Mr. Schneider, how did your passion for the mountains begin?

Bernd Steinle

Editor in the department "Germany and the World".

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That was in 1938. I was 13 years old and was visiting my aunt in Zurich.

She took me on a vacation to Grindelwald.

Until then I had seen the Brocken as the highest mountain, 1140 meters.

Now I was standing under the Eiger.

An absolutely overwhelming impression.

I had no idea that there was such a thing in the world.

And further imagining that there are people climbing up there was fascinating.

1938 was also the year in which Anderl Heckmair, Heinrich Harrer, Ludwig Vörg and Fritz Kasparek climbed the north face of the Eiger for the first time.

At the time, the entire German press was fuming over the Eiger.

I came back to school as if I had been there climbing the north face.

That accentuated the Eiger experience with the wish: It would be great if you could stand up there.

Then came the Second World War.

It was perfectly clear: I could not reach my Eiger as long as the war lasted.

Switzerland became a dream country, more and more.

I lay in wait, started mountaineering in the Bavarian Alps, on the Watzmann and elsewhere.

But the dream was to come back to Grindelwald.

When was it?

I only managed to do that in 1952. The Eiger was too difficult for me as a beginner, the north face anyway.

First I climbed my first four-thousander, the Mönch.

From then on it increased.

Then, up until 1986, I went to the mountains as often as possible.

What attracted you to mountaineering?

First just the idea: There are people who are up there.

What kind of people are they?

How do you get up there?

It was a combination of Switzerland and longing and inaccessibility and the Eiger - and probably an inkling that one would ascend to a kingdom that once belonged to the gods: "Glory to God in the highest" and "Jesus ascended to heaven".

In any case, these three dates cannot be a coincidence: in 1783 the first free balloon rises, in 1786 mountaineering is born with the first ascent of Mont Blanc, in 1789 the French Revolution proclaims atheism - the sky is empty!

There is still a whiff of triumph over the peaks.

But first there is the physical strain.

The exertion as such is already a pleasure, as can be seen in marathon runners.

To my great amazement there are thousands of volunteers taking part in city runs in New York, Hamburg, Berlin.

The people have nothing but terrible hardships, and in the end they are as they were at the beginning on a dusty road - desolate.

If I have the exertion, I stand on the Eiger.

It's a difference like day and night.

But the exertion endured is a pleasure, and the gluttony afterwards even more so.

When I came back from a big tour and there were only water glasses for the beer in the holiday apartment, I was outraged.

I poured two bottles of beer into a salad bowl and drank.

Sitting in the tub.

Delights that cannot be had without extreme exertion.

Mountaineering can also become a mental challenge.

The uncertainty of reaching the goal is much greater than in a marathon.

I don't know if there is a spot that I can't climb technically.

There is a ridge, and by all reasonableness you never cross it, for man is not made to cross such a ridge.

So: Wrestle your weaker self, shut up and go over there!

Half driven by the fear of your own anger in the evening in the valley: you really wanted to climb the Mittellegi ridge on the Eiger, that's the dream of your life, and then you turned back halfway!

I couldn't stand it on my own.