Jeanne Immink

Jeanne Immink at the Small Peaks ( 1893 )

Jeanne Immink (born October 10, 1853 in Amsterdam , † August 20, 1929 in Milan ) is the founder of modern women's mountaineering. She introduced climbing pants and revolutionized the image of the mountaineer with her tours on steep rock .

Life

Jeanne Immink, née Diest, grew up in a family of German-Jewish origin. Father Diest, a stockbroker by trade, died early. He left behind a wife and four daughters who did not have it easy in the then impoverished Amsterdam. Jeanne, the oldest, was a good high school student. However, women had no access to the university and there was no female profession. Marriage was usually the only livelihood. Jeanne married the school teacher Karel Immink. Immediately after the wedding, the couple emigrated to South Africa . In the capital of the Transvaal , living conditions were hardly better.

The marriage failed. Jeanne couldn't bond with her first child, a boy. She fled into an affair with the British dragoon captain Henry Douglas-Willan, who made a career during the punitive expedition of 1879 against the Zulu (people) . When the future colonel of the regiment was posted to India, Jeanne travels with him, thus evading a summons for adultery. She placed her child with friends in Pretoria .

The adventure in the troubled northwestern territories of India did not last long. Jeanne's pregnancy marked the end of the liaison. Henry's squadrons were constantly on duty, children were not tolerated in the vicinity of the troops. Jeanne returned to Europe. In Switzerland she gave birth to her illegitimate child, who was again a son, but who she was to look after for life. Thanks to generous alimony from Henry, who came from a respected military dynasty, she was financially independent from then on. She also had a lucky hand with securities. Her son Luigi Immink was an industrialist and the first Dutch honorary consul in Italy.

Mountaineering achievements

In Switzerland, Jeanne Immink quickly developed from a mountain hiking summer vacationer to an accomplished alpinist. In the Valais Alps , she overcame altitude differences of 2500 to 3000 meters in one day. She crossed the Matterhorn twice, from Breuil and from Zermatt . It opened a new route on the Ortler and climbed from the valley floor to the Zugspitze , non-stop there and back. Her violent tours in snow and ice as well as her agility in the rock were proverbial. However, Jeanne Immink became widely known in the Dolomites . She caused a stir by climbing the Schmitt chimney at the tip of the five fingers and the north face of the Kleiner Zinne . Around 1890, these two mountains were considered to be special challenges for climbing.

As a rock walker, Immink actively participated in the new orientation of alpinism at the end of the 19th century : The goal was not the summit, but the path. The Immink guide on the Cusiglio in the Pala group is the earliest example of such a purely sporty climbing guide . Jeanne Immink was the first woman to constantly climb in the third and fourth, the highest level of difficulty at the time . Hooks and carabiners did not appear until 1900. Hemp ropes offered little security and became stiff when wet. Jeanne Immink undertook new tours in untrodden regions of the Dolomites ( Bosconero , Tàmer , Cimonega ). She knew almost all the routes in the vicinity of the main climbing centers ( Cortina d'Ampezzo , Sexten , Val Gardena , San Martino di Castrozza ). She added something new to many tours, a speed record ( Cima della Madonna , Santnerspitze ), a variant ( Langkofel , Sass Maor ) or a first crossing ( five-finger tip , Zahnkofel ).

Jeanne Immink is considered to be the inventor of the abseil harness . She protected her head with a rider's cap, the forerunner of today's rockfall helmets . She wore trousers, breaking conventions and changing the image of women in the mountains. With her ambition she measured herself against the male competition. "I urge the alpinists to follow my steps", she wrote after a first ascent. She got the young, later famous mountain guides Michele Bettega , Antonio Dimai and Sepp Innerkofler the first big orders. Jeanne Immink always determined the goal and difficulty of a tour herself. She went on winter climbing tours ( Croda da Lago in December 1891, north face of the Kleine Zinne in January 1895). In addition, she also went on solo tours and mountain rides on her own. She often led her young son to a difficult summit. Her merit is that she made the mountains more accessible to women.

In the misogynist environment of mountaineering at the time, Jeanne Immink was an exception, but was accepted by the men. She was best known in public through her collaboration with Theodor Wundt , the pioneer of mountain photography. This is how the first pictures of a woman in exposed rock were created. The recording of Jeanne Immink at the Kleine Zinne (slightly rotated by Wundt, published over the top) was an absolute sensation at the time. She belonged to two performance-related Alpine clubs , the Turin section of the Club Alpino Italiano and the Austrian Alpine Club, which is still exclusive to this day .

Two adjacent Dolomite peaks in the Pala group were named after her, the Cima Immink and the Campanile Giovanna (= Jeanne) standing next to each other , a special case in alpine naming.

Jeanne Immink's reputation has endured to this day. The Italian mountain guide and extreme climber Donato Zagonel (* 1963) repeated many of the “La Immink” routes. He appreciates the thirst for adventure and the firmness of character of the first woman “who made sporty mountaineering part of her life”.

literature

• Muré, Harry: Het mysterie Jeanne Immink (de vrouw die naar de wolken klom) . Elmar, 2003, ISBN 90-389-1433-4 (Dutch, 247 pages).
• Muré, Harry: Jeanne Immink The woman who climbed into the clouds . Tyrolia, Innsbruck 2010, ISBN 978-3-7022-3075-3 (German, 272 pages).
• Wundt, Theodor: Hikes in the Ampezzaner Dolomites . German publishing house, Berlin 1894.
• Richter, Eduard: The development of the Eastern Alps . Publishing house of the German and Austrian Alpine Club, Berlin 1894.

Web links

• Biography, literature & sources on Jeanne Immink Fembio of the Institute for Women's Biography Research
• The mountain is a woman 's standard, July 30, 2010