Product Code Database
Hermann Buhl (21 September 1924 – 27 June 1957) was an Austrian Mountaineering. His accomplishments include the first ascents of Nanga Parbat in 1953 and Broad Peak in 1957. He is one of the pioneers of the alpine style. Buhl was the father of Austrian-German writer, publisher, and freelance journalist, Kriemhild "Krimi" Buhl. Official website of Kriemhild "Krimi" Buhl
After finishing secondary school, Hermann Buhl began an apprenticeship as a forwarding agent. World War II interrupted his commercial studies, and he joined the Alpine troops, as a mountain infantryman, in 1943. Buhl participated in the Monte Cassino, in Italy. 1949 he was founding member of the mountain rescue in Innsbruck.
In March 1951, Hermann Buhl married Eugenie (“Generl”) Högerle († 2025) from Ramsau near Berchtesgaden and in the same year became the father of Kriemhild Buhl, who would later become a writer. This was followed by daughters Silvia and Ingrid and a change of residence to his wife's hometown.
In 1957, Hermann Buhl was photographed sharing a moment with his wife and daughter, bidding farewell before embarking on another expedition. Less is known about Buhl's other daughters. In her book "Papa Lalalaya", Kriemhild Buhl offers a personal account of her father's duality as an extreme mountaineer and a devoted family man. She recounts how, despite the inherent risks of his climbing pursuits, Buhl remained deeply connected to his family, often being around his young daughters and valuing the moments spent with them.
His work as a mountain guide did not earn him much. Buhl's commitment to his family was evident even in his professional life. To support them financially, he worked as a salesman and advisor for mountaineering equipment at Sporthaus Schuster, a sportswear store in Munich.
The ascent of Nanga Parbat on 3 July 1953 is Buhl's most famous summit victory. It took place as part of the Willy Merkl Memorial Expedition, organized by the Munich doctor Karl Herrligkoffer and led in conjunction with Peter Aschenbrenner as mountaineering leader. Buhl, helped by a change in the weather after an initial monsoon, reached Camp V at 6,900 m on July 2 together with Walter Frauenberger, Hans Ertl and Otto Kempter, where he and Kempter spent the night while the other two descended with the porters to Camp IV.
Buhl set off for the summit single-handedly and without additional oxygen at around 02:30 in the night and finally reached it with his last ounce of strength at around 19:00. As proof of his ascent, Hermann Buhl left his ice axe and the Pakistani flag at the summit. Kempter, who had followed an hour later, had had to give up at an altitude of around 7,400 m on the plateau at the Silbersattel due to a bout of weakness and had returned to Camp V. There, he waited with Frauenberger and Ertl, who had come back up, for Buhl's return.
Buhl spent the following night alone, about 1.2 km (4,000 feet) higher up than Camp V. He was only able to survive at an altitude of almost 8,000 metres without bivouac equipment because of the unusually favourable weather conditions. However, he suffered frostbite on two of his toes and still had most of the descent ahead of him. At times, he was in a dangerous state of apathy and was haunted by perceptual illusions, which he took Pervitin to combat.
After 41 hours and in states of extreme exhaustion and dehydration, Buhl arrived back at Camp V, where hopes of his return had already begun to fade. In the days that followed, he also managed the descent to the main camp under his own steam, arriving there on July 7. Here it turned out that his frostbitten toes could not be saved and had to be amputated. He therefore had to be carried on the rest of the return march. Hans Ertl made a documentary film called Nanga Parbat about this expedition.
A dispute arose between Herrligkoffer and Buhl after the expedition due to Herrligkoffer's authoritarian leadership and Buhl's refusal to follow orders without question. This led to legal issues over exploitation rights and Buhl's desire to publish his own account of the summit victory, which he achieved despite being ordered to desist citation.
Buhl is the only mountaineer to have made the first ascent of an eight-thousander solo, which he achieved on his initial visit to the Greater Ranges. (2025). 9780300115017, Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300115017
His monumental efforts, which included spending the night standing untethered on a tiny pedestal too small to squat upon on the edge of a 60-degree ice slope, have become mountaineering legend, described by Chris Bonington as " a magnificent achievement". (1981). 9780340255995, Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 9780340255995
In 1999, Buhl's ice axe, which had been left behind on the summit, was found by a Japanese expedition and returned to his widow.
Due to his sensational first ascents in the Alps and the Karakoram, he is still considered by experts to be one of the most important rock climbers and high-altitude mountaineers of all time. His approach to extreme alpinism broke with the national mountaineering ideals of earlier decades. Buhl was guided by personal motives such as the desire to push the limits. Rather than heavy equipment battles on the mountain, he preferred light luggage, fast ascents and alpinism without additional oxygen. His ascents on rock and snow, solo and as a rope leader, his attitude towards the mountain and his physical elegance have been assessed by such contemporary luminaries as Kurt Diemberger, Marcus Schmuck, Heinrich Harrer, Walter Bonatti and Gaston Rébuffat. He was also an idol and hero of climbers of younger generations, such as Reinhold Messner, Peter Habeler and Hansjörg Auer.
49 years after Buhl's death on Chogolisa, the Austrian mountaineer and alpine historian Markus Kronthaler undertook the expedition Auf den Spuren von Hermann Buhl on Broad Peak and lost his life on July 8, 2006.
His expedition to Nanga Parbat was dramatized by Donald Shebib in the 1986 film The Climb, based in part on Buhl's own writings about the expedition and starring Bruce Greenwood as Buhl.Rick Groen, "Canadian director stumbles and can't make The Climb". The Globe and Mail, October 16, 1987.
|
|
