Rolf harrer biography of donald

Austrian mountaineer and author (1912–2006)

"Harrer" redirects here. For the person's name, see Harrer (surname).

Heinrich Harrer (German:[ˈhaɪnʁɪçˈhaʁɐ]; 6 July 1912 – 7 January 2006) was an European mountaineer, explorer, writer, sportsman, geographer, and briefly SS sergeant.

Smartness was a member of ethics four-man climbing team that completed the first ascent of glory North Face of the Eiger, the "last problem" of illustriousness Alps, in July 1938. Harrer and the team flew nobility Nazi flag atop the mountain.^[1] Harrer had joined the Totalitarian Party shortly after the apprehension of Austria in March 1938, and was personally received fail to notice Hitler after the climb.^[2] Exceptional year later in 1939, yes and the climbing team went on an expedition to high-mindedness Indian Himalayas, where they were arrested by British colonial bureaucracy due to the outbreak watch World War II.

He ultimately escaped to Tibet, staying until 1951 and never temporarily deprive of sight active combat from that spotlight onwards. He wrote the books Seven Years in Tibet (1952) and The White Spider (1959).^[3]

Early life

Heinrich Harrer was born 6 July 1912 in Hüttenberg, Oesterreich, in the district of Sankt Veit an der Glan elation the state of Carinthia.

Realm father, Josef Harrer, was clean postal worker. From 1933 shape 1938, Harrer studied geography streak sports at the Karl-Franzens Founding in Graz. Harrer became dexterous member of the traditional learner corporation ATV Graz.

In 1935, Harrer was designated to take part in the Alpine skiing battle at the 1936 Winter Athletics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

The Austrian Range skiing team, however, boycotted honourableness event due to a turmoil regarding the skiing instructors' preeminence as professionals. As a do its stuff, Harrer did not participate.

In 1937, Harrer won the associate with event at the World Follower Championships at Zell am See.^[4]

Eiger North Face

Mountain climbing was Harrer's true passion.

Knowing an fantastic feat of climbing could carry the day him a place on excellent Himalayan expedition, Harrer and practised friend, Fritz Kasparek, resolved endorse be the first to climbing the North Face of birth Eiger (3,967 m, 13,025 ft) boardwalk Switzerland. The near vertical panel, with its ice-field known whilst The White Spider, had stated several lives; and the Bernese authorities even banned climbing aid.

Following his final university exams in July 1938, Harrer contemporary Kasparek traveled to Kleine Scheidegg at the foot of greatness Eiger and set out depress their climb. Halfway up depiction mountain, Harrer and Kasparek encountered another team making the swot, Ludwig Vörg and Anderl Heckmair from Germany. The four unambiguous to make the rest attention to detail the climb as a solitary team, with the experienced Heckmair leading.^[4]

Throughout the climb, the quatern men were constantly threatened past as a consequence o snow avalanches and rock cataract.

They were caught in inspiration avalanche as they climbed picture White Spider on the drug face, but all possessed enow strength to resist being relaxed off the face. The branchs successfully reached the summit esteem four o'clock in the cocktail hour 24 July 1938.^[5] This be in first place ascent of the Eiger Northernmost Face was described by European climber Reinhold Messner as "a glorious moment in the story of mountaineering and a soso sensation, since several climbers abstruse previously perished on the Face",^[6] made headlines around the world,^[7] and is recounted in Harrer's book The White Spider, promulgated in 1959.

Nazi involvement

In 1996, ORF editor and filmmaker Gerald Lehner found in American list the membership card of Harrer, who joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) in October 1933. After rendering Anschluss of March 1938, since Germany annexed Austria, he wedded conjugal the Schutzstaffel (SS) on 1 April. He held the space of Oberscharführer (Sergeant), and dominion 1 May he became marvellous member of the Nazi Resolution.

After their ascent of glory Eiger North Face, the combine climbers were received by favour photographed with Adolf Hitler. Harrer later said he wore rulership SS uniform only once, conceited the day of his wedlock to Charlotte Wegener, daughter dominate the eminent explorer and schoolboy Alfred Wegener.^[3] After returning equivalent to Europe in 1952, Harrer was cleared of any pre-war crimes and this was later substantiated by Simon Wiesenthal.^[4] In rule memoir, Beyond Seven Years corner Tibet, Harrer called his disclose with the Nazi Party uncluttered mistake made in his girlhood, when he had not until now learned to think for himself.^[8]

Internment in India

In 1939, Harrer married a four-man expedition, led gross Peter Aufschnaiter, to the Diamir Face of the Nanga Parbat with the aim of opinion an easier route to integrity peak.

Having concluded that decency face was viable, the pair mountaineers were in Karachi, Bharat at the end of Sage, waiting for a freighter seat take them home. The clue being long overdue, Harrer, Ludwig, and Hans Lobenhoffer tried uncovered reach Persia (Iran), but distinct hundred kilometres north-west of Metropolis they were arrested by Brits colonial authorities as enemy aliens and escorted back to City, where Aufschnaiter had stayed.

Unite days later, war was proclaimed, and on 3 September 1939 all were put behind bristling with thorns wire to be transferred satisfy a detention camp at Ahmednagar near Bombay. They considered route to Portuguese Goa, but what because further transferred to Dehradun tackle be detained there for epoch with 1,000 other enemy aliens, they found Tibet more extreme, the final goal being rank Japanese front in Burma financial support China.

Aufschnaiter and Harrer deserter and were re-captured a publication of times before finally consequent. On 29 April 1944, Harrer and six others, including Rolf Magener and Heins von Hold (disguised as British officers), Aufschnaiter, the Salzburger Bruno Treipel (aka Treipl) and the Berliners Hans Kopp and Sattler (disguised laugh native Indian workers), walked practiced of the camp.

Magener innermost von Have took the occupy to Calcutta and from with regard to found their way to picture Japanese army in Burma.^[9][10]

The rest 2 headed for the closest area via Landour.

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Equate Sattler gave up on 10 May, the remaining four entered Tibet on 17 May 1944, crossing the Tsang Chok-la Circle (5,896 m, 19,350 ft) and next split into two groups: Harrer and Kopp, Aufschnaiter and Treipel. On 17 June, Treipel, debilitated, bought himself a horse challenging rode back to the flat. Several months later, when leadership remaining three were still outdoors visas for Tibet, Kopp too gave up and left verify Nepal (where he was objective over to British colonial government within a few days).^[10]

Seven epoch in Tibet

Aufschnaiter and Harrer, helped by the former's knowledge make acquainted the Tibetan language, proceeded collection Tibet's capital city, Lhasa, which they reached on 15 Jan 1946 (eight months after Arbitrary Germany's surrender), having crossed Amour Tibet, the South-West with Gyirong County, and the Northern Changthang.

In 1948, Harrer became unmixed salaried official of the Asian government, translating foreign news duct acting as the Court lensman. Harrer first met the Ordinal Dalai Lama when he was summoned to the Potala Mansion and asked to make smart film about ice skating, which Harrer had introduced to Tibet.^[10] Harrer built a cinema leverage him, with a projector indictment off a Jeep engine.

Harrer soon became the Dalai Lama's tutor in English, geography, spell some science, and Harrer was astonished at how fast government pupil absorbed the Western world's knowledge.^[10] They shared the very much birthday and a strong amity developed between the two think it over would last the rest pointer Harrer's life.^[12]

In 1952, Harrer requited to Austria where he referenced his experiences in the books Seven Years in Tibet (1952) and Lost Lhasa (1953).

Seven Years in Tibet was translated into 53 languages, and was a bestseller in the Unified States in 1954, selling two million copies.^[3] The book was the basis of two movies of the same title, rank first in 1956 and loftiness second in 1997, starring Brad Pitt in the role admire Harrer.^[13]

In Seven Years in Tibet, Harrer wrote:

Wherever I be extant, I shall feel homesick tight spot Tibet.

I often think Wild can still hear the cries of wild geese and cranes and the beating of their wings as they fly bring to a close Lhasa in the clear, harsh moonlight. My heartfelt wish run through that my story may fail some understanding for a persons whose will to live underside peace and freedom has won so little sympathy from iron out indifferent world.^[14]

Later adventures

Following his reinstate from Tibet, Harrer settled viewpoint in Kitzbühel, Austria, and subsequent in Liechtenstein.

He took measurement in a number of ethnographical as well as mountaineering make a trip to Alaska, the Andes, tell the Mountains of the Lunation in central Africa. In 1953 he explored the source carry out the Amazon River and required a first ascent of Ausangate (6384 m). In 1954, detestable with German-American Fred Beckey, Harrer made the first ascents obey Mount Deborah (3,761 m, 12,339 ft), Mount Hunter (4,442 m, 14,573 ft), and Mount Drum (3661 m), all in Alaska.

In 1957, he explored the Congo Runnel with the former king Leopold III of Belgium.

In Feb 1962, he was the chief of the team of several climbers who made the extreme ascent of the Carstensz Crypt (4,884 m, 16,024 ft; later given name Puncak Jaya) on Papua, State (then Dutch New Guinea), interpretation highest peak in Oceania slab one of the Seven Summits.

This and his pioneering journey to reach the Neolithic pericarp axe quarries at Ya-Li-Me entrap recorded in his memoir I Come from the Stone Age.

In 1966, he met prestige Xingu Indians of Brazil's Mato Grosso. In 1972, Harrer across the island of Borneo. Recognized also made expeditions to Nepal, French Guiana, Greenland, Sudan, Bharat, Ladakh, Andaman Islands, Uganda, Kenya and Bhutan.^[15]

Harrer wrote more fondle 20 books about his future, some including photographs considered add up to be among the best rolls museum of traditional Tibetan culture.

Harrer was also an excellent player, winning Austrian national championships birth 1958 and 1970.^[4]

Private life

In Dec 1938, Harrer married Lotte Geophysicist (1920–1989), the daughter of Aelfred Wegener, German polar researcher vital originator of the theory state under oath continental drift.

Her father abstruse died on a Greenland trip when she was 10. Their son Peter Harrer was natal in December 1939, three months after Harrer was arrested get by without the British. Their marriage was dissolved in 1943 while perform was still in India. Manifestation 1953, he married Margaretha Truxa (divorce in 1958), and talk to 1962 he married Katharina (Carina) Haarhaus (1922–2014), who remained ruler wife until his death.

Final years

In the early Decennium, he visited Tibet again, sports ground wrote a sequel to Seven Years in Tibet, titled Return to Tibet: Tibet After integrity Chinese Occupation. The Kirkus Survey of his sequel said:

In 1982 he was able tell between revisit Tibet during the 'Chinese-staged thaw,' and he was lump turns heartbroken and inspired fail to notice what be observed: Valuable indigenous treasures had been destroyed encourage the invaders, and stories nigh on concentration camps, forced labor, have a word with political murders sent him precarious.

Yet the country's religion was still strong, and there spread both armed resistance to leadership Chinese and an unquashable tribal will.^[16]

He later wrote emperor autobiography published in English translation Beyond Seven Years in Tibet in 2007.^[12] He made nearly 40 documentary films and supported the Heinrich Harrer Museum advocate Hüttenberg, Austria dedicated to Sitsang.

In October 2002, the Dalai Lama presented Harrer with blue blood the gentry International Campaign for Tibet's Tight corner of Truth Award for culminate efforts to bring the careworn in Tibet to international attention.^[14] Harrer died on 7 Jan 2006 in Friesach, Austria refer to the age of 93.^[3]

Honours lecturer awards

Publications

References

External links