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Willy Angerer (c. 1905 – 21 July 1936) was an Austrian mountaineer. He was one of four mountaineers who died in the
1936 Eiger north face climbing disaster In July 1936, five climbers died while attempting to ascend the north face of the Eiger mountain in Switzerland. Background After a deadly and unsuccessful German attempt in 1935, ten climbers from Austria and Germany travelled to the still-unc ...
, along with
Toni Kurz Toni Kurz (13 January 1913 – 22 July 1936) was a German mountain climber active in the 1930s. He died in 1936 during an attempt to climb the then-unclimbed north face of the Eiger with his partner Andreas Hinterstoisser. Biography Toni Kurz ...
,
Andreas Hinterstoisser Andreas Hinterstoisser (3 October 1914 – 21 July 1936) was a German mountain climber active in the 1930s. He died during an attempt to climb the Eiger north face with his partner Toni Kurz. A section of the north face was later named the "Hinter ...
and
Eduard Rainer Eduard Rainer (1914 – 21 July 1936) was an Austrian mountaineer. He was one of the four climbers who died in the 1936 Eiger north face climbing disaster, along with Toni Kurz, Andreas Hinterstoisser and Willy Angerer. Reconnoiter The two Aus ...
. At thirty-one Angerer was the oldest of the four climbers who died.


Background

The north-face of the Eiger was considered to be the ''last great Alpine problem'' in the 1930s. In the summer of 1935 two Bavarian climbers died attempting the climb despite a rescue attempt. Four climbers, two
Austrians , pop = 8–8.5 million , regions = 7,427,759 , region1 = , pop1 = 684,184 , ref1 = , region2 = , pop2 = 345,620 , ref2 = , region3 = , pop3 = 197,990 , ref3 ...
and two
Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...
, arrived in Alpiglen, a settlement of
Grindelwald Grindelwald is a village and Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Interlaken-Oberhasli (administrative district), Interlaken-Oberhasli administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Berne. In addition ...
, in July 1936, intending to climb independently.


The climb

The two Austrians, Angerer and Rainer, reconnoitered the route for a good line on 6 July because the previous attempt by Karl Mehringer and Max Sedlmeyer had taken two days to climb the first 700 meters and their conditions were not good, so retreated. On 18 July Angerer and Rainer returned to the mountain to restart their attempt. A rock fall injured Angerer in the head on 20 July 1936, forcing them to descend. However, when they reached the very difficult ''Hinterstoisser traverse'', now ice covered due to the worsening weather conditions, from which the rope had been removed on the way up, they were unable to retreat through to safety and were forced to descend straight down. They were hit by an avalanche which carried Hinterstoisser away, while Angerer was violently crushed against the wall and strangled to death by the rope around his neck. Rainer, being pressed against the rock wall with the rope tight around his waist, froze to death. The only survivor, Toni Kurz, died the next day, within a few meters above his rescuers, but inaccessible. Kurz was the last to die, hanging in his harness a few meters from a tunnel opening where a rescue team tried in vain to help him. With the mounting deaths on the Eiger's north face, the German press name "Nordwand" (North wall) was soon punned in sensational reports as "Mordwand" that translates in English as "murder wall".


Legacy

Angerer and his fellow alpinists' tragedy became well known after the publication of
Heinrich Harrer Heinrich Harrer (; 6 July 1912 – 7 January 2006) was an Austrian mountaineer, sportsman, geographer, ''Oberscharführer'' in the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS), and author. He was a member of the four-man climbing team that made the first ascent of th ...
's classic 1960 book ''
The White Spider ''The White Spider'' (1959; with chapters added in 1964; original title: ''Die Weisse Spinne'') is a non-fiction book by Heinrich Harrer that describes the first successful ascent of the infamous north face (''Nordwand'') of the Eiger, a mounta ...
.'' The
Edward Whymper Edward Whymper FRSE (27 April 184016 September 1911) was an English mountaineer, explorer, illustrator, and author best known for the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. Four members of his climbing party were killed during the descent. W ...
disaster, during which four alpinists died, on the
first ascent of the Matterhorn The first ascent of the Matterhorn was a mountaineering expedition made by Edward Whymper, Lord Francis Douglas, Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow, Michel Croz, and two Zermatt guides, Peter Taugwalder and his son of the same name, on 14 July 1865. ...
seventy-one years before, had formerly been the most publicised Alpine disaster. The 1936 event was covered by Joe Simpson's 2007 book (and
Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
-winning TV documentary), ''
The Beckoning Silence ''The Beckoning Silence'' is a 2007 British television film that follows and retraces the 1936 Eiger north face climbing disaster where five climbers perished while attempting to scale the north face of the Eiger mountain in Switzerland. The f ...
'', as well as in the 2008 German dramatic movie ''
North Face North face or Northface or The North Face may refer to: * North face (Eiger), in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland * North Face (Everest), in Himalaya, usually traversed ascending Everest from the north * North face (Fairview Dome), a climbing route ...
''.


References


External links


Rote Fluh and Hinterstoisser Traverse
Eiger north face photos -
Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...
archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Angerer, Willy Austrian mountain climbers 1900s births 1936 deaths Mountaineering deaths Sport deaths in Switzerland Year of birth uncertain