnecessary to take any decisions. Even if the corps of guides were to decide not to fetch down the body of anyone who started to climb the Face—which the administration in Berne might empower them to do—what would be achieved by such a ruling? Would it act as a deterrent? I do not believe it would. To the men who climb the Face of the Eiger it is all one whether their bodies are left up there or brought down. It would be ludicrous indeed to threaten not to fetch down even those in distress on the Face. If people up there shout for help and the guides are in a position to bring them that help, then of course they will always do so. The only time when they won’t do it is when the dangers are so great as to make it obvious that no rescue attempt could stand a possible chance of success.

Last autumn, the administration in Berne issued a ban on all climbing on the North Face. It has since been withdrawn, and rightly so. To start with, it could never be effective because the fine imposed by the law is so small; and, in the second place, you cannot really put a veto on any given method of committing suicide.

In this fight against “North-Face-Fever” the Press has a very important duty. It should set its face against pandering to the public’s insatiable greed for sensation. Unfortunately, pictures have already been published which border on the irreverent. Finally, it should be remembered that there are more important tasks in this world than the ascent of the Eiger’s North Face. I have myself taken part in first ascents and know how uncommonly satisfying such successes are; but one knows, too, that they are only steps in human development….

These are good, sensible words, well spoken by Herr Brawand. They bridge the gap between different kinds of men; they warn without condemning. But even this experienced Alpine climber regards an attempt to climb the North Face as a complicated and expensive form of suicide. He speaks of the great sense of well-being brought by a successful first ascent; but he keeps silence about the impalpable and imponderable mainspring which moves men to accomplish the extraordinary. Perhaps his diagnosis of “North-Face-Fever” is not so far out. Brawand’s object, like that of any scientific, traditional doctor, is to keep the fever down. But surely the fever is itself a sign that a body is fighting for its own health. Let us stick to the unpleasant comparison. The Eiger-bacillus has arrived and has attacked the human race. It is—as we have premised from the very start—the bacillus of the everlasting adventure, that lure which always assails the younger generation, and endows the young with a terrifying impetus and strength.

The fever will, in the end, master the bacillus; but by that time the North Face of the Eiger will have lost its claim to inaccessibility. The gigantic precipice will have lost none of its beauty, its might or its perilous nature, for it is so fashioned that every new party which comes to grips with it has to put forward the very best of which men on a mountain are capable. In this sense every climb of the North Face will always be a first ascent. But the fever will have subsided and nobody will talk of a bacillus any more. The conception of the Eiger’s North Face will by then have become part of man’s spiritual heritage. Note carefully: his spiritual heritage. One cannot defeat or conquer mountains, one can only climb them. “Defeat” and “conquest” have already become hackneyed expressions, senselessly repeated hundreds of times, false and arrogant descriptions of mountaineering successes. In any case, one cannot “defeat” one of nature’s superb defences such as the Eiger’s Face; it sounds as if one had built a cable ropeway from Alpiglen to the summit of the Eiger. But even that would not be a “defeat”; it would simply be the annihilation of the North Face, its eradication from the climber’s vocabulary.

These reflections are not meant in any way as criticisms designed to belittle that excellent man Samuel Brawand. On the contrary. He held out a hand in reconciliation; his views already foreshadowed the coming turn of events, when good sense and understanding would triumph over mere passion. For alongside the “North-Face-Fever” there has burned an “Anti-Eiger-Fever” which disrupted peace and quiet just as much as did those plucky, unaffected boys who failed to return from the Face. The argument was no longer one of principle; it had become one of men and of human life….

Seen from this angle of a spiritual change, 1937 was a remarkably interesting year, even if it did not bring final success.

To start with, there was the Decree about the North Face which the Government in Berne issued at the beginning of July:

The following is supplementary to Paragraph 25 of the Regulations for Guides and Porters in the Canton of Berne issued on July 30 1914.

1. It is in the discretion of the Chiefs of the Rescue-Section to undertake rescue attempts following accidents on the North Face of the Eiger.

2. Parties intending to climb the North Face must be duly warned by the Rescue-stations and by the Guides before they start on the ascent. In particular their attention must be drawn to the fact that, in the event of an accident, no rescue operations will be laid on. (Author’s comment: not only Herr Brawand’s words already quoted, but the actual assistance offered and given, were to prove that, in spite of all pronouncements, guides would continue to serve the cause of humanity by doing any- and everything in their power to save climbers in peril of their lives.)

3. The Governor of Interlaken is to promulgate this decision to the Chief Guides of the District, for communication to the Rescue-stations and the Guides.

In the name of the Judiciary, President: Jos. County Clerk:

I. V. Hubert

During these early days of July 1937 there were already several parties ready to brave the ascent or at least an attempt on it. Two very good climbers from the Grisons had already gone away because of the bad conditions. An Italian party was still there, consisting of Giuseppe Piravano, heralded as one of Italy’s best ice-men and Bruno Detassis, the best-known climber in the savage Brenta Dolomites, who came from Trento. Both men were professional guides. Another party training in the neighbourhood was that of Wollenweber, Zimmermann and Lohner, of whom the first two had been among those active on the Face the year before. According to a report in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, “two Munich men have also pitched their tent near Alpiglen, a little to one side and without much fuss. So far they have refused to give their names”. Actually the two “men from Munich” came from Bayrisch-Zell. One of them was no less a personality than Andreas Heckmair, also a guide by profession.

It was a considerable gathering, linked only by a common target. Each party worked on its own, keeping its own counsel, following its own plans and methods of training.

There was naturally an unspoken rivalry between the separate parties, an element of personal and national competition—though this played quite an important part in the efforts to climb the North Face. The Italians, even Italian guides, have always been accused of an unusual degree of chauvinism, but it should never be forgotten that Italy is a young nation with a burning love of glory and blazing sense of patriotism, which occasionally burst their bounds. Her mountaineering activities began mainly in the years and decades during which her people were achieving political unity in a single State, during the second half of the last century. The dramatic race on the Matterhorn was not only regarded as a contest between Whymper and Carrel, but as an event of national importance. The question was really—“Il Cervino” or “das Matterhorn”? And Carrel, ex-trooper of the Bersaglieri, was determined to climb the Cervino from Breuil in his native valley, with and for his own countrymen. Less thought was given to the mountain than to the flag on its summit. Let us recall Whymper’s moment of triumph when he beat the Italians to the summit and unfurled his flag—the sweat-soaked shirt of Michel Croz, his Chamonix guide; remembering how the victorious Englishman begged Croz “for heaven’s sake” to help him roll stones down the Tyndall Arête, so that Carrel and his Italians climbing up it might learn for certain that they were too late, that they had been defeated in the race….

What about such rivalries and races to achieve first ascents? They are as old as mountaineering itself. Even the tremendous opening fanfare to Alpine climbing—the first ascent of Mont Blanc in 1786—was accompanied by the strident trumpet-tones of human discord. Jacques Balmat had no wish to share his fame with Dr. Paccard, who accompanied him on the climb. There has always been keen competition between the guides of different nationalities, indeed even of different valleys, a competition that remains as keen as ever today.

We have only to turn back the pages of the Eiger’s own history. In 1859 Leslie Stephen and the Mathews brothers, English climbers all, made the first-traverse of the Eigerjoch with their guides. Leslie Stephen, one of the most distinguished characters in the “Golden Age” of mountaineering, who invariably gave pride of place to the feats of his guides, keeping his own in the background, describes this “Rivalry of the Guides” in his charmingly humorous book The Playground of Europe.

The Mathews [he writes] were accompanied by two Chamouni men, Jean-Baptiste Croz and Charlet, whilst I had secured the gigantic Ulrich Lauener, the most picturesque of guides. Tall, spare, blue-eyed, long-limbed and square-shouldered, with a jovial laugh and a not ungraceful swagger, he is the very model of a true mountaineer; and, except that his rule is apt to be rather autocratic, I would not wish for a pleasanter companion. He has, however, certain views as to the superiority of the Teutonic over the Celtic races….

While they were reconnoitring the best way through the ice-falls there was sharp competition between Lauener and the Chamonix men. Stephen writes:

We had already had one or two little races and disputations in consequence, and Lauener was disposed to take a disparaging view of the merits of these foreign competitors on his own peculiar ground. As, however, he could not speak a word of French, nor they of German, he was obliged to convey this sentiment in pantomime, which perhaps did not soften its vigour.

That was written in 1859.

So it will be seen that various kinds of rivalries are no degenerate phenomena of the new generation. It is impossible to speak of a profanation of the mountains. The great prototypes, whom it is usual to present to the eyes of youth as examples of ice-grey-bearded distinction, the Pioneers above all, the men of action, did not make the milk of a pious mentality their favourite drink. They were neither supermen nor knights in shining armour, but simply men, like those of today.

During the ‘thirties the Italians achieved a leading place in international mountaineering, especially on rock. And be it only mentioned in passing that, around the turn of the century, the Himalayan and other expeditions of Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of the Abruzzi, outclassed all similar enterprises sponsored by other nations for their daring and brilliant organisation.