Leo Maduschka

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Leo Maduschka (born July 26, 1908 in Munich , † September 4, 1932 in the Civetta north face , Dolomites ) was a German mountaineer , writer and German studies scholar. His work is considered formative for a whole generation of young mountaineers.

Life

Maduschka, who learned climbing as a student at the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich (Abitur 1927) while on vacation in the Allgäu , joined the men's alliance Academic Alpine Club in Munich after starting his studies in 1928 , which saw itself as the antithesis of the German and Austrian Alpine Club and opposed elitist competitive climbing set the despised "Sunday alpinism". Maduschka was one of the best rock climbers of his time, but did not fundamentally reject mountaineering aids in order to create the "last accessible". Shortly after completing his German studies in 1932 with a doctorate from Walther Brecht on The Problem of Loneliness in the 18th Century , he died during a climbing tour with Martin Pfeffer in the Civetta north face in the Dolomites. The two were surprised by a sudden fall in the weather , and Maduschka froze to death in the snowstorm during the night bivouac .

His early death and above all his alpine texts, which were published by Walter Schmidkunz immediately after his death , made him an icon of young mountaineers and at the same time as influential as Heinrich Harrer or Hans Ertl . Maduschka defined, as the title of one of his articles, mountaineering as a romantic way of life . In doing so, he tied both to the motif of wandering in Romanticism and to Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy of the wanderer, as he had developed it in Also Spoke Zarathustra , for example .

“Mountaineering is hiking, and the mountaineer is also a hiker. His goal is also the way; the path, which in this case is a steep climb, steep and rough, or not even that: only the route line, the ascent through the walls of the rock walls and the sudden flanks of the icebergs. His distant urge too is insatiable; Distance and vastness mean to him above all: the ever new mountain. [...] we are longing [...]; we have to wander, we have to wander, to kill our longing - otherwise it would kill us; as longing is infinite, we can never stop wandering; we hike aimlessly, the path is meaning and destination, mountain after mountain are its stations; In this way we always give new objects to the longing, on which it calms down, but on which it immediately ignites again: a movement without end - as long as we wander. But we have to hike. Hiking is fate, our happiness - our tragedy. "

- Leo Maduschka : Mountaineering as a romantic way of life (1932)

While Maduschka, on the one hand, stylized nature in a romantic way , similar to Oskar Erich Meyer and Henry Hoek , on the other hand he set “objectivity” against “false pathos” and was also open to technical innovations. His work is considered an example of an alpine discourse in which extreme physical experience is given expression and meaning.

“Everything is the hardest work, technique and strength required in one. The trained body does its day-to-day work objectively and precisely: at lightning speed picks up the waving of the eyes, the grasping fingertips, the groping toes, leads them through the command center of the will to the fine, conscious-unconscious play of the limbs and joints, the tightening and Stretching the tendons and muscles and the whole wonderful alternation of tension and relaxation in the course of meaningful movement: in the unique rhythm of climbing, to which we are addicted, like others to the rhythm of their limbs for running or the flight of the body in the jump. "

- Leo Maduschka : Young Man in the Mountains (1932)

The writer Elfriede Jelinek quotes extensively from texts by Leo Maduschka in her play In the Alps (2002).

Fonts

  • From large walls. In: Deutsche Alpenzeitung 1930 (series of articles).
  • Mountaineering as a romantic way of life . In: Deutsche Alpenzeitung 1932 (series of articles).
  • The problem of loneliness in the 18th century, especially with JG Zimmermann. Univ., Diss. - Munich, 1932. Fürst, Murnau 1932; ND Hildesheim 1978.
  • The technique of the toughest ice rides. 2nd Edition. Rother, Munich 1932.
  • Modern rock technique. 2nd Edition. Rother, Munich 1932.
  • The most recent development history of the Wilder Kaiser. Section Bayerland d. German u. Austrian Alpine Club, (Munich) 1933.
  • Leo Maduschka: Young person in the mountains. Life, Writings, Legacy. Ges. Alpiner Bücherfreunde, Munich 1936.
  • Leo Maduschka. Mountaineer - writer - scientist. Ed. By Dt. Alpine Club, edited by Helmuth Zebhauser. Munich 1992. (Alpine Classics Volume 19.)

literature

  • Dagmar Günther: Alpine crossways. Cultural history of bourgeois alpinism (1870-1930) . Frankfurt / M. 1998.
  • Michael Ott: Difficult rock trip. Leo Maduschka and the alpine discourse around 1930. In: Robert Gugutzer (Ed.): Body Turn. Perspectives on the sociology of the body and sport . Bielefeld 2006, pp. 249-262.
  • Martin Pfeffer: Maduschka's death in the Civettawand. In: Fritz Schmitt and Otto Eidenschink (eds.): We and the mountains ... mountaineers tell . Munich 1948.
  • Helmuth Zebhauser: Alpinism in the Hitler State. Thoughts, memories, documents. Munich 1998.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Annual report on the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich. ZDB ID 12448436 , 1926/27
  2. ↑ Leo Maduschka: Young man in the mountains , p. 204.
  3. ↑ Leo Maduschka: Young Man in the Mountains, p. 34.
  4. ^ Corona Schmiele: An early alpinist in Jelinek's "Alps". In: Françoise Lartillot, Dieter Hornig (Ed.): Jelinek, une répétition? A propos des pièces In the Alps et The work . Frankfurt / M. 2009, pp. 183-208
personal data
SURNAME Madushka, Leo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mountaineer, Germanist and author
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH September 4, 1932
Place of death at Civetta , Italy