Heinrich Harrer - The White Spider

At that time in July 1937, Fraissl and “Brankerl” were in their tent near Alpiglen; so were Liebl and Rieger; and Primas and Gollackner too, two men from Salzburg.

Just when Andreas Heckmair had pronounced it as unlikely that the weather-conditions would improve sufficiently to warrant an attempt on the Face and turned his back on it on July 15th, Ludwig Vörg and Hias Rebitsch arrived, followed a little later by Otto Eidenschink, the first to climb the West Wall of the Totenkirchl direct, and his fellow-member of the Munich Section, Möller. It was an élite of the climbing fraternity who were together at the bottom of the wall or succeeding one another down there during the summer of 1937. Heckmair left and Vörg arrived without actually meeting one another, or ever suspecting that they might be going to form a single rope resulting in a common success the following year.

And besides the “Storm Troops”, one kept on meeting members of the Voluntary Rescue Service, particularly of the Munich Section, ready to try the Face and, above all, to climb to the rescue if there was an accident. The guides of Grindelwald, too, were holding themselves in readiness, without orders or obligation—just as they had in 1936.

The large body of newspaper readers demanded to be kept continually informed of what was happening on the Eiger. “Every stroke of an axe, every tug on a rope is recorded,” remarked the Zürich paper Sport sarcastically.

Yes, the much sought-after sensation was on the way again. Not really a sensation but a tragedy; and yet not a sheer tragedy like those of recent years, but a very sad chapter in the long history of the Eiger. It started on Thursday July 15th, that same Thursday on which Ludwig Vörg, waiting for Hias Rebitsch down in Grindelwald, stood staring doubtfully up at the rain, which set in towards evening; the same Thursday, when Andreas Heckmair and Lösch went down to Grindelwald without knowing that a certain Ludwig Vörg was standing moodily at a nearby window. The Thursday on which Franz Primas and Bertl Gollackner started up the Lauper Route.

Primas was a well-known, extremely competent climber from Salzburg. He belonged to the climbing club, “Die Bergler”, formed by a number of the best Salzburg climbers. On a ski-tour in the Tennengebirge, close to their home, Primas had come to know Gollackner, hardly nineteen years old, but a good rock-climber and a plucky ski-runner full of the spirit of adventure. Secretly, without a word to anyone, these two decided to go and “have a look” at the North Face of the Eiger. It would be quite wrong to smile in a superior fashion at the mountain enthusiasm of men like these who, with empty pockets, mount their bicycles on the long pilgrimage, just to have a look at the peak of their dreams.

Primas was cautious and he also felt responsible for his youthful companion—he was perhaps lacking in that deep knowledge of the Western Alps which would have warned him to explore a mountain from every angle before tackling its most difficult side. But he was certainly not charging blindly up the North Face which, by a hideous pun, the masses had re-christened the Murder Face. 1 He wanted to take a sideways look into the North Face from its eastern rim, approaching it by the Lauper Route. True, only a few days ago, the two Italians, Piravano and Detassis had only just escaped with their lives from a similar reconnaissance. But Primas and Gollackner only wanted to try the Lauper Route, that great climb thought out by the brains of the best Swiss climbers and opened up by the ice-axes of the best Swiss guides. Just the Lauper Route….

No, they had no intention of climbing the Eiger’s North-East Face; only a part of it, so that they could get their sideways look at the North Face. Just as they were starting to climb, Gollackner remembered that he had left his bag of provisions in the tent. Very annoying, but they would be back by evening, and Franz had enough along with him for both on a single day’s climb: a crust of bread and a hunk of sausage.

They started up and climbed on. Once again the mountain chose to be unkind. The conditions were even worse than those met by the Italians—avalanches, showers of stones, rushing torrents. Every foot of the climb was treacherous, slippery. Primas realised that there was no going back; a bivouac was unavoidable. A bivouac without a tent-sack—hadn’t they meant to be back by nightfall?—and without food. No, there was still some food: a smaller crust and a shorter sausage, to last till tomorrow. No, not till tomorrow, but till they got back to civilisation….

They endured a cold, wet, perilous bivouac on the precipice, and it robbed nineteen-year-old Bertl of much of his strength. But throughout the next day, another day of bad weather, Primas showed his great skill as a climber. He led up through the steep and dangerous wall; by evening both had safely reached the cornice of the Mittellegi Ridge. There they dug themselves a rough and ready cave in the snow for their second bivouac. In the night the storm rose to a blizzard. Their food ran out. The bitter cold numbed their muscles and their will-power; but next morning, Primas tried to force himself and his exhausted partner to move on again. And then something absolutely incredible happened: Primas led on upwards towards the summit of the Eiger. Surely he knew that down below, on the crest of the Ridge, there stood a hut, the Mittellegi Hut? Had he formed the opinion that a traverse of the summit was possible, a descent of the ridge impracticable?

Just below the steep step, where the fixed rope was hanging, now thickly encased in ice, Gollackner’s strength gave out. Yet another bivouac in the snow, in the storm. Primas shouted for help; Gollackner was past all shouting. But Primas did not seek his own personal safety, alone; he remained loyally by his friend’s side. His feet lost all sensation and were soon frost-bitten. His sacrifice was, however, in vain. On Sunday July 18th, their fourth day on the mountain, Bertl Gollackner, nineteen years old, died on the Mittellegi Ridge. The blizzard muffled his friend’s calls for help….

All the same, people were thinking hard about the two Salzburg climbers, even if their S.O.S. remained unheard. Though nothing could be seen of them, there were many who thought they had seen something when the cloud curtain lifted for a moment either on Saturday, or was it Friday? Somebody spread the rumour that Primas and Gollackner were climbing down. Then again, the latest news at the tents near Alpiglen was that a rescue party had left Grindelwald to search the Mittellegi Ridge and the upper part of the precipice.

But suppose they were lower down?

Matthias Rebitsch and Ludwig Vörg—whom we shall be getting to know more intimately later on—had erected their tent near Alpiglen on Sunday the 18th; but their worries about the two Salzburg climbers gave them no respite. If the guides were searching higher up, they would start a search lower down. They left their tent at about 4 a.m. on Monday the 19th accompanied at first by two friends anxious to help, Liebl and Rieger. A search of the avalanche-cones at the foot of the Lauper Wall revealed no trace of the missing men. Rebitsch and Vörg climbed on; but there was nothing to be seen on the rock-ledges further up. They then made rapid progress till brought to a halt by an overhanging step. The only way through it was up a chimney. At the moment there was a waterfall pouring down it, and there was no other way; so Rebitsch and Vörg went up it. Soaked to the skin, they searched the network of ledges in the central section of the cliff thoroughly. Here too they found no signs of Primas and Gollackner. So long as they had not fallen off, there was always hope for their survival.

Rebitsch and Vörg were the third party that July to find the Wall had sprung to dangerous life, cutting off their retreat. The warmth of the day had loosened parts of the cornice which came shooting down, endangering all below. There were avalanches, waterfalls, stones into the bargain. No, for Rebitsch and Vörg there would once again be no hope of a return to their tent at Alpiglen. For them, too, the only way of escape lay upwards.