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Peter Aufschnaiter
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Peter Aufschnaiter
Peter Aufschnaiter (2 November 1899 – 12 October 1973) was an Austrian mountaineer, agricultural scientist, geographer and cartographer. His experiences with fellow climber Heinrich Harrer during World War II were depicted in the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet.
Born in Kitzbühel, Austria-Hungary, Peter Aufschnaiter attended high school in Kufstein. During his school education he was drafted into military service in the First World War in 1917. After he finished his final exams in 1919 he went to Munich in Germany to study agriculture.
In his early years he began climbing in his beloved Kaiser mountain range; later, in Munich, Aufschnaiter became acquainted with several German alpinists of the time. He took part in expeditions to Kangchenjunga (1929 and 1931) in Sikkim, where he reached a height of 7,700 m (25,300 ft). On these expeditions he had first contacts with Tibetans and learned the Tibetan language.
After the Machtergreifung of 30 January 1933, he joined the Nazi Party. From 1936 he worked full-time for the German Himalaya Foundation established that year by Paul Bauer.
After several attempts at the Nanga Parbat, Aufschnaiter led a small four-man expedition in 1939, including Heinrich Harrer, to the Diamir Face with the aim of finding an easier route to the peak. Having concluded that the face was viable, they were in Karachi at the end of August waiting for a freighter to take them home. The ship being long overdue, Harrer, Ludwig and Lobenhoffer tried to reach Persia with their shaky car, but several hundred kilometers northwest of Karachi they were detained by British colonial authorities and escorted back to Karachi, where Aufschnaiter had stayed on.
Two days later, war was declared and on 3 September 1939, all were put behind barbed wire to be transferred to a detention camp at Ahmednagar near Bombay two weeks later. They considered escaping to Portuguese Goa, but when further transferred to Dehradun, they found Tibet more promising. Their goal was to reach the Japanese front in Burma or China.
Aufschnaiter and Harrer escaped and were re-captured a number of times before finally succeeding. On 29 April 1944 after lunch a group of seven, Rolf Magener and Heins von Have disguised as British officers, Harrer, Aufschnaiter, the Salzburger Bruno Treipel (aka Treipl) and the Berliners Hans Kopp and Sattler, disguised as native Indian workers, walked out of the camp. While Magener and von Have took the train to Calcutta and from there found their way to the Japanese army in Burma, the others headed for the closest border. After Sattler had given up on 10 May, the remaining four entered Tibet crossing the Tsang Chok-la Pass (5,896 metres) on 17 May 1944 and thereafter split into two pairs: Harrer and Kopp; Aufschnaiter and Treipel. On 17 June Treipel, exhausted, bought himself a horse and rode back to the lowlands. Several months later, when the remaining three were still without visas for Tibet, Kopp gave up too and left for Nepal (where he was handed over to the British within a few days).
Aufschnaiter and Harrer, helped by the former's knowledge of the Tibetan language, proceeded to the capital of Lhasa which they reached on 15 January 1946, having crossed Western Tibet (passing the sacred Mount Kailash), the South-West with Gyirong County and the Northern Changthang Plateau.
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Peter Aufschnaiter
Peter Aufschnaiter (2 November 1899 – 12 October 1973) was an Austrian mountaineer, agricultural scientist, geographer and cartographer. His experiences with fellow climber Heinrich Harrer during World War II were depicted in the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet.
Born in Kitzbühel, Austria-Hungary, Peter Aufschnaiter attended high school in Kufstein. During his school education he was drafted into military service in the First World War in 1917. After he finished his final exams in 1919 he went to Munich in Germany to study agriculture.
In his early years he began climbing in his beloved Kaiser mountain range; later, in Munich, Aufschnaiter became acquainted with several German alpinists of the time. He took part in expeditions to Kangchenjunga (1929 and 1931) in Sikkim, where he reached a height of 7,700 m (25,300 ft). On these expeditions he had first contacts with Tibetans and learned the Tibetan language.
After the Machtergreifung of 30 January 1933, he joined the Nazi Party. From 1936 he worked full-time for the German Himalaya Foundation established that year by Paul Bauer.
After several attempts at the Nanga Parbat, Aufschnaiter led a small four-man expedition in 1939, including Heinrich Harrer, to the Diamir Face with the aim of finding an easier route to the peak. Having concluded that the face was viable, they were in Karachi at the end of August waiting for a freighter to take them home. The ship being long overdue, Harrer, Ludwig and Lobenhoffer tried to reach Persia with their shaky car, but several hundred kilometers northwest of Karachi they were detained by British colonial authorities and escorted back to Karachi, where Aufschnaiter had stayed on.
Two days later, war was declared and on 3 September 1939, all were put behind barbed wire to be transferred to a detention camp at Ahmednagar near Bombay two weeks later. They considered escaping to Portuguese Goa, but when further transferred to Dehradun, they found Tibet more promising. Their goal was to reach the Japanese front in Burma or China.
Aufschnaiter and Harrer escaped and were re-captured a number of times before finally succeeding. On 29 April 1944 after lunch a group of seven, Rolf Magener and Heins von Have disguised as British officers, Harrer, Aufschnaiter, the Salzburger Bruno Treipel (aka Treipl) and the Berliners Hans Kopp and Sattler, disguised as native Indian workers, walked out of the camp. While Magener and von Have took the train to Calcutta and from there found their way to the Japanese army in Burma, the others headed for the closest border. After Sattler had given up on 10 May, the remaining four entered Tibet crossing the Tsang Chok-la Pass (5,896 metres) on 17 May 1944 and thereafter split into two pairs: Harrer and Kopp; Aufschnaiter and Treipel. On 17 June Treipel, exhausted, bought himself a horse and rode back to the lowlands. Several months later, when the remaining three were still without visas for Tibet, Kopp gave up too and left for Nepal (where he was handed over to the British within a few days).
Aufschnaiter and Harrer, helped by the former's knowledge of the Tibetan language, proceeded to the capital of Lhasa which they reached on 15 January 1946, having crossed Western Tibet (passing the sacred Mount Kailash), the South-West with Gyirong County and the Northern Changthang Plateau.
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