Willo Welzenbach
Wilhelm "Willo" Welzenbach (born October 13, 1899 in Munich , † probably July 14, 1934 at Nanga Parbat ) was a German mountaineer .
Life
Welzenbach, son of a family of civil servants in Munich, joined the Academic Alpine Association in Munich in the winter semester of 1921/1922 , of which he was chairman in 1925 and 1926. Many difficult tours in the Eastern Alps made him one of the most famous climbers of his time. Welzenbach was also an excellent steep ice technician who also managed a number of difficult tours in the western Alps . He only resorted to technical aids in extreme emergencies. All in all, Welzenbach managed 50 first ascents - including the northwest face of the Great Wiesbachhorn in the Glockner Group ( Hohe Tauern ). On this first ascent, which took place together with Fritz Rigele on July 15, 1924, an ice hook was used for the first time in the history of alpinism . Welzenbach was once referred to by Reinhold Messner as the "ice pope" because of his pioneering achievements in ice climbing.
As a student at the Technical University in Karlsruhe, Welzenbach dealt intensively with snow deposits and the mechanics of snow movements. In his dissertation "Investigations into the stratigraphy of snow deposition and the mechanics of snow movements together with conclusions about the methods of construction" he deals with a. detailed the formation of cornices . Welzenbach shot the first avalanche educational film with Wilhelm Paulcke , the pioneer in avalanche science.
The Welzenbach scale for the evaluation of climbing difficulties, which was only replaced by the UIAA scale in the 1970s, goes back to Welzenbach. In 1913, Hans Dülfer had presented a five-point scale (easy, medium, difficult, very difficult, extremely difficult). The leap in performance in alpinism forced the scale to expand upwards. In 1923 Welzenbach introduced a new six-point scale.
Welzenbach was a member of the second German expedition to the 8125 meter high Nanga Parbat, the German Nanga Parbat Expedition in 1934 . Together with Willy Merkl , Ulrich Wieland and the Sherpas Nurbhu, Pinzo, Taschi, Dorje and Gay-Lay, Welzenbach died of exhaustion in a snow storm while retreating on the east ridge.
Willo Welzenbach was a member of the KDStV Aenania Munich in the CV . A street in the Munich district of Moosach has been named after him since 1934.
literature
- Eric Roberts: Welzenbach's Climbs: A Biographical Study and the Collected Writings of Willo Welzenbach , West Col Productions 1980, ISBN 0-906227-14-3
- Eric Roberts: Willo Welzenbach. A biographical study with selected writings. , Bruckmann-Verlag Munich 1987, ISBN 3-7654-2102-2
- Wolfgang Pusch and Leo Baumgartner: Großglockner. 200 years of first ascent. , Bergverlag Rother , 2007, ISBN 3-7633-7509-0
- Reinhold Messner: The Ice Pope - The Welzenbach Files , S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-10-397450-8
See also
Web links
- Literature by and about Willo Welzenbach in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Wolfgang Pusch and Leo Baumgartner: “Großglockner. 200 years of first ascent ”, page 49
- ↑ See history of the Heinrich Schwaiger House ( memento of October 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Alpenverein München-Oberland
- ↑ Wilhelm Welzenbach, Investigations on the Stratigraphy of Snow Deposition and the Mechanics of Snow Movement along with Conclusion on the Methods of Construction , Karlsruhe 1930, Wissenschaftl. Publications d. D. u. Ö. Alpine Club. No. 9
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Welzenbach, Willo |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Welzenbach, Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German mountaineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 13, 1899 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Munich , Germany |
| DATE OF DEATH | around July 14, 1934 |
| Place of death | Nanga Parbat , Pakistan |