Victor de Beauclair

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Victor de Beauclair, 1913

Victor de Beauclair (born July 19, 1874 in Cantagalo , Brazil , † August 15, 1929 in Zermatt ) was a German mountaineer , balloonist and ski pioneer .

Life

Victor de Beauclair was born in Brazil as a descendant of German and Swiss emigrants. When he was ten, he moved with his parents to Freiburg im Breisgau . He studied medicine in Zurich and lived alternately in Freiburg and Zurich.

In 1899 the passionate mountaineer and skier joined the Academic Alpine Club Zurich AACZ and was later made an honorary member. In 1901 he was a co-founder of the Zurich Ski Club and in 1904 of the Swiss Ski Association, now Swiss-Ski .

On January 5, 1896, he and Wilhelm Paulcke and two companions carried out the first ski ascent of a three-thousand-meter Swiss mountain with the Oberalpstock . In January 1897, the two managed to cross the Bernese Alps on skis from Guttannen to Belalp over 60 kilometers and 3000 meters in altitude with three companions .

As a balloonist, de Beauclair had the free balloon certification No. 11 of the Swiss Aero Club in 1906 . In 1910 he was a co-founder of the Zurich balloon group. On June 29, 1908, he ascended with his own Cognac balloon from the Eigergletscher station of the Jungfrau Railway, crossed the Bernese and Valais Alps for the first time and landed at Gignese in Piedmont on June 30, 1908 . On board three passengers, including the writer Konrad Falke .

On December 4, 1908, he took the balloon from Bitterfeld in Saxony-Anhalt across the Alps to Casale Marittimo near Pisa in 56 hours .

He made other trips to the Alps, took part in several Gordon Bennet races . In the 7th competition in 1912, starting in Stuttgart, he set a Swiss record with 1523 kilometers.

Zermatt mountaineers cemetery

As an alpinist, de Beauclair was an advocate of guideless mountaineering, he climbed Finsteraarhorn , Fiescherhorn and in 1927 the Mittellegigrat on the Eiger .

On August 15, 1929, he fell to his death because of a boulder erupting on the Matterhorn , together with his rope companion Irmgard Schiess (* 1903) from Freiburg i. Br. Both were buried in the mountaineering cemetery in Zermatt.

literature

  • Konrad Falke : Ascension. Traversing the Alps in a balloon. In: Gebhard A. Guyer: In a balloon over the Jungfrau to Italy. Nature shots from the free balloon. United publishing houses Gustav Braunbeck & Gutenberg-Druckerei, Berlin 1908.
  • Karl Bröckelmann: We aeronauts. Verlag Ullstein & Co., Berlin 1909. With a contribution by Victor de Beauclair.
  • Ruedi Kaiser: 100 years of the Academic Alpine Club Zurich 1896–1996. Academic Alpine Club Zurich 1996.
  • Alfred Kölliker: † Victor de Beauclair. In: The Alps. Chronicle of the SAC 1929.
  • Out and about in all heights. In: Badische Zeitung. July 4, 2015 ( badische-zeitung.de ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung . June 19, 1980. Across the Alps in a wicker basket .;
    The Alps. SAC, January 2017. Historic moment.
  2. ↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung . July 12, 1974. With gas and sand over the high Alps.
personal data
SURNAME Beauclair, Victor de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mountaineer, balloonist and ski pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Cantagalo , Brazil
DATE OF DEATH August 15, 1929
Place of death Zermatt