BBC: The Eiger - Wall of Death

BBC: The Eiger - Wall of Death

BBC north face of the Eiger The Beckoning Silence The Eiger Toni Kurz Wall of Death

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A biography of one of the world’s most challenging mountains and its infamous North Face. The Eiger is home to Europe’s largest glacier, the world’s highest-altitude railway and the world’s most famous rock face; the North Wall, known as the Death Wall. Here, countless climbers have fallen to their icy graves, defeated by the vertical mile of shattered limestone rock and polished ice fields. Following the journey up the North Face by a top British climber and drawing on rich archive footage and stunning cinematography, we capture the very essence of the Eiger, its unique personality and the spectacular terrain that draws people toward it and inspires them to risk their lives in an attempt to conquer it.

North face of the Eiger climing Tragedy - The Beckoning Silence

North face of the Eiger climing Tragedy - The Beckoning Silence

Eiger north face of the Eiger The Beckoning Silence Toni Kurz

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The Beckoning Silence is a 2007 British television film that follows and retraces the unsuccessful attempt to scale the north face of the Eiger led by Toni Kurz in 1936. The film features climber Joe Simpson, whose book of the same name inspired the film.

Toni Kurz (13 January 1913 – 22 July 1936) was a German mountain climber active in the 1930s. He died during an attempt to climb the Eiger north face with his partner Andreas Hinterstoisser. In July 1936, Kurz and Hinterstoisser left Berchtesgaden, where they were serving in the military, and traveled by bicycle to Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland to attempt to climb the Eiger north face. While on the mountain, they met up with two Austrian climbers—Edi Rainer and Willy Angerer—and the four decided to continue their attempt together.

During the ascent, Angerer was injured by falling rocks loosened by the warmth of the rising sun as they crossed the first ice field. As a result of Angerer's worsening condition and their slow progress across the second ice field, they abandoned the attempt on the Eiger and decided to descend. A further challenge arose when Kurz and his comrades failed to retrace their route across the area now known as the Hinterstoisser Traverse and had to climb downwards. As the result of another avalanche, Hinterstoisser himself became disconnected, plummeted down the mountain, and perished. Later, Willy Angerer, now climbing below Kurz, was smashed against the wall, dying instantly. Edi Rainer, the climber who had been securing the other two, was pulled against the wall and died minutes later of asphyxiation. Kurz, alone now, remained uninjured.

 Later that day, amid worsening weather, a rescue team attempted to reach Kurz from below, ascending by means of the railway tunnel that ran through the mountain, the Jungfraubahn. They could not reach Kurz due to the severity of the storm and were forced to leave him dangling unprotected and exposed to the elements for the entire night. The next day, the team again attempted to effect a rescue; Kurz himself made the effort, despite a frozen hand due to losing a glove, to abseil down the face of the mountain and reach the team. To accomplish this, he first had to cut loose the dead body of his comrade hanging below him, then climb up and cut loose his other dead comrade. To increase the length of his rope, he unraveled it and tied it together again. This entire process took five grueling hours. He then lowered the rope to the waiting rescuers, who attached their own rope.

The mountain guides only had one long rope – 60 meters – with them. Hans Schlunegger just put it between his back and his rucksack (not into his rucksack) to save some time. This was not an unusual practice for them. Unfortunately when he made a sudden movement the rope dropped and fell down to the foot of the wall. As a result the team combined two shorter ropes to reach the required length; however the combined ropes still fell short. Kurz pulled up their rope, fixed it, and began his abseiling descent. He was stopped a mere couple of meters above his rescuers by the knot. To abseil any further he would have had to raise himself enough to release the pressure on the knot and let it pass through his gear. Desperately, Kurz tried to move himself past the knot, but in vain. Facing the futility of his situation, he said only "I can't anymore" and died. His body was later recovered by a German team.

Toni Kurz