Berlin section of the German Alpine Club

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
German Alpine Club, Section Berlin e. V.
(DAV Berlin)
DAV-Berlin-Logo.png
purpose Promotion and maintenance of mountaineering and alpine sports, especially in the Alps and the German low mountain ranges, especially for young people and families, preservation of the beauty and originality of the mountains, expansion of knowledge about the mountains and promotion of other sporting activities
Chair: Dr. Harald Fuchs
Establishment date: November 3, 1869
Number of members: 21,754 (as of December 31, 2019)
Seat : Berlin
Website: DAV-Berlin.de
Climbing center of the DAV section Berlin in Berlin-Mitte
Title page of the annual report 1876
Julius Scholz around 1894

The German Alpine Association , Section Berlin e. V. , with 21,754 members, is the third largest sports club in Berlin after Hertha BSC and Union Berlin and the largest DAV section in East Germany. The section was founded on November 3rd, 1869, making it the thirteenth oldest section of the German Alpine Club . The original purpose was the scientific exploration and tourist development of the Alps. Today the focus is on climbing, mountain sports and nature conservation. The association publishes six issues of its members' magazine Berliner Bergsteiger every year and operates a climbing hall for its members in addition to outdoor climbing facilities in the Berlin districts of Grunewald, Schöneberg and Wedding in Berlin-Moabit .

History until 1918

After well-known alpinists from Baden, Bavaria and Austria called for a General German Alpine Club to be founded in June 1869, so-called sections were to be founded in many other German cities after Munich . For Berlin, the city judge H. Deegen, high school professor Wilhelm Hirschfelder , Wilhelm Koner and Julius Scholz were founding members. Scholz was the first elected chairman of the section and served until January 1898. In 1875, the assembly of 47 members decided to build a refuge. In 1877, after an excursion by the board members, the bookseller Enno Schumann and a police officer Lange , an agreement was reached on a location in the Zillertal Alps . Schumann bought a 1200 m² plot of land on the Schwarzensteinalpe, construction work on the Berliner Hütte began in August 1878 and ended in July 1879. Among the first guests were the brothers Emil and Otto Zsigmondy , who worked from there with August von Böhm and Alexander Ritter von Worafka wanted to explore new routes in the area.

Right from the start, the Section had an extensive Alpine library in Berlin, which was administered by a librarian. The number of members rose steadily, so that in 1880 there were already over 140 members. In addition to the mountaineering activity, then famous mountaineers and natural scientists held lectures and held cultural events such as art and photo exhibitions, but also festivals and balls. The number of members rose to over 500 at the end of the 1880s. Bankers, scientists and civil servants made up the majority of the members who guaranteed the section a large income, so that in 1888 the construction of a new hut, the Furtschaglhaus , could begin. A factory owner F. Bast from Berlin N. 24 donated a wall relief for the Berliner Hütte that depicts Emperor Wilhelm I and one with the image of Emperor Friedrich III for the new hut to be built . With the construction of the huts, tourism in the area increased, which made it necessary to build new paths. The Furtschaglhaus was completed in August 1889, and here, too, steadily increasing income flowed into the section's treasury, which now had over 600 members.

The library in the Schlaraffia at Anhalter Bahnhof , enlarged in 1889, held subscriptions to the periodic publications of all European Alpine associations and clubs. In 1893 the 1000th member was accepted. Workers were not represented in the section. An admission was only possible with two sponsors and an elaborate test procedure, whereby attention was paid to alpine activities that were carried out, documented in a tour book, education and manners and of course financial circumstances. In some years, the board rejected up to 20% of applicants for membership. Furthermore, well-heeled manufacturers, bankers, purveyors to the court, doctors and senior officials made up the members. Women were also not allowed as members in the Berlin section, but were allowed to visit the huts. Only the Austrian section Zillertal did not have an express regulation in its statutes that only men were allowed to be admitted. This is why women climbers from Berlin joined the Zillertal section at the end of the 19th century and in 1898 had their own large hall added to the Berliner Hut. In 1895, the Berlin section bought the entire Schwarzensteinalpe in the upper Zemmgrund for 6,500 guilders and thus became large landowners in the high mountains. Financial support was given to communities in the Alpine region that were damaged by natural events. The village of Windischmatrei , which was flooded by a flood, received 50 Fl. in support of his mountain guides and the Italian Caprile in Piedmont, which was destroyed by fire, 150 lire. The construction of a third hut began in 1897 in the section Habachtal that Habachhütte . This building was destroyed by an avalanche at the end of 1914; today the new Thuringian hut stands on the site .

Berlin developed very quickly into a major European city in the late 19th century, which was also noticeable in the section, it expanded on all levels. The annual winter costume festival in the Kroll Opera House was attended by over 2,800 guests in 1898, a year later there were more than 3,000, the Habachhütte was completed punctually for the start of the season on June 30, 1898 and the number of members exceeded the 2000 limit. As the cash reports of that time show, the economic development could not be better, especially the numerous festivals brought in a lot of money. But at the general assembly of 1898, doubts about the attitude of the Berlin section to the entire DOeAV association had to be dispelled . In those years the Berliners were apparently viewed with skepticism by other sections.

The general meeting in autumn 1898 decided to build another refuge on the saddle between Monte Zebrù and Ortler , the Hochjochhütte at 3535  m slm , which was completed in 1901 and destroyed by arson in the mountain war in 1915. In 1900, the Berlin Section bought the Olpererhütte and Rifflerhütte from the Prague Section for 11,000 marks and thus had four refuges in the Zillertal Alps and one in the Hohe Tauern . With the opening of the Zillertalbahn in 1901, tourism experienced a further increase, which was reflected in the number of overnight stays in the huts. In 1901, the Berliner Hütte had 4575 overnight guests. The lectures in Berlin now also included more reports on mountain trips and trips in South America, East Africa and Asia. The Schlaraffia meeting room at the Anhalter Bahnhof was often unable to cope with the growing number of visitors, but it was impossible to find a suitable, conveniently located room in the city center. The 1904 section had trouble with allegedly false reports about their winter festival at Kroll in the Berlin press, which described the ball as too dissolute and therefore questionable.

Because of the construction of another hut on the Tuckett Pass in the Brenta , named after Francis Fox Tuckett , which was planned since 1899 and started in 1904 , there was a dispute with the Società degli Alpinisti Tridentini , which asserted older rights for hut construction and did not blame the Berliners to promote alpinism, but to spread pan-German propaganda . Obviously, uncertainties about the ownership of the building site were the cause of the feud. In the end, from 1905 two competing houses stood in the immediate vicinity on the pass, a Tuckettpass hut of the Berlin section and the Rifugio Q. Sella , named after Quintino Sella , built by the SAT In the 1907 annual report of the section, the secondary school director and board member Hermann Krollick wrote slightly gleefully , that the Tuckettpass hut already has an unusually large number of visitors (1000 guests) [...], despite the resentment of irredentists whose hut was lack of attendance this summer closed. After all, he praised the unveiling of a bronze relief on the Rifugio , which shows the alpinist Quintino Sella. These harbingers of a rivalry that also led to World War I could already be felt. In 1907 there were over 3,000 members in the Berlin section, and the section awarded scholarships of 300 marks to young students for scientific trips.

In 1910, the relationship between Berliners and Italians on the Tuckettjoch was fine again, because the section financed an 800-meter-long galvanized water pipe made of Mannesmann pipes from the glacier to the two huts. Before that, the water had to be transported by carriers over a distance of one kilometer. In 1911, the Berliner Hütte had reached its maximum stage of expansion, making it the largest refuge in the Alps. The Berlin section was at the height of its self-confidence. Over 4,000 guests attended the 1911 Winter Ball. In 1912 a surplus of 16,000 marks was achieved. From then on, however, these festivals were no longer to take place in the Kroll Opera, which was threatened with demolition at the time, but in the more modern New West of Berlin. Suitable halls were found at the Zoologischer Garten station and a multi-year contract was signed.

In November 1914, there was a great debate at the Section's annual meeting about accepting women as full members. But the beginning of the First World War shifted the heavyweights. After extensive, enthusiastic patriotic statements in the 1914 annual report, the board of directors complained about 16 members who had fallen in the field . There should be a lot more. As early as August 1914 , the Section provided 10,000 Mk for war welfare purposes. For the first time in its history, the section made a financial loss, as the number of visitors to the huts collapsed due to the war and there was no longer a lucrative winter ball.

By 1915 the patriotic enthusiasm for the war was over. The chairman, the Secret Upper Government Councilor Leo Holtz, wrote in his ambivalent, remarkable report of a terrible world war that had turned Europe into a blazing sea of ​​flames . Even the hope of an early peace is over, our enemies see that they will never achieve their goal of crushing Germany and its hated militarism in an honest battle. And hope through a war of exhaustion to weaken us financially and economically so that we have to agree to a peace that was not to the taste of the Central Powers . The number of members stagnated and in 1915 25 Berlin mountaineers fell on the field of honor . The Hochjochhütte on the Ortler was destroyed by acts of war and the Berliner Hütte was occupied by the military. A year earlier, an avalanche destroyed the Habachhütte, the club's activities were limited to the administration. In 1916, the regular association publication Mitteilungen der Section Berlin suffered from censorship problems , a lack of paper and increased printing costs. The section office had to leave the Schlaraffia building on Enckeplatz due to military demands and moved to Potsdamer Straße.

In 1917 the mood in the Berlin section was bad. The number of members fell below 3,000, 65 mountain comrades had fallen by then, mountain tours or skiing were out of the question, lectures were only held to a very limited extent and festivals were no longer at all. Slowly the board began to realize that the war might no longer be won. After all, for the first time in the section's history, a woman, the photo journalist Alice Schalk , gave a lecture on the military exploits of the Isonzo Army , which she introduced with the song Heil dir in the wreath . Alice Schalk had walked the 70-kilometer front on the Isonzo in the front line and reported as an eyewitness.

Title page of the 1914 annual report

After the First World War

In 1918, fear of a communist overthrow based on the Russian model in Germany drove the board of the Berlin section. The revolution in Berlin was feared. In addition, the unresolved situation in South Tyrol meant problems for the section, which had two huts there. All of the six major Berlin Alpine Club sections at that time agreed for the first time and decided to help prevent South Tyrol from joining Italy through an appeal to the friends of Tyrol in the press. In 1920, a few months late, the Section celebrated its 50th anniversary, a modest celebration, in grave guise . In 1921 a monumental memorial for the war dead was begun below the Berliner Hütte, in line with contemporary tastes, and in the same year more than 3,000 members were added to the list, and things were obviously looking up.

The annual collection for giving Christmas presents to poor children in the section's work area, as well as disaster aid for Klausen in South Tyrol , which was ravaged by a storm, yielded around 3,000 marks each . At the annual meeting on March 3, 1921, members of the section applied for full membership for women for the third time since 1919. But the two-thirds majority required for this was again just missed. The sections based in Berlin and the province of Brandenburg decided to found a so-called Gauverband in 1920 , the purpose of which was to obtain economic and regional advantages through cooperation, such as special travel trains to the Alps. In order to increase the influence on the central association in Munich and to be better able to assert their own interests together, the Berlin section suggested the establishment of an association of Central and East German sections . This association took the position that the DOeAV should keep away all political, religious and racial issues . Only the Berlin Section and the Berlin Academic Section joined this association, which was founded in June 1920 . Other associations that were already anti - Semitic , such as the Mark Brandenburg section , stayed away.

During the period of inflation there were great difficulties in obtaining printing paper for the members' magazine Mitteilungen, which has been published since 1900 , as well as coal to heat the offices. A proper handling of the financial transactions at that time was only possible through the skillful work of the treasurer Curt Meinhold, director of the Deutsche Ueberseeische Bank . In 1923 the board of directors was outraged by the occupation of the Ruhr and, in view of the hyperinflation, saw the section face difficult times. Travel to the mountains was no longer possible due to the currency devaluation. But in 1924 the business of the Berlin Section went back to its usual course. The currency was stable and the mountain friends could spend their holidays in the mountains again. The section had over 3,500 members, the huts were frequented and the Alpine library under the direction of the senior librarian of the Reichstag library, Braatz, was able to expand its holdings again.

Attitude to anti-Semitism

Signet of the former Mark-Brandenburg section at the Hochjochhospiz

But in the Berlin section, the dispute began about the so-called Aryan paragraph , which the Berlin sister section Mark Brandenburg, like some others, had introduced for its members. The chairman of the Berlin section, Rudolf Hauptner, spoke out in favor of rejecting any kind of anti-Semitism at the 1923 annual meeting and vehemently repeated this again in his 1924 annual report. The background was the escalating dispute over the Donauland section , which was excluded from the DOeAV should be and against what the Berlin section voted in the general meeting with some other sections. But in the long run the Berliners could not do anything against the increasing anti-Semitism in the Alpine Club, the section had to come to terms with him. Although the chairman managed to superficially resolve the dispute within the section, his controversial speech on the inauguration of the war memorial at the Berliner Hütte was taken in the press as an occasion for public criticism of his position. In 1953, a certain press (meaning the so-called Jewish press ) was spoken of in a belated obituary for the deceased Hauptner. The general assembly expressed its confidence in the board by a majority, but the political disputes over anti-Semitism led to a wave of over 900 members leaving in 1925/26. For many, the political orientation of the board was not consistently tolerant enough and therefore founded their own association, the German Alpine Association Berlin, which did not belong to the DOeAV and cooperated in solidarity with the former Donauland section in Vienna, which after its expulsion no longer belonged to the umbrella association. This now met with the approval of the board, which was primarily concerned with the inner peace of the Berlin section. The new club was subsequently referred to as a fighting club and double membership was rejected, which led to legal disputes until 1927.

The 1920s

In the 1920s, sport climbing began to become more popular in the section, people practiced at the Rüdersdorfer limestone quarry , and the climbing trips to Saxon Switzerland that had been undertaken since 1912 were very popular. The academic section had owned the Gaudeamushütte in the Kaiser Mountains since 1899 , which was destroyed by an avalanche in 1924. The Berlin Section donated 8000 Mk for the reconstruction. On August 14, 1927 the inauguration of the newly built hut took place. In 1929, after the wave of resignation, the membership was only a good 2100 members, but the disputes of the past were over and the board reported normality. A photo competition was organized, the growth in the two youth groups was encouraging and the Reichsgericht had stated that the prospects were excellent in a trial against the competing German Alpine Club in Berlin . From 1930 women were allowed to be full members of the Berlin section.

1930s

The global economic crisis at the end of the twenties, in the form of the German banking crisis , hit many of the section's not-so-wealthy mountain friends who could no longer go on mountain trips without savings, and the number of members fell again. In 1932, the Section's securities portfolio lost a considerable amount of its value, less was earned, and compensation was only achieved through extreme thrift. With a bit of luck, the excess amounted to RM 1,605.54 through compensation.

The National Socialist seizure of power on January 30, 1933 represented a turning point for the Alpine Association and the Berlin section. The so-called Aryan paragraph for the exclusion of Jewish members was now introduced across the board by the DOeAV, all sections were transferred to new associations and the German sections now had no chairman more, but a section leader . But only for a short time, because Reich Minister Rudolf Hess reversed the regulation, since now only Adolf Hitler could be called Der Führer . However , this did not affect the so-called Führer principle . The economic situation remained bad and the thousand-mark block prevented almost all trips to the huts. After all, the library now had over 12,000 volumes, and all of the new Berlin sports associations took part in the May 1, 1933 celebrations.

In the mid-thirties, the compulsory incorporation of the Alpine Club into the Reichsbund für physical exercises was a topic in the Berlin section. It was feared that they would lose their independence. Due to the continued travel restrictions to Austria, the section lost further members and it was found that the Hitler Youth withdrew boys and girls as members of the section. Economically, the section was not doing well either, with the continuing decline in membership, the income from contributions fell steadily. The exceptional snow conditions in the winter of 1934/35 required increased expenditure on some huts to repair the external masonry damaged by snow pressure. In 1936 the borders with Austria were reopened to tourists, the huts received visitors from Germany again, the number of members increased slightly, and the board of directors was satisfied with the development.

After Austria's annexation in 1938, the Alpine Club, which was no longer called the DOeAV , was just called the German Alpine Club , DAV. Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick thanked the chairman of the general association, Raimund von Klebelsberg, with the words: The achievements of the Alpine Association in recent years will not be forgotten. What was meant, among other things, was the advance introduction of the Aryan paragraph to exclude Jewish members. From 1938 the chairman of the Berlin section called himself the section leader again and praised the work of the section in view of its 70th anniversary in the highest tones. The economic situation was stable, the number of members rose again slightly to over 1200, and on March 31, 1939, the war memorial at the Berliner Hütte, supplemented by a courtyard, was consecrated with pithy words.

Second World War

Last annual report for 1941–1943

In April 1940, the new Berlin section leader, Philipp Borchers, mentioned the invasion of German troops into Czechoslovakia and the Memelland , and expressed his satisfaction with the injustice that had now been done to the German Reich . He also mentions the beginning of the war on September 1, 1939 and the compulsion to invade Poland, this megalomania of a state created in Versailles . He explains in detail the successes of the German Wehrmacht and praises the heroic deeds of the aviators and submarine drivers. Only on page 6 of the annual report 1939–1940 does he talk about the situation of the Berlin section. The deficit of the section treasury was about 8,800 marks due to repairs to the huts. They also had to end the season earlier than planned due to the start of the war. War reporting was also the focus of attention in 1941, but little happened in the section at that time. The club's activities had to be restricted because many younger members were at war. The youth group was now called the HJ Bergfahrtengruppe , but could not undertake their own trips due to the children's area dispatch .

The first casualty was commemorated in the 1941–1943 annual report, including a sailor on the battleship Bismarck, which was sunk in 1941 . Consideration was given to purchasing another bronze plaque with the names of the fallen for the war memorial. In 1942 the number of members had climbed back over the two thousand mark, 259 of whom were at war, the HJ mountain travel group was able to record an increase in participants and visited the Berliner Hütte for several weeks. The prospects seemed good. After 1943 there were hardly any major activities of the section, the course of the war made club life increasingly impossible. Due to the first major air raids on Berlin in December 1943 and January 1944, no meetings could take place. In 1944 it was only possible to hike in the outskirts of Berlin, ascents were impossible, but there was still a slide show at every meeting. The last available so-called war circular from June 1944 reports on the air raids which interrupted a board meeting several times. A section meeting took place on April 23, 1944, at which the physicist Max Planck received a badge of honor for his 50-year membership in the section. In April 1944 the business premises were no longer usable, the sparsely attended meeting on May 19 had to be interrupted several times by an air raid alarm, but the lecture by member Paul Baumgart from the glacier world of the Taschachhaus and the Braunschweiger Hütte could at least be held undisturbed.

In 1945 the German Alpine Club and its sections as part of the National Socialist Reich Association for Physical Exercise were dissolved by the victorious powers and their property was confiscated. A start-up was prohibited. The library and archive of the Berlin Section were largely destroyed in the battle for Berlin , and it was not until 1949 that the desire of Berlin mountaineers to organize themselves was awakened again.

post war period

At the end of the 1940s, people from the old Berlin sections interested in the mountains met regularly in the pub Göbels Bierstuben , Berlin SW 61. The aim was to collect the remaining Berlin mountaineers. The first group were the so-called Haxnschlager , from the old Mark Brandenburg section , which was first reorganized. This group turned to the Kreuzberg district office in early 1949 with the aim of establishing an association with the name Alpenverein d'Haxnschlager Berlin e. V. to be recognized as a non-political organization. The new association was approved in November 1949 under the name Alpenverein Berlin by the magistrate of Greater Berlin and was allowed to publish a regular publication called Der Bergbote . In the first issue of June 1949, meetings and slide presentations are again announced. The groups and departments slowly formed again and the newly founded association began to revive. The first lecture took place on June 15, 1949 with the title 3 Holiday Weeks in the Zillertal Alps in the physics lecture hall of the TU Berlin, in which memories of the Berliner Hut echoed. The entrance fee of 25 Pfennig was charged in Deutsche Mark West or East , depending on the residential sector .

1950s

Soon Göbel's beer parlors became too small as the sole clubhouse, so the office moved into another office at Schlüterstrasse 50. The first major party took place in March 1950 in the student house on Hardenbergstrasse. Shortly after the re-establishment of the Berlin Alpine Club , another Alpine Club was founded. The Alpenclub Berlin (later Spree-Havel section , which emerged from a rowing association in the 1920s) was created in competition, and at the same time held a party in the restaurants at the zoo . The relationship with the Alpenclub Berlin remained tense, there were evidently differences over the claim to sole representation. At the end of 1950, the desire arose in the regional alpine clubs of West Germany to re-establish a general club in the spirit of the old DAV. At a German Alpine Association Day in Stuttgart in October 1950 it was decided that the regional associations, now called Sections again , should merge to form a new German Alpine Association. At that time it was still hoped to be able to integrate the mountaineers of the eastern zone . In 1950 there was again a modest library in the Berlin section, the annual fee was 14 DM, numerous hikes were undertaken in the Berlin area and two fully occupied buses brought West Berliners for the first time after the war in two , with a nine-hour stay at the zone borders at that time Meet in the mountains to the Spitzsteinhaus . The famous ski racer Christl Cranz gave a lecture on skiing and restricted the view that was valid at the time that only parallel turns were allowed by allowing a slight pressure at high speeds . In 1951 the first woman was elected to the section's board as deputy sports warden and in the avalanche winter of 1951 the members of the Berlin section collected money for the victims in the Zillertal. The first irritations arose in March 1951, when the Bayerische Staatszeitung reported the alleged intention of the Austrian Alpine Club to acquire the hut ownership of the German sections, which would have hit the Berlin section hard with its numerous huts from the former Berlin prewar sections. In 1952 the youth demanded equal rights in votes and elections, but this was rejected on the grounds of the different age groups and the associated different maturity . Since 1949 there have been regular hikes only for men in the Berlin section , from 1952 onwards some women organized hikes that were only permitted for women and took place at exactly the same time as the men 's hikes . At the same time, however, one was pass mandatory for the Soviet zone called DDR introduced so that the hikes were only able to take place in Berlin territory. The climbing rocks in Rüdersdorf and Saxon Switzerland were also no longer easily accessible. The section's lecture program is developing satisfactorily, prominent alpinists showed their pictures, Heinrich Harrer came to Berlin and reported. The Austrian photographer Erika Hubatschek also showed her pictures of the life of mountain farmers. The number of members rose steadily, the new Samoarhütte , started in 1938 by the former Mark Brandenburg Section, was finally completed in the summer of 1953, and the athletic achievements of the skiers at local championships in the Harz region were remarkable. The 50s of the construction brought success and the nine huts of the old pre-war sections officially returned to the section ownership on November 27, 1958.

1960s

The board of the section did not mention the construction of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961 in its communications, only the hiking group complained about the restriction of their hiking opportunities to West Berlin. In contrast to the pre-war period, political assessments were held back. The new first chairman, the lawyer Berthold Zimmermann, introduced the written annual report, which was previously only presented orally. He stated that the section was outdated, as was the city of Berlin, and referred to future financial burdens due to the hut ownership. There were differences of a political nature about the supposedly correct appreciation of the Day of German Unity . Was it allowed to publicly mention in the club post that this day was assigned to a long weekend for a mountain trip? The 1960s were a time of great expeditions, study trips which are sold in the 1960 Hindu Kush , 1963 according to Spitsbergen and 1964 in the Karakorum led. The Berlin section collected money for this, but was also financially supported by the main association. Ulrich Roloff , who later became Berlin Senator for Culture, was one of the four participants in the Karakoram trip . In 1965 it was noticed that there was a shortage of girls in the youth group of the section and therefore not that many marriages took place. Excessive demands on mountaineering performance were recognized as the reason. In 1965, the magazine Alpinismus discovered that the Berlin Karakoram expedition of 1964 had targeted the wrong mountain. Instead of the K6 , the four Berliners should have come to the K7 . However, later it turned out that it was a completely different mountain, the Link Sar . In the mid-1960s, the financial burdens caused by the smelters caused concern, and it was also difficult to find tenants at that time. The membership fee was increased in 1966 from 25 to 32 DM. Although the association wanted to abstain from all political assessments, the so-called South Tyrol question was often the cause of heated discussions in the 1960s . It was the time when assassinations and bombings were not uncommon in South Tyrol. The skiers of the Berlin section regularly took part in the Berlin ski championships . At that time the first big ball took place in connection with the time before 1914 in the rebuilt Prelate Schöneberg . By the end of the decade, the section had around 3800 members, but the commitment to the association left a lot to be desired. Luis Trenker was in Berlin in 1967 and gave a speech at a meeting of the section, the then Austrian Interior Minister Franz Hetzenauer visited the Berliner Hütte and the first sections of the Berliner Höhenweg were planned. The youth demanded a low mountain hut as a climbing base and in 1968 the Berlin Section acquired the Friesenberghaus from the Vienna Alpine Association Donauland , which could no longer maintain the house. At the end of the decade there was a decline in membership, and the youth also caused concern for the club officials. A lack of interest, not least due to the conservative attitude of some Bavarian sections in the central association, should have contributed to this. Targeted advertising promised a solution for children and adolescents aged ten to fourteen. In 1969 the section celebrated its 100th anniversary. The 1969 anniversary expedition was to go to Bolivia in the Cordillera Real , the patron was the Governing Mayor Klaus Schütz , a member of the section who said goodbye to the mountaineers on May 11, 1969 at Tempelhof Airport . But in the anniversary year, more and more doubts about the meaning of the Alpine Club were expressed. The question was elite club or mass organization?

1970s

The climbing tower made of special concrete stands on Berlin 's Teufelsberg , completed in 1970, it was the second artificial climbing tower in Germany. An almost identical copy is in the Peruvian capital Lima.

In the 1970s, the conflict between old and young was an important issue for the Berlin section. Aging, lack of young talent, lack of attractiveness for young people and a politically conservative attitude of the DAV led to demands for the resignation of the first chairman, which did not take place but had to be discussed intensively. The criticism of three younger board members and the youth groups of the assumed undemocratic performance of the first chairman finally led them to resign themselves. The social upheaval of the time also caused upheavals in the Alpine Club, a generation conflict could not be overlooked. In 1970 one of the first artificial climbing towers in Germany was completed on Berlin 's Teufelsberg and used for climbing training. The youth groups of the then three existing Berlin Alpine Club sections Spree-Havel , Section Charlottenburg and Section Berlin decided to work together. In 1972 the Spree-Havel section decided to dissolve and joined the Berlin section as a new group. At that time, the financing of the huts caused problems again, official requirements for the disposal of sewage, dilapidation and higher demands on comfort could only be met by increasing the contribution to 48 DM. In the winter of 1973/74, due to the first oil crisis, the business premises in the office building on Schöneberger Hauptstrasse could no longer be used for evening events because the heating had to be greatly reduced. The Berliner Höhenweg was completed at the end of 1975 and was to be opened in July 1976 by Berlin's Governing Mayor Klaus Schütz in a ceremony at the Friesenberghaus, but Schütz had to cancel his participation because the CDU had passed a motion of no confidence against him in the Berlin House of Representatives. When the Berlin Agreement came into force , it was again possible to climb on a daily basis in the GDR. The destinations were the traditional climbing areas in Saxony and Thuringia. The Olpererhütte was expanded for about 300,000 DM and in 1978 Reinhold Messner gave a lecture about his ascent of Mount Everest together with Peter Habeler without additional oxygen. But there were also critical voices in the Berlin section, Messner was described in the club magazine as the best-marketed mountaineer in the world . At the end of the decade, the financial position of the association was in order, the membership development was gratifying and the already existing awareness of environmental protection, including against further development of the Alps, has grown in the association.

1980s

At the beginning of the decade, environmental protection was also an important topic in the Berlin section. The further touristic expansion of the mountain world with summer ski areas on glaciers, the development by means of new roads, but also the construction of new power plants in Tyrol met with resistance from the members and the board. Against the background of the Berlin squatting movement , the association discussed the extent to which the youth of the section should be granted the desired autonomy in their work. In the members' magazine Der Bergbote the youth groups got their own place under their own editorship for the publication of their dates and for expressions of opinion after the offer to publish their own magazine was rejected by the youth. One of the first contributions contained thoughts on the relationship between the peace movement and the Alpine Association. In addition, calls for participation in peace demonstrations were published. During that time, the number of members rose to over 5,600, but for the first time in years, spending exceeded income. The maintenance of the now nine huts, the Hohenzollernhaus was sold in 1978, consumed most of the money. The shortfall in cover amounted to DM 27,000 at the end of 1981, so that the membership fee had to be withdrawn by ten marks to DM 70. In 1983, the board of the association began to consider selling a hut because the financial burden to maintain eight huts was too high. Air pollution and the dying forest preoccupied the Berlin section in the middle of the decade and led to an increased commitment to environmental protection. The idea of ​​a female climber to found a women's climbing group met with rejection in 1985. It was not until years later that the group was able to establish itself permanently in the section. In addition to the Teufelsberg, climbing was also carried out on the bunker in Volkspark Humboldthain , which was now legal. There were plans to set up a further climbing garden on the heavy load body in General-Pape-Strasse , but these were not implemented due to resident reservations. As the number of members continued to grow, the board considered whether the section could cope with more than 7,000 members, as it was feared that the Alps would be flooded with mountaineers and tourists and that the resulting environmental pollution would increase. Public relations work with regard to recruiting should therefore be restricted. In the 1980s, more fatal accidents occurred in the mountains than in previous decades, which were associated with an overestimation of one's own abilities, carelessness and deficiencies in the training of climbers and mountain hikers. In 1989 the youth of the Berlin section, together with other organizations such as trade union youth organizations and the ADFC , demanded a speed limit of 100 km / h on Berlin's AVUS motorway .

The turning point in the GDR was taken note of with surprise by the section's executive board and the skeptical question was raised about how to deal with the expected flood of members from the east. For new members from the GDR, the first measure for the first year was an exemption from fees. The office with its library in Schöneberger Hauptstrasse, now completely overwhelmed by the situation, was visited by countless citizens from the GDR in need of information in the first few months after the fall of the Wall, so that the call for larger rooms was loud. At that time of upheaval, there was uncertainty in the section on the one hand, and euphoria on the other. The first friendly contacts with mountaineers from East Berlin and Saxony have now been established on a new, broader basis. The old Saxon Mountaineering Association was founded as the first association at the end of 1989 and was integrated into the DAV as a section in the summer of 1990. The first larger organized trips to the Elbe Sandstone Mountains took place and met with a great response from West Berliners. At the end of the decade, the Berlin section had around 7,000 members and the annual fee was DM 100.

After the turn

In the 1990s, sport climbing gained greater importance in the Berlin section . The two existing training facilities were no longer sufficient, and the climbers asked for more climbing opportunities in Berlin. The long-standing financial bottlenecks in the structural maintenance of the nine shelters prompted the section to sell the Gamshütte to the Otterfing section in 1992, initially planned as part of a sponsorship . But the wish to buy a low mountain hut as a replacement was not fulfilled.

On the occasion of the neo-Nazi march on November 15, 1992 in Halbe , which was registered by the then section member Ursula Schaffer, founder and later honorary chairwoman of the Berlin Cultural Community of Prussia , a debate began in the association about the resurgent right-wing extremism and how to deal with it. Rising rents for commercial space in the years after the fall of the Wall led to a search for new rooms for the library and office. The members were asked to find new, cheaper rooms, if possible within the S-Bahn ring . In 1994 the association celebrated its 125th anniversary in Berlin's Wedding Town Hall, in Mayrhofen and in Vent . An anniversary expedition led to Cholatse and Taboche in the Himalayas, but the ascent of a summit was not possible due to the low temperatures, and the participants decided to stop. In 1995 the association became a member of the Berlin State Sports Association in order to be able to receive grants for the construction of sports facilities, because at the time, in the mid-1990s, the desire to set up an indoor climbing facility arose. A suitable location was a former sports hall of the withdrawn American protective power in Berlin-Dahlem, on Hüttenweg, which was converted accordingly and completed in April 1997. In the summer of 1998 the then Prime Minister of Brandenburg Manfred Stolpe (SPD) and his counterpart from Tyrol, Governor Wendelin Weingartner (ÖVP), visited the Brandenburg House in an ascent organized by the section to see both the environmentally friendly one, funded by the State of Brandenburg with 160,000 DM To visit the renovation of the hut, as well as to advise on political cooperation. Due to the increasing costs for the maintenance of the huts, the section sold the Gaudeamushütte in the Wilder Kaiser to the Main-Spessart section in Marktheidenfeld in 1999 . From April 1999 the association operates the website www.dav-berlin.de.

Climbing center of the DAV section Berlin with the recently completed climbing walls

2000s

In 2001, the section tried to make it known on a larger scale with the 25th anniversary of the Berliner Höhenweg in order to increase the number of visitors to the huts. The members' magazine was given a new A4 size format and now featured color images throughout. With the revival of an alpine ball , the association tried to tie in with old traditions and generate additional income to finance an environmentally friendly refurbishment. The then chairman of the section, Klaus Kundt, received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon for his voluntary work. The number of members rose steadily and in 2001 was around 7,700, but it was determined that the volunteers were overburdened due to higher demands on the services of the association. In 2003 the Berlin Section organized an expedition to the Tian Shan Mountains in Turkestan under the leadership of the Russian mountain guide Alexios Passalidis . A nameless mountain 5020 meters high was climbed for the first time and was named Pik Alexander von Humboldt . In 2005, the section turned against a power plant construction planned by the then Tiroler Wasserkraft AG in the Ötztal, which provided for an approximately 200-meter-high dam wall and thus would have severely impaired the landscape in the Rofenschlucht above Vent , in which it took part in protests. The section also opposed plans to expand ski areas on glaciers or to develop new ones. At that time, hiking on the Way of St. James became more popular, and a literary article about the route with a detailed description of a section from Görlitz to Vacha appeared in the section magazine Berliner Bergsteiger , a year before Hape Kerkeling published his famous book. At the end of 2006, the plans for a club's own climbing hall, called the climbing center, slowly took shape. There were already two commercial climbing halls in Berlin, but the section wanted to offer its members a cheaper alternative and to make the club more attractive for new members who were hoped to be won in the climbing scene. In the summer of 2006, the gay-lesbian DAV section Gay Outdoor Club (GOC), founded in Munich in 2004, sponsored the maintenance and use of the Berliner Hütte. The Geocaching spread the mid-2000s in Berlin and Brandenburg and also found among the members of the section Berlin friends. The plans for the climbing hall became more and more specific, the section made an internet survey in the climbing scene, which should help with the conception of the hall. A profitability analysis was commissioned and the search for a location began. From March to June 2007 there was an exhibition in the office with works by the Austrian photographer Erika Hubatschek , who documented the work of the mountain farmers for decades. The 90-year-old traveled to Berlin especially for this exhibition to attend the opening. In 2006 the membership of the section stagnated and reached a maximum of 8,850 members. The average age was just over 45 years, 62% were men. No women were represented in leading positions in the association. In 2008, environmental protection was again an important topic in the section. Many members took part in climate protection events as part of their group activities. A new energy provider was sought for the office in Berlin-Kreuzberg who could demonstrably supply its electricity from renewable sources. The increasing popularity of new sports such as snowshoeing , balancing on the slackline and canyoning were reflected in the section in information events and courses. The Berlin climber Louise Tharandt was successful in several, also international, youth climbing competitions. The annual report for 2008 mentioned that the total assets of the Berlin section exceeded the two million euro mark for the first time. In the first issue of the members' magazine in 2009 a report appeared about the crossing of the Greenland Ice on the trail of Fridtjof Nansen and the section celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Brandenburg House . In 2010 a report about the ascent of Cholatse was published . The then Interior Minister of the State of Brandenburg, Rainer Speer , took part in a labor assignment for repair work on the Brandenburg House and the section recorded a loss of almost 80,000 euros for 2009. The planning of the climbing hall took shape and a plot of land in Berlin-Moabit in the Seydlitzstrasse near Berlin Central Station was available. In 2010 Mongolia was the destination for hikers and Israel was the destination for climbers of the section. The mountain guide Alexios Passalidis provided a detailed report on the first ascent of Pik Leibniz in 2009. The construction work for the climbing hall began at the end of February 2012 with the felling of trees on the building site on the site of the Post Stadium in Berlin-Moabit. In August that was 10,000. Member accepted. At the end of April 2012 there was a setback for the construction of the climbing center. The commercial climbing hall operator Magic Mountain obtained a temporary construction freeze at the Berlin Administrative Court on the grounds that the lease agreed with the State of Berlin for the property in the SportPark Poststadion could constitute aid that is not permissible under European law , and that this could lead to a distortion of competition as after According to the plaintiff, the association offers a service on the market and thus operates as a company. The construction freeze was lifted again in July after the Higher Administrative Court ruled that the planned climbing hall was not being operated commercially, but would in principle only be available to DAV members. The hall was completed in May 2013 and the inauguration took place on June 1st. Another attempt by the operator of the private commercial climbing hall Magic Mountain to stop the construction of the climbing center of the Berlin section led to a new trial before the European Court of Justice , which on June 9, 2016 led to the ruling that state aid for DAV Climbing gyms are compatible with the internal market.

Preoccupation with anti-Semitism

Memorial plaque on the Friesenberghaus from 1980
Memorial plaque at the Hochjochhospiz

The first report in the members' magazine about anti-Semitism in the Alpine Club was provided by the later first chairman of the Berlin section and journalist, Klaus Kundt, in which he described the history of the Friesenberghaus bought by the section in 1968. For the 50th anniversary of the hut in 1980, a commemorative plaque was created for the entrance area to commemorate the fate of the Jewish mountaineers in the Alpine Club. But as recently as 1985 the former DAV chairman Alfred Jennewein did not mention anti-Semitism at all with his outline of the DAV history from 1933 to 1958, which he published in the section magazine Der Bergbote , but limited himself to the presentation of upheavals in association law in the DOeAV by the National Socialists. It was not until 1993 that a more extensive preoccupation with the anti-Semitic past of the Alpine Club began with the detailed description of the history of the Friesenberghaus. In December 1996, at the protest of the DAV umbrella association, a report by the news magazine Der Spiegel about the alleged anti-Semitic attitude of the Berlin section, which was based on the book Der Alpinismus - Kultur, Organization, Politik (Vienna 1996, ISBN 978-3851142730 ) by the Viennese historian Rainer Amstädter moved into. Amstädter claims in his book that the Berlin section expelled its Jewish members as early as 1924. In contrast, the Berlin DOeAV section Mark Brandenburg with the Ötztal Alps working area, which was dissolved by the Allies in 1945, was demonstrably anti-Semitic . In addition to the Hochjochhospiz, she also owned the Brandenburg House. For a long time since the 1920s, its chairman was the well-known Berlin photographer Waldemar Titzenthaler , who played a key role in the exclusion of Jewish members. The hut ascent to Hochjochhozpiz, located in the Ötztal Alps, was named after him. On the initiative of the Berlin section, however, the path has been called Cyprian-Granbichler -Weg since 2003 , after the mountain guide who made many mountain trips together with Franz Senn and who had a fatal accident in a sudden fall in the weather. In July 2003, the Berlin section opened the Friesenberghaus as an international meeting place and educational center and unveiled a memorial stone with a bronze plaque by the architect Hans Feldhusen with the inscription: Against intolerance and hatred 1921 - 1945, Us Bergsteigern zur Admonishment, DAV 2001 .

Huts

The Berlin section owns and has owned several mountain huts in the Zillertal, Ötztal and Ortler Alps, in the Brenta, the Hohe Tauern and in the Kaiser Mountains.

Zillertal Alps
Ötztal Alps
Kaiser Mountains
  • Gaudeamushütte (originally academic section, since 1927 section Berlin, from 2000 section Main-Spessart)
Hohe Tauern
Ortler Alps
Brenta

groups

One of the first groups in the Berlin section was the Casual Association of High Tourists , founded in 1884 under the direction of the playwright and alpinist Leon Treptow, which was used to plan and carry out heavy alpine tours . In addition, there was a Schuhplattl and Sanges group since 1888 , as well as a hiking group whose destinations were in the vicinity of Berlin. In the 1920s a sociable group , a snowshoe group (meaning ski) with 40 members, and in 1925, according to the requirements of the Central Association, a separate youth group, called the Berlin Section Young Team , which initially comprised around 80, in 1926 already 157, predominantly high school students from Berlin high schools Had members. In 1930 a group of young girls with 14 participants was added, later in the 30s a gymnastics group was formed. After the war, a film and photo group was set up, which, in addition to holding lectures, was also supposed to view and organize the pre-war image material. A singing circle was added, which felt connected to the folk song, a climbing group and the Spree-Havel group , which was previously its own Alpine Club section.

Web links

Commons : Berlin section of the German Alpine Club  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Section Berlin , German Alpine Club, alpenverein.de
  2. ↑ German Alpine Association, Berlin Section: Der Bergbote , anniversary edition 1969 (= 100 years Berlin Section of the German Alpine Association 1869–1969 ), pp. 10–11.
  3. ↑ Call for founding
  4. ^ Eduard Richter (Red.): The development of the Eastern Alps , Volume III, Berlin 1894
  5. ↑ annual report of the Berlin section of DuÖ. Alpine Club , 1880
  6. ↑ annual report of the Berlin section of DuÖ. Alpine Club, 1888
  7. ↑ annual report of the Berlin section of DuÖ. Alpine Club, 1893
  8. ^ To the storm Trutz, the hiker protection 125 years of the Berliner Hütte 1879–2004
  9. ↑ annual report of the Berlin section of DuÖ. Alpine Club, 1895
  10. ^ Annual report of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club, 1898
  11. ^ Annual report of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club, 1904
  12. ^ Annual report of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club, 1907
  13. ^ Annual report of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club, 1917
  14. ^ There were six sections in Berlin: S. Berlin, Academic Section, S. Charlottenburg, S. Hohenzollern, S. Mark Brandenburg and S. Kurmark
  15. ^ Annual report of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club, 1921
  16. ^ Annual report of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club, 1924
  17. ^ Section Berlin of the German Alpine Club: Der Bergbote, No. 12, Berlin 1953
  18. ^ Annual reports of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club, 1925/26/27
  19. ^ Annual report of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club 1930
  20. ^ Annual report of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club 1932
  21. ^ Annual report of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club 1933
  22. ^ Annual report of the Berlin section of the DuOe. Alpine Club 1936
  23. ^ Annual report of the German Alpine Club, Berlin Section, 1940-41
  24. ↑ The last so-called war circular June - September 1944 of the Berlin section
  25. ↑ Control Council Act No. 2
  26. ↑ Alpine Club d'Haxnschlager Berlin e. V. (Ed.): Der Bergbote No. 1, Berlin 1949
  27. ↑ Alpine Club Berlin: The Bergbote , No. 3, Berlin 1950th
  28. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 1952
  29. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 1959, No. 1, p. 4, f.
  30. ↑ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 1962, No. 1. P. 21
  31. ↑ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 1963, No. 4, p. 17
  32. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin Section: Der Bergbote , born in 1963, No. 11, p. 12
  33. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin Section: Der Bergbote , born in 1965, No. 2,3,4
  34. ↑ Wolfgang Axt: Berliner Karakorum -Irrfahrt 1964 , in: Alpinismus , April 1965, p. 23 ff.
  35. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 1966, 1967 and 1968
  36. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 1969, No. 1, ff.
  37. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin Section: Der Bergbote , born in 1970, No. 5
  38. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 1974
  39. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 1976, No. 9, p. 7
  40. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 1980
  41. ↑ German Alpine Association, Berlin Section: Der Bergbote , born in 1982, No. 4, p. 13 ff.
  42. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born 1982, No. 5, pp. 20 ff.
  43. ↑ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born 1987, No. 9, p. 9 ff.
  44. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin Section: Der Bergbote , born in 1990, No. 1 ff.
  45. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , year 1993, No. 2, p. 15 ff.
  46. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , 1995, No. 2, p. 3 ff.
  47. ↑ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , year 1998, No. 9, p. 3
  48. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 2001, numbers 2 and 3
  49. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , year 2004, number 2, p. 6 ff.
  50. ^ Membership magazine Berliner Bergsteiger , years 2005 and 2006
  51. ↑ Berliner Bergsteiger, born in 2007
  52. ↑ Berliner Bergsteiger, born in 2008
  53. ↑ Berliner Bergsteiger, born 2010
  54. ↑ Berliner Bergsteiger, No. 4/2012, p. 5; Berliner Bergsteiger No. 5/2012, p. 5
  55. ↑ Website of the climbing center
  56. ↑ DOSB website
  57. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born 1974, No. 10, p. 21
  58. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born 1985, nos. 8 to 11
  59. ↑ German Alpine Association, Berlin section: Der Bergbote , born in 1993, No. 3. P. 11 f.
  60. ↑ Unheard of acts , Der Spiegel, No. 52/1996
  61. ↑ German Alpine Association, Berlin Section: Der Bergbote , 1997, No. 2. S. 4 ff.
  62. ^ German Alpine Association, Berlin Section: Der Bergbote , born in 2003, No. 4, 5 and 6