Günter Dyhrenfurth
Günter Dyhrenfurth | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 12, 1886 |
| Died | April 14, 1975 (aged 88) Ringgenberg, Switzerland |
| Spouse(s) | Hettie Dyhrenfurth (first) Irene (second)[1] |
| Family | Norman Dyhrenfurth (son) |
Günter Oskar Dyhrenfurth (12 November 1886 – 14 April 1975) was a German-born, German and Swiss mountaineer, geologist and Himalayan explorer. He won a gold medal in alpinism at the 1936 Summer Olympics, the third and final time the award was offered.[2][3]
Biography
He led the International Himalaya Expedition (IHE) 1930 to Kangchenjunga, and another one, IHE 1934, to the Baltoro region in the Karakorams, especially to explore the Gasherbrum-Group. This expedition made the first ascent of Sia Kangri and some of its sub-peaks and provided detailed information about the accessibility of the 8000ers Gasherbrum I and II.[4] The first ascent of Gasherbrum I in 1958 was accomplished via the route proposed by Dyhrenfurth following the so-called IHE-spur and the SE-ridge.
Dyhrenfurth was "an influential alpinist and chronicler of early Himalayan mountaineering".[5] In the 1930s, he began to compile tables of High Asian mountains and ,with Anders Bolinder, he kept records of all major mountaineering expeditions to the Himalaya, these were published annually in the Swiss journal Die Alpen, and later in the Berge der Welt (Mountain World) year-books, published by the Swiss Foundation of Alpine Research.[6]
He died on 14 April 1975 in Ringgenberg, Switzerland.[1]
His son Norman G. Dyhrenfurth was also a mountaineer and became an important expedition leader and film maker.[7]
Selected bibliography
- Dyhrenfurth, Günter (1931). Himalaya. Unsere Expedition 1930. Berlin: Scherl.
- Dyhrenfurth, Günter (1939). Baltoro, ein Himalaya-Buch. Basel: B. Schwabe & Co.
- Dyhrenfurth, Günter (1953). To the third Pole. London: W. Laurie.
- Dyhrenfurth, Günter (1953). L' Himalaya, troisième pôle: les "8.000" de la terre. Paris: Payot.
- Dyhrenfurth, Günter (1954). Das Buch vom Nanga Parbat, die Geschichte seiner Besteigung, 1895-1953. Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung.
References
- ^ a b Bolinder, Anders (1976). "In Memoriam - Dr Günter Oskar Dyhrenfurth 1886-1975" (PDF). Alpine Journal. #81 (325): 268–269. ISSN 0065-6569. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
- ^ "Günter Dyhrenfurth". Olympedia. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
- ^ Berg, Aimee (5 February 2014). "'The most beautiful kind of heroism' that is no longer an Olympic event". Al Jazeera America. Retrieved 5 April 2025.
- ^ "The Karakoram". Himalayan Journal. 7. 1935. Retrieved 18 December 2025.
- ^ Krakauer, Jon (1997). Into Thin Air: : A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster. Macmillan. p. 14. ISBN 9780333695272. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
- ^ Eberhard Jurgalski (2008). History of chronicles, 8000ers.com, retrieved 9 May 2015.
- ^ "John F. Kennedy XXXV President of the United States: 1961-1963; 296 - Remarks Upon Presenting the Hubbard Medal to the Leader of the American Everest Expedition". The American Presidency Project. University of California, Santa Barbara. July 8, 1963. Retrieved July 7, 2013.