In July 1936, four experienced climbers—Toni Kurz, Anderl Hinterstoisser, Willy Angerer, and Edi Rainer—embarked on an ambitious attempt to be the first to summit the formidable north face of the Eiger in Switzerland's Bernese Alps. This imposing 4,000-meter wall, known ominously as the "Murder Wall," had already claimed the lives of two climbers the previous year due to its volatile conditions, including avalanches, rockfalls, and severe storms.
The team, comprised of German climbers Kurz and Hinterstoisser and Austrian mountaineers Angerer and Rainer, began their ascent with remarkable speed. Hinterstoisser successfully navigated a difficult rock slab, later known as the Hinterstoisser Traverse, and secured a rope for the others. However, their decision to remove the rope after crossing, believing they would descend via a different route, proved to be a critical miscalculation.
The Descent into Catastrophe
As they pressed onward, the climbers entered an ice field notorious for rockfall. A falling rock struck Angerer, leaving him severely injured. When the team decided to retreat, they discovered the Hinterstoisser Traverse had become coated with verglas, a thin, treacherous layer of ice. A violent storm then descended, trapping them high on the mountain with no clear path up or down.
A desperate attempt to descend led to further tragedy. Hinterstoisser, unclipped from the group to prepare a final abseil, was still approximately 200 feet from safety when a massive avalanche swept across the face. The powerful force dislodged Angerer and Kurz from their precarious perch. Kurz was left dangling, while Angerer was either killed by the impact or by the tangled ropes. Rainer was pinned against a snap-link by the weight of the falling climbers, crushing his diaphragm, and Hinterstoisser, who was no longer attached to any ropes, plunged to his death approximately 2,000 feet below.
Angerer and Rainer eventually succumbed to their injuries and exposure, leaving Kurz as the sole survivor. Villagers below watched helplessly as Kurz clung to the sheer rock face. Despite worsening weather, veteran Swiss mountain guides Christian Almer Jr. and Hans Schlunegger launched a rescue attempt. They managed to position themselves below Kurz but were still about 150 feet away, with the route to him deemed impossible due to ice.
A Final, Doomed Struggle
Forced to abandon the rescue attempt due to nightfall, the guides left Kurz suspended alone on the mountainside. Miraculously, he survived until dawn, enduring the freezing temperatures and small rockfalls. When the guides returned, they realized rescue from above was still not feasible. Kurz's only hope was to descend towards them, which required him to free himself from the ropes holding his deceased companions. He cut away Angerer's body and painstakingly worked for five hours to untwist the frozen ropes, using his knife and even his teeth to create a single line for descent.
As Kurz began his perilous descent, the rescuers saw his legs dangling beneath an overhang. However, a cruel twist of fate intervened: the knot joining the ropes jammed against his harness's snap-link, leaving him just meters above the waiting guides. Despite his desperate efforts to free the knot with his frozen hands and teeth, he could not dislodge it. His final words, uttered just before his body slumped forward beyond their reach, were: "I'm finished."