Angelo Dibona

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Angelo Dibona (born April 7, 1879 in Cortina d'Ampezzo ; † April 21, 1956 there ) was a South Tyrolean mountain guide and one of the best climbers of his time.

Life

Dibona grew up in the Ladin-speaking Cortina d'Ampezzo, which at that time still belonged to Austria-Hungary . He was the father of four daughters and three sons, loved music and played guitar and clarinet himself .

In 1907, after a three-week course in Villach , he became a mountain guide and gained a good reputation through his extraordinary climbing skills and his language skills - he spoke Italian, German and English - so that celebrities, such as the industrialists Guido and Max Mayer, lead themselves from him let.

When the First World War broke out, Dibona took part on the Austrian side as Kaiserschützen . Well-known mountaineers such as Sepp Innerkofler , Gustav Jahn , Luis Trenker and Rudl Eller were his comrades on the Dolomite front. Dibona was close friends with the army mountain leader Franz Aschenbrenner . During the war, Dibona was assigned to the "Mountain Guide Replacement and Instruction Department" in St. Christina. Here he worked with other great alpinists, such as Erwin Merlet and Gustav Jahn, as a course leader and instructor. Dibona was awarded the Silver Medal of Bravery 1st Class, the Silver Medal of Bravery 2nd Class and the Iron Cross of Merit with the crown on the ribbon of the Medal of Bravery for his war effort .

After the war the foreign tourists stayed away, which hit him financially and limited his range of mountaineering activities to South Tyrol .

In the 1920s he worked as a ski instructor , which earned him a modest income. There is no information about his life during Italian fascism and World War II . He died internationally unnoticed in 1956 in his hometown of Cortina.

In 1976, a monument in the form of a bronze bust was erected to him in a prominent place on Cortina's main square, Piazza Angelo Dibona. At the inauguration, Luis Trenker said: “He was the most famous and successful mountain guide of his time, perhaps the most universal. No other guide to the Dolomites can boast similar achievements, and soon there won't be any youngsters who will match him in terms of human size ... ”His daughter Anonia had the Rifugio Angelo Dibona built in memory of her father .

The climber

Between 1910 and the First World War, Dibona and his fellow mountain guide Luigi Rizzi and the wealthy brothers Max and Guido Mayer from Vienna formed what is probably the best rope team in the Dolomites. Together they made the first ascent z. B. the north-west edge of the Großer Ödstein (1910) and the Laliderer north face (1911).

Angelo Dibona always stayed at home in the Dolomites . His work as a mountain guide in the years before 1914, with guests other than the Mayer brothers, took him to the Mont Blanc area and Great Britain. His first ascents and his sociable manner earned him the reputation of being "[...] the best Dolomite guide, not just as a climber, but also as a person [...]" (quote: Franz Wenter). He became one of the most famous guides and mountaineers ever. The Belgian King Albert I and the baroness Eötvös were also among his customers .

Well-known mountain greats of his time were among his friends, such as Franz Nieberl , Tita Piaz , Luis Trenker , Julius Kugy and others. He knew Hans Dülfer and Paul Preuss .

Together with his fellow mountain guide Angelo Dimai , Dibona also embarked on new climbing routes. A total of 60, according to another source up to 70 new tours are ascribed to him.

In an interview with the newspaper Der Standard in 2009 , Reinhold Messner explicitly described Angelo Dibona as one of the greatest Austrian and old Austrian mountaineers alongside Hermann Buhl , Matthias Rebitsch , Peter Habeler and Paul Preuss .

Important tours

Dibona edge on the north face of the Großer Zinne (2999 m)
  • Dibona was also successful as a climber in various areas of the British Isles .
  • Dibona also climbed the famous Dibona edge on the Großer Zinne and was the inspiration for the supposed first ascent with his name ; however, this striking line had already been climbed by Rudl Eller a year earlier, in 1908 , which only became known much later.

Wall hook dispute

As early as 1908, Rudolf Fehrmann turned against artificial aids in climbing in his Elbe Sandstone Guide. He postulated that hitting kicks and handles, setting wall hooks to overcome otherwise impossible places, etc. should be regarded as unsportsmanlike. Paul Preuss went public with almost the same vision, which ultimately led to the wall hook dispute of 1911/12. In the course of this dispute, Paul Preuss developed his climbing principles , which are still fuel of controversy today.

With reference to this discussion, it was written that Dibona had fierce verbal battles with Preuss and that he was "[...] the unscrupulous advocate of safety climbing [...] a vehement opponent of Paul Preuss". Despite these statements, it remains unclear whether there was any real conflict of opinions between Preuss and Dibona, and if so, which arguments Dibona had used in this dispute. At least this statement of Dibona speaks against vehement opposition in the matter: “I have never been as happy as in a conversation with him (note: Paul Preuss) about mountains. We agreed on the hook question. ”Basically, they must have agreed, because Dibona claimed that he had not set more than 15 hooks in his mountaineering activity. From then as well as from today's perspective, it seems to be a small number.

When Paul Preuss had a fatal accident in 1913, it was above all the South Tyrolean mountain guides - above all Dibona, Piaz and Comici - who tried to preserve the memory of this unusual person.

Luis Trenker, who was friends with Dibona to the last, asked him one day how many hooks he had made in total. "Fifteen," replied Dibona, "six of them on the Laliderer north face, three on the Ödstein, two on the Croz dell 'Altissimo, one on the one and the rest on other difficult climbs." When asked about his three most difficult tours, he said: "The south face of the Meije, then the Dent de Réquin and the Ailefroide."

Web links

  • Personal folder on Angelo Dibona (PDF) in the historical Alpine archive of the Alpine clubs in Germany, Austria and South Tyrol (temporarily offline)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Reinhold Messner: The philosopher of free climbing - The story of Paul Preuss . 1st edition. Pieper Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-492-40416-7 , p. 210 f .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Horst Christoph: Hero with 15 hooks. derStandard.at GmbH 2013, February 28, 2013, accessed on May 10, 2013 .
  3. ↑ Helmut Golowitsch (ed.): Ortlerkampf 1915-1918.
  4. ↑ a b c Gerhard Schirmer: Angelo Dibona - mountain guide, emperor hunter, Dolomite pioneer. www.BergNews.com - Thomas Rambauske, Heiderichstraße 2a, A-1160 Vienna, accessed on May 10, 2013 .
  5. ↑ Ivo Rabanser: Reinhold Messner's climbing favorites - On the trail of mountaineering legends in the Dolomites . 1st edition. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-7654-5440-0 , p. 34 .
  6. ↑ Austrian State Archives, Department War Archives Vienna, reward files of the WK 1914-1918, MBA No. 150.433 (box 66), No. 297.672 (box 150), new field files 10. AK No. 5.709 from October 20, 1918 (box 372)
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Horst Höfler: Dream Teams - The most successful rope teams in alpinism . 1st edition. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-7654-4496-8 , Dibona, Rizzi & die Mayers, p. 25th f .
  8. ↑ a b Rifugio Dibona. Retrieved May 10, 2013 (picture of the monument and the hut).
  9. ↑ a b Uli Auffermann: Decisions in the wall - milestones of alpinism . 1st edition. Schall-Verlag, Alland 2010, ISBN 978-3-900533-62-5 , p. 35 .
  10. ↑ Ivo Rabanser: Reinhold Messner's climbing favorites - On the trail of mountaineering legends in the Dolomites . 1st edition. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-7654-5440-0 , p. 51 .
  11. ↑ Angelo Dibona - personal folder (DAV PER 1 SG / 572/0). (PDF; 644 kB) Historical Alpine Archive of the Alpine Clubs in Germany, Austria and South Tyrol, accessed on May 10, 2013 .
  12. ↑ Reinhold Messner: Vertical - 150 years of climbing art . 2nd Edition. BLV Buchverlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8354-0380-2 , The rules of climbing, p. 74 f .
  13. ↑ See Gerhard Schirmer "Angelo Dibona - Bergführer, Kaiserjäger, Dolomiten-Pionier" at http://www.bergnews.com/service/biografien/dibona.php , accessed on January 11, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Dibona, Angelo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South Tyrolean mountain guides and climbers
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Cortina d'Ampezzo , Italy
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1956
Place of death Cortina d'Ampezzo , Italy