Lutz Chicken

Ludwig "Lutz" Chicken (born July 31, 1915 in Klagenfurt ; † September 9, 2011 in Brixen ) was an alpinist and doctor . The son of an English - Austrian family spent most of his life in South Tyrol .

Life

Chicken, the son of a father with English roots and a Carinthian woman , was born in Klagenfurt in 1915, but grew up in Bozen and Ritten . From 1926 he attended the Franciscan high school in Bolzano , after which the state humanistic high school, where he obtained the Matura in 1934 . As a result, Chicken began studying medicine at the University of Bologna , but switched to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich as part of the option .

In 1939 Chicken joined the Academic Alpine Association in Munich and in the same year received the invitation to take part in an exploration expedition to Nanga Parbat run by the German Himalaya Foundation . After several unsuccessful and dramatic expeditions - such as the German Nanga Parbat Expedition in 1934 and the German Nanga Parbat Expedition in 1937 - with 31 unfortunate climbers, the north-western side ( Diamir flank ) of the mountain should be explored. Peter Aufschnaiter was in charge of the expedition . Heinrich Harrer and Hans Lobenhoffer were also participants in this venture. When the Second World War broke out in the fall of 1939 , the team was captured by the British authorities on September 3 and taken to the Indian internment camp in Dehradun in northern India. Harrer and Aufschnaiter were able to flee in 1944 and then came to the court of the Dalai Lama in Lhasa . Harrer wrote her story in " Seven Years in Tibet ". Chicken and Lobenhoffer remained trapped for two more years and were not released until 1946.

After returning to Europe, Chicken received his doctorate at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in 1947 . In his dissertation, he processed the work experience from the time of imprisonment, which he had spent as an employee in an Indian hospital. The topic of the thesis was "The Incidence of Diseases in the Premnagar Internment Camp". Then he settled in South Tyrol, where he worked as a doctor in Brixen. In 1950 he married the British Ursula Groth in Bradford , whom he had met during her vacation in Ortisei in Val Gardena . Their son Andy was born in 1952 and their daughter Cornelia in 1961.

Chicken has been an active member of the Alpine Club South Tyrol (AVS) since his return to South Tyrol . In 1953 he and a school friend founded the AVS high tourist group for demanding activities. From 1970 he acted as second chairman of the Bressanone section , from 1972 to 1987 as first chairman. Under his aegis the construction of the Pfunderer Höhenweg as well as the construction of the Brixner and Tiefrastenhütte took place . In 1984 Chicken organized a joint symposium of the AVS, the OeAV and the DAV , at which the unanimous decision was made to recognize and promote sport and competitive climbing also on the part of the alpine clubs. From 1991 to 1993 he was active as President and then until 1996 as a simple member of the UIAA Mountain Protection Commission for sustainable environmental protection in the Alps and the adoption of corresponding measures in other mountains worldwide. For many years, Chicken was considered the "Grand Seigneur" of the AVS, which also distinguished him with his honorary membership. He died in Brixen in 2011.

Publications

• Mountaineering and hiking around Brixen: Festschrift for the centenary of the Brixen section in the Alpine Association 1875–1975. AVS section Brixen, 1975 (as editor)
• Through the century. My life as a doctor and a mountaineer . Edition Raetia, Bozen 2003, ISBN 88-7283-198-9

literature

• Luis Vonmetz: Lutz Chicken . In: AVS-Mitteilungen . December 2011, p. 34-35 .

Web links

• Short biography of Lutz Chicken in the archive on the history of individual travel
• Lutz Chicken in the historical Alpine archive of the Alpine clubs in Germany, Austria and South Tyrol (temporarily offline)