Albert Hägele

Albert Hägele (born April 17, 1903 in Zurich ; † after 1945) was a freight forwarder, hotelier and ski lift pioneer.

Life

Albert Hägele headed - probably from 1936 - the Heilbronner Ferntransport-Gesellschaft Hägele & Co. Partners were his wife and Otto Werner from Kirchheim / Teck . After Richard Fuß took over the company in 1939, Hägele apparently continued to work there as an authorized signatory or managing director. The company was based in Heilbronner Klarastraße 20 and probably existed until 1944 .

The Parsenn lift in 2005

Hägele, who suffered from asthma and liked to spend his skiing holidays in the Kleiner Walsertal , came up with the plan before the outbreak of the Second World War to build a drag lift near Riezlern , the Parsenn lift. The facility was inaugurated on December 15, 1940 for the 1940/41 winter season. At that time it was considered the second largest of its kind in the world. In about 11 minutes driving time, 250 meters of altitude were overcome over a distance of 1500 meters.

Aside from the size of the facility, a press report also highlighted its modernity. According to a press report from April 1941, the valley station in which the engines were located was housed in a building adapted to the landscape not far from the Breitach Bridge, which was completed in 1928 . From the mountain station, called the fox farm, there were various options for downhill skiing.

Apparently the readership was not yet adequately informed about the functioning of a surface lift; In any case, the handling was described in detail: “A helpful employee of the facility will hand him the actual means of transport, a trailer in the approximate shape of an anchor, after he has been happy to take note of the necessary rules of conduct [...] Ski lifts - two can always drive together with a trailer - leave the skis on and have to be pulled up in a tight stance - as wide as possible - but at a leisurely pace [...] “320 people could be transported per hour with the lift ; At the time of the report, the lift had already been used around 80,000 times in the first season, despite the war.

According to a forum entry from 2004, the Parsenn lift had a capacity of 720 people per hour and was called a unique one: “The supports are ancient structures, the rollers are huge. The telephone cable is partly also routed on wooden masts. ”According to this entry, the lift section crossed a street, the intersection was secured by an occupied lift house and a stop sign for motorists. Plans to replace the drag lift with a chairlift are already mentioned in this entry. The Parsennbahn, a combined lift with gondolas and armchairs, has been in operation since 2008.

After the war, Albert Hägele and his family moved to the Kleine Walsertal. He ran a mountain hotel there as well as at least one other ski lift: after the success of the Parsenn lift, he built a second system, which had its valley station in Hirschegg and also went to the fox farm. Hägele had the easy to moderately difficult slopes groomed with snow groomers. The Parsenn-Hubertus-Skilift-operations celebrated their 60th anniversary as a family business in the 2000/01 season.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Rolf Wankmüller, Parsenn-Lift drove tourism , on all-in.de, April 12, 2001
2. ^ ^{A b} Siegfried Holzer, Century Review , Riezlern 1999
3. ↑ ^{a b} short biography on heuss.stadtarchiv-heilbronn.de
4. ↑ Heilbronner created the ski lift in the Walsertal , in: Heilbronner Chronik 5, April 12, 1941
5. ↑ Description of the Parsenn lift at www.alpinforum.com
6. ^ Parsennbahn ( Memento from December 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )