1936 Hinterstoisser-Kurz Eiger North Face Tragedy

Germany🏔️ 1 Peak

Andreas Hinterstoisser

Born on June 29, 1910, in Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps, Andreas Hinterstoisser was a natural rock athlete who had developed exceptional technique on the fierce limestone walls of the Berchtesgadener Land. An accomplished climber in both summer and winter conditions, Hinterstoisser demonstrated an intuitive reading of blank rock that set him apart from most climbers of his generation. By the mid-1930s, the Eiger North Face — the last great unsolved problem of the Alps — had claimed several lives and attracted the most ambitious young climbers from Germany and Austria, driven partly by the politically charged mountaineering nationalism of the era. In the summer of 1936, Hinterstoisser partnered with his close friend Toni Kurz and two Austrian climbers, Willy Angerer and Edi Rainer, for an attempt on the face. On July 18, the four-man team set out from the foot of the 1,800-metre wall. At the critical first band of smooth, vertical limestone that had stopped all previous parties — the slabs below the First Icefield — Hinterstoisser improvised a revolutionary horizontal pendulum manoeuvre, swinging across the holdless wall on a fixed rope to gain a small ledge system on the far side. No one had conceived of traversing the face horizontally rather than attacking it straight up. The move worked, and the four climbers crossed the traverse and pushed high onto the face. They reached the Second Icefield and beyond, setting a new height record on the face. Then storm descended and disaster followed: Angerer had been struck by rockfall, the weather was deteriorating, and the team made the fatal decision to descend. When they reached the Hinterstoisser Traverse from above, they found that the rope across the slabs had been pulled up after their crossing. They had no means to reverse the traverse. The entire party was trapped. Hinterstoisser died during the subsequent stormy descent on the night of July 21, unable to downclimb the verglas-coated rock. He was twenty-five years old. Two years later, Heckmair, Vörg, Harrer, and Kasparek left the Hinterstoisser Traverse rope permanently in place — a lesson learned in blood.

Germany🏔️ 1 Peak

Toni Kurz

Born on July 16, 1913, in Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps, Anton Kurz grew up amid the limestone towers and demanding routes of the Berchtesgadener Land. A skilled and ambitious young climber, Kurz quickly distinguished himself on the local alpine crags before setting his sights on the great north faces of the Alps that had become the obsession of a generation of young German and Austrian climbers in the 1930s. In the summer of 1936, Kurz teamed with fellow Berchtesgadener Andreas Hinterstoisser and two Austrians, Willy Angerer and Edi Rainer, for an attempt on the still-unclimbed Eiger North Face. On July 18, the four-man team crossed Hinterstoisser's revolutionary pendulum traverse across smooth limestone and pushed high onto the face. On July 19, storm descended. Willy Angerer, who had been struck by rockfall, could no longer climb effectively. The party turned to descend. At the bottom of the Hinterstoisser Traverse, they discovered catastrophically that the rope used for the pendulum had already been pulled up — they could not reverse it. Trapped on the wall in a screaming blizzard, the four men attempted to descend the vertical ice-glazed rock by hammering in pitons. During the night of July 21 to 22, Rainer, Angerer, and Hinterstoisser all perished — from exhaustion, injury, or falls. Kurz alone remained alive, hanging by his harness rope on a small ledge in the storm. When mountain railway workers and guides emerged from the Stollenloch window tunnel into the face at dawn on July 22, they found Kurz alive, shouting down to them. They were only 40 metres below him — close enough to hear his voice clearly — but could not reach him on the vertical ground. Through a day of extraordinary suffering, rescuers talked Kurz through rappelling down one rope while climbing up the second to retrieve the pieces, then splicing them into a single rope to reach them. After more than 24 hours on the wall alone, Kurz lowered himself close enough to the guides to almost touch their outstretched hands. But the splice knot in the rope jammed in a carabiner, and Kurz's fingers, black with frostbite, could no longer bend. He said, softly, 'Ich kann nicht mehr' — 'I cannot go on' — and died, dangling in mid-air, three metres above rescue.