Heinrich Harrer ( German: Heinrich Harrer ; July 6, 1912 , Obergossen, market commune Huttenberg , Carinthia , Austria-Hungary - January 7, 2006 , Friesach , Carinthia , Austria ) - Austrian traveler, climber and writer, SS oberscharführer . Mentor and childhood friend of the Dalai Lama XIV . He became widely known thanks to the book of memoirs on a trip to Tibet, “ Seven Years in Tibet ”, and the 1997 film of the same name based on it, where Brad Pitt plays the role of G. Harrer.
| Heinrich Harrer | |
|---|---|
| him. Heinrich harrer | |
 | |
| Date of Birth | July 6, 1912 |
| Place of Birth | Obergossen, Huttenberg , Austria |
| Date of death | January 7, 2006 (aged 93) |
| Place of death | Friesach , Austria |
| Citizenship |  Austria  Third Reich |
| Occupation | climber, writer |
| Father | Joseph Harrer |
| Mother | Johanna Harrer |
| Spouse | Lotte Wegener (1938-1943); Ett Trucks (1952-1953); Karin Harrer |
| Children | Ralph's son |
| Awards and prizes |
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| Site | harrerportfolio.com |
Content
Biography
Early years
Born July 6, 1912 in Obergossen in the family of a postal employee. He attended real schools in Brook an der Moore and Graz . In 1929 he joined the Graz Academic Sports Society.
From 1933 to 1938 he studied geography and went in for sports at the University of Graz . In October 1933 he joined the SA [1] .
Harrer was an excellent skier . He was a candidate for the 1936 Olympics . However, the Austrian team boycotted these Games. However, he won the downhill competition during the World Student Games.
Harrer’s most outstanding climbing achievement was the first ascent of the Eiger North Wall in 1938 [2] . Thanks to him, he became famous as "the best climber in Europe."
April 1, 1938 joined the ranks of the SS (No. 73.896), May 1, 1938 became a member of the NSDAP . He was a sports instructor SS. In the same year, he married Charlotte (Lotte) Wegener, the daughter of geologist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener [3] . In December 1939, their son Ralph was born. In 1943, they divorced, after Lotta sent a captive to Henry, a form for divorce, asking him not to interfere with her new love.
Travel to Tibet
In 1939, Harrer went to British India as a member of the German climbing expedition to climb Nang Parbat . Climbers did not manage to reach the summit, but they paved the way along the Diamir wall of this mountain. At the end of the expedition, all its members were captured by the British colonial authorities in connection with the outbreak of World War II, and sent to a prisoner of war camp in India.
On April 29, 1944, Harrer and three other prisoners managed to escape. Having come a long way through the Himalayas , Harrer and his friend Peter Aufschnaiter came to Lhasa in February 1946. Harrer was destined to stay in Tibet for seven years. He spoke a lot to the Dalai Lama , who was 11 years old at that time, about the Western countries that were then outlandish to Tibetans. This fact (as well as some information about his participation with the Aufscheiter in organizing the armed struggle of the Tibetans against Chinese aggression in Tibet in 1950) is used by modern Chinese propaganda as "evidence" of the connection between the Tibetan leadership and the Nazis, although the Dalai Lama himself later said that in at that time he did not know anything about the Nazis [4] .
Return
After the capture of Tibet by Chinese forces in 1950, Harrer returned to Austria. Here he wrote the book "Seven Years in Tibet."
In subsequent years, he took part in a number of ethnographic and climbing expeditions, made several first ascents in Alaska (for example, he first conquered Mount Hunter ), in Africa and Oceania .
In 1958, Heinrich Harrer took up golf and became an Austrian amateur champion. At the age of eighty, he continued to actively engage in skiing.
Heinrich Harrer died on January 7, 2006.
Activities
Harrer ’s book , Seven Years in Tibet, has been translated into 53 languages. She was filmed in ( 1997 ), by Jean-Jacques Anno ( Brad Pitt starred as Harrer). In total, 23 books came out from under his pen.
In his homeland, in Huttenberg , Harrer founded the museum, which contains a rich collection of ethnographic materials from various countries in Asia and Africa, as well as photographs and equipment of Heinrich Harrer himself.
Over his more than 600 expeditions, Harrer has repeatedly won various awards.
Heinrich Harrer and the incumbent Dalai Lama remained close friends all their lives. In 2002, the Dalai Lama praised Harrer for the efforts he made to draw the attention of the world community to the situation in Tibet.
Quote
| No matter where I live, I will always miss Tibet. It often seems to me that I still hear the cries of wild geese and cranes and the noise of their wings as they fly over Lhasa in clear and cold moonlight. I sincerely want my story to arouse a little understanding of people whose desire to live in peace and freedom has received so little sympathy in an indifferent world. ” - Heinrich Harrer,“ Seven Years in Tibet. ” |
Bibliography
- Heinrich Harrer. Seven Years in Tibet: Memoirs
- Heinrich Harrer. White spider (inaccessible link) . Mountain Encyclopedia. Date of treatment February 12, 2010. Archived on August 25, 2011.
Notes
- ↑ Wiliam Cole, AP: Heinrich Harrer ist tot Der Spiegel 7. Januar 2006
- ↑ Harrer, Henry. White spider . Mountain Encyclopedia. Date of treatment February 12, 2010. Archived on August 25, 2011.
- ↑ Martin, Douglas Heinrich Harrer, 93, Explorer of Tibet, Dies . The New York Times . Date of treatment January 15, 2012. Archived February 4, 2012.
- ↑ Recent years of independence