Austrian Alpine Club

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Austrian Alpine Association (ÖAV)
Logo of the Austrian Alpine Club
Founded 1862
Place of foundation Vienna
president Andreas Ermacora
societies 196 sections (230 huts and approx. 26,000 km of hiking and mountain trails)
Members 598,757 (December 31, 2019)
Association headquarters Innsbruck , Austria
Official languages) German
Homepage Alpenverein.at

The Austrian Alpine Association ( ÖAV ; until 2014: Oesterreichischer Alpenverein , OeAV ) is the largest mountaineering association in Austria. With almost 200 sections , it operates 230 shelters and looks after around 26,000 kilometers of marked mountain and hiking trails . The seat of the association is in Innsbruck .

Logo of the OeAV until 2014

organization

Sections

The PES is divided into 196 sections . The sections are in turn independent associations, which in some cases originated outside the Alpine Association: For example, the Austrian Mountain Association , founded in 1890 , which is committed to global high mountain alpinism, only joined the Alpine Association as a section in 1955. The work area of a section (section in which the mountaineering infrastructure such as roads and cabins provides) is in the field of work register corresponding to the field of work order (Argo) together with the DAV recorded. In many cases it deviates from the area in which the section is at home and recruits its members, especially in the case of sections outside the Alps.

In addition to local sections, there are also academic sections in Vienna , Innsbruck and Graz that have emerged from student associations , as well as sections abroad ( section Britannia , section Flanders ). There are also some domestic sections that maintain local chapters abroad. The Alpine Association for long-distance hikers , whose area of ​​activity is limited to long-distance hiking trails, sees itself as a supra-regional section.

The largest sections are (as of December 31, 2019) the Alpenverein Edelweiss (60,945 members), the Alpenverein Innsbruck (58,008 members) and the Alpenverein Austria (51,073 members).

Offices in the sections

The important offices of a section include - in addition to the club- typical, i.e. chairman, secretary, cashier - in particular the trailkeeper of the respective network of trails, the hut warden who takes care of the club's own refuges , the alpine warden (alpine consultant) who does mountaineering and climbing Aspects supervised, the ski instructor , who takes care of matters relating to alpine skiing and ski touring, avalanche awareness and other winter sports aspects and the nature conservation officer (nature conservation officer) , who looks after the section's statutory nature conservation issues .

Publications

In addition to maps, hiking guides and teaching materials, the PES publishes a membership magazine called Bergauf, which appears five times a year .

Agendas

Huts and paths

The PES looks after 230 refuges (December 31, 2018)  . With around 13,000 beds, around 1550 jobs in summer and around one million visitors a year, the PES is the largest accommodation provider in Austria. The cabins are consistently seasonally - but mostly the long term - in lease awarded to a landlord who maintains the business operations and in most cases the function of the hut warden pauses.

For information on the PES huts, see: List of PES huts and list of refuges in the Alps

In addition, the PES has contracts with private local providers who, as PES contract houses, offer discounted overnight stays for members.

The Austrian Alpine Club looks after around 26,000 kilometers of marked mountain trails , hiking trails , via ferratas and a large number of climbing gardens in Austria . If you add the paths maintained by the German Alpine Association in Austria, it is a good 40,000 km. The paths and via ferrata are looked after by volunteer officials in their free time free of charge. The association bears the liability and maintenance costs for these paths . This network of trails increases the safety of mountain hikers and is an essential requirement for mountain sports and summer tourism. In addition, the marked paths are an effective means of guiding visitors.

Possessions as well as nature and environmental protection

The Alpine Club has long been committed to nature-friendly alpine sports. In the photo there is a notice board for winter sports enthusiasts, how to climb the mountain peaks of the Tannheimer Berge in an environmentally friendly way in winter

The Alpine Club owns over 400 km² of land. This was acquired from the early 20th century to create alpine protected areas or was donated. This makes the PES one of the largest landowners in Austria . A large part of these grounds, around 330 km², is located in today's Hohe Tauern National Park , Austria's first national park, where the PES make up the largest part of the area and which would not have been created without the association. For example, the most prominent mountains in Austria, the Großglockner and the Großvenediger , in their summit area, belong to the association, as do the Krimml waterfalls . Another success was the purchase of eight square kilometers of land at the Hochalmspitze in 1988 , which prevented the ÖAV from building a glacier ski area. The area is now also part of the national park.

With other commitments, such as efforts to promote sustainable tourism , awareness-raising, the “Clean Mountains” campaign (since 1970), the environmental seal of approval for Alpine Club huts (since 1994), mountain forest projects and cooperation with other institutions, the PES is one of the most important environmental organizations in the Alpine region. He was recognized according to the UVP-G 2000 , so that he has a party position in environmental impact assessments when interfering with the alpine landscape . Since 1980 there has also been a special department for spatial planning and nature conservation, which takes care of geographical and political issues relating to the association's intentions.

education

The Alpine Association constantly organizes training courses for tour guides, youth guides and officials of the individual sections, who pass on what they have learned to the members.

history

Notice board of the Austrian Alpine Club

The Austrian Alpine Club was founded in 1862 as the first mountaineering association on the European mainland, making it the second oldest in the world after the British Alpine Club . It was founded at the suggestion of the students Paul Grohmann , Edmund von Mojsisovics and Guido von Sommaruga , supported in the initial phase by Eduard Suess , Anton von Ruthner , Johann Peyritsch , Eduard Fenzl and Achilles Melingo . On November 19, 1862, the founding meeting took place in the green hall of the Academy of Sciences under the direction of Eduard Fenzl, who was also elected the first board member .

Memorial plaque for the merger of DAV and OeAV in Bludenz

On August 23, 1873, in the former rifle house next to Gayenhofen Castle in Bludenz, the merger with the German Alpine Association, which was co-founded by Franz Senn , to form the German and Austrian Alpine Association (DuOeAV) took place. The Austrian Alpine Club and the Vienna Section of the German Alpine Club became the Austria Section of the DuOe.AV. A memorial plaque on the staircase from Gayenhofen Palace to the Palace Hotel commemorates the event.

From 1873 to 1938, more than 400 sections in Germany, Austria and (after the First World War) in Czechoslovakia were united in the DuOeAV. During this time, among other things, the glacier measuring service was set up in 1891. In 1914 the DuOeAV already had more than 100,000 members.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Section Austria, Eduard Suess commented on the founding history in the messages of the DuÖAV 1912 as follows: 

“The Alps were often mentioned in my lectures, and in the winter semester of 1861/62 one of my listeners, Edmund v. Mojsisovics, with the fact that he and two of his friends, Paul Grohmann and Guido v. Sommaruga, who intend to found an Alpine Club. Up to now you have only had discussions with the lawyer Dr. v.Ruthner contacted. I would like to attend a second meeting. I said yes. (...) Six people were present at the second meeting, namely the three actual founders: Grohmann, Mojsisovics and Sommaruga, and Dr. AvRuthner, the future councilor Achilles Melingo and me. The failure of the first attempt (note: 1856) had made us wiser. The new Alpine Club should not be international, but rather specifically for the Austrian Alps. Spatially restricted, it should be expanded in terms of material and not only pursue scientific goals. This is how the catchphrase of 'collecting away' in the Eastern Alps was born. In March the circle was expanded to 20 people. Bylaws were drafted and approved on July 1st. On November 19th, the constituent assembly took place in the 'Green Hall' of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (in Vienna) under the chairmanship of Professor Fenzl. The number of members was already 625. "

Interwar period

The National Socialist and anti-Semitic orientation of the Alpine Club during the interwar period is viewed critically today . In some sections, the Aryan paragraph was already applied at the beginning of the 20th century : In the Vienna section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club, a statute stipulated in 1905 that only Germans of so-called "Aryan" descent could become members; In 1907 and 1910, the Vienna and Munich Academic Sections also banned Jews from membership, others followed. In 1921 the National Socialist Eduard Pichl became chairman of the Austria section of the DuÖAV and began to enforce anti-Semitism. In the same year the Donauland section was founded, in which many excluded Jewish mountaineers gathered, including Viktor Frankl , Fred Zinnemann and Joseph Braunstein . In 1924 this section was excluded from the entire association, and 98 of the 110 Austrian Alpine Association sections now formally introduced the Aryan paragraph. Jews were not allowed to be members or to be entertained in the club huts.

1938-1945

After Austria was annexed to the German Reich in March 1938, all alpine clubs in the Greater German Reich were brought into line and the German and Austrian Alpine Club (DuÖAV) became the German Alpine Club (DAV) in May 1938. Until the end of the war, this was incorporated into the National Socialist Reich Association for physical exercises as a mountaineering association . At that time, the chairman was the former Austrian Chancellor Arthur Seyß-Inquart , a staunch National Socialist and anti-Semite.

post war period

In 1945 the Austrian Alpine Association (OeAV) was re-established. Up until the re-establishment of the German Alpine Club (DAV) in 1952, the OeAV administered its assets and property (huts) in trust.

The OeAV is a founding member of the multilateral agreement of reciprocal rights to smelters , which was introduced in 1978.

According to its statutes, the Austrian Alpine Association is today apolitical and non-denominational; it is - as a kind of antithesis to the social democratic association Naturfreunde Österreich , which is avowed according to the statutes - predominantly among the bourgeois camp.

The ÖAV has been a UIAA member (via the VAVÖ ) since 1951 , a member of the CAA and a member of the EUMA since 2017 .

criticism

On the occasion of its 150th anniversary, the PES offered its members discounts on using the toll Grossglockner High Alpine Road by car or motorcycle for the 2012 season.

For years, a car company has always been one of the sponsors of the PES. In 2014, for example, it was Mercedes-Benz and Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi was allowed to publish half a page of advertising for its SUVs in the ÖAV member magazine "Bergauf" with the title " Life is 4WD ". Currently (June 2020) Suzuki, whose advertising slogan is " Way of Life ", is a "partner" of the PES.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Österreichischer Alpenverein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Alpenverein.at: Sections of the Alpine Association
  2. ↑ a b Membership statistics Austrian Alpine Association. Member statistics of the Austrian Alpine Association, accessed on March 8, 2020 .
  3. ^ Alpenverein.at: Alpenverein: "Ö" instead of "Oe". Alpine Club Section News No. 23, November 2014
  4. ↑ New logo for the Alpine Club
  5. ↑ Working area regulations in: Alpine Club Trail Guide (PDF)
  6. ^ Alpenverein.at: Sections Austrian Alpine Association. Retrieved June 25, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Membership statistics of the Alpine Club 2019, in numbers. (PDF) Austrian Alpine Association, accessed on March 8, 2020 .
  8. ↑ a b Peter Kapelari: Huts & routes. Alpine infrastructure of the Alpine Club - is it still needed? In: Bergauf 04-2012, p. 26 ff (reference p. 29 and 28, respectively);
    Alpine Club: hiking trails break away due to climate change. APA / Die Presse, October 17, 2008, accessed November 28, 2009 .
  9. ↑ PES contract houses. Retrieved April 18, 2018 .
  10. ↑ a b c The Alpine Kings. trend.at, July 21, 2005; Real estate: who owns Austria? In: Die Presse , June 19, 2011 (online article).
  11. ↑ Alpine Association & Nature Conservation. alpenverein.at (accessed February 24, 2017).
  12. ^ Alpenverein.at: History
  13. ↑ Uphill 2/2016. In: alpenverein.at. Pp. 6-7 , accessed December 13, 2016 .
  14. ^ Franz Senn, founder of the Alpine Club in the NÖN print edition of the Mödling Week 28/2012
  15. ^ A contribution to the founding history of the Alpine Club. Commemorative speech given by Professor Eduard Sueß on the 50th anniversary of the “Austria” section . In: Communications of the German and Austrian Alpine Club , year 1912 (Volume XXXVIII), p. 304 f. (Online at ALO ) and
    Bergwacht Chronicle, Part 1 (PDF; 3.84 MB) . In: Bergwacht-bayern.org , accessed on April 16, 2011.
  16. ↑ Martin Achrainer: "So, now we are all to ourselves!" Anti-Semitism in the Alpine Association (PDF), in: Hanno Loewy , Gerhard Milchra: Have you seen my Alps? A Jewish Relationship Story , Hohenems / Vienna 2009
  17. ^ Alpenverein.de: European mountaineering umbrella organization EUMA founded in Munich
  18. ↑ AV members pay less Glockner toll. Retrieved June 3, 2020 .
  19. ↑ Mercedes Austria: Vito 4x4 and Austrian Alpine Club working together against avalanches. Retrieved June 4, 2020 .
  20. ↑ © Österreichischer AlpenvereinOlympiastraße 37, 6020 InnsbruckT + 43/512 / 59547F + 43/512 / 59547-50E-MailImprint: New cars from SUZUKI: Fleet for the Alpine Club. Retrieved June 4, 2020 .
  21. ↑ Bergauf 01/2014, pages 31 and 102.
  22. ↑ ÖAV Österr. Alpine Club. Retrieved June 4, 2020 (Austrian German).