Mountain Clients

On the 21 November, 2002, British climbers attended a talk by Heinrich Harrer the ex-Nazi SS Officer (membership number 6307081) who had been invited to give a discourse by the Royal Geographical Society. For years, Harrer refused to admit his involvement with the German Nazi Schutstaffel and the NSDAP of the Nazi Party. Certainly, he makes no mention whatsoever of his Nazi past in his first book: The White Spider a book that makes much of telling the – truth.

Harrer is of course not the first climber with Nazi involvement in his past to have been feted by the British climbing establishment. Anderl Heckmair with whom Harrer made the first ascent of the North face of the Eiger in 1938 with financial assistance and support from the Nazi Party (responsible for millions of deaths in Europe), was invited; was the guest of ‘honour’ at Plas-y-Brenin in 1984 by the BMC, as a guest of the – BMG, Association of British Mountain Guides. Both men, continued to work for the Nazi Party as mountain (SS) troop’s instructors after their Eiger climb even though, it was common knowledge in 1938 that the Nazi Party had already banned all Jewish climbers (they would also be deported to various Nazi ‘rest centre’s) from German climbing clubs.