Visser Philips Christiaan

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Biografie:
In memoriam Dr. P. C. Visser
Am 3. Mai 1955 verschied Dr. P. C. Visser, Mitglied des ÖAK, einer der besten niederländischen Alpinisten, Prominenter im Königlichen Niederländischen Alpen-Verein, dessen Vorstand er 1907-1924 angehörte, Ehrenmitglied seit 1922. Die Niederländische Stiftung für Hochgebirgsexploration verliert mit ihm ihren Vorsitzenden,
Für den Kreis der niederländischen Alpinisten war Visser das Zentrum und der Inspirator. Seinen Freunden war er der treue, gute und mutige Kamerad; für Ältere und Jüngere eine fesselnde, willenskräftige, stärkende Figur, ein Wegweiser in Schwierig-keiten, ein Führer im Labyrinth des gesellschaftlichen Lebens.
Visser war Exponent des klassischen englischen Alpinismus; Ehrfurcht vor dem Berg und Sicherheit während der Bergtour waren für ihn Grundsätze.
In seinen Karakorum-Vorträgen machte er immer Unterschiede zwischen den ästhetischen, den intellektuellen und den sportlichen Elementen des Bergsteigens. Er war begeistert von der „beispiellosen Schönheit der Berge"; wissenschaftliche Studien führten ihn vor allem ins Reich der Glaziologie; dieser Arbeit verdankte er sein Ehrendoktorat der Innsbrucker Universität. Seine vornehme Einstellung zum Bergsteigen bewies er durch gründliche geistige und körperliche Vorbereitung und durch gewissenhafte Ausführung seiner kleinen und großen Touren.
Viele Ersteigungen inner- und außerhalb der Alpen hat er vollbracht. Führerlos erstieg er mit Geo Finch: Dent du Géant, Aiguille du Moine und Dent du Requin und später Zinalrothorn. Neue Routen beging er u. a. auf das Lauteraarhorn und auf den Lyskamm, Er bevorzugte die Walliser Alpen und das Montblanc-Gebiet und führte dort viele große Touren mehrmals aus.
Als Bergführer begleitete ihn — auch im Karakorum — der berühmte Franz Lochmatter. Bei seinen Touren waren Rekordjagd, Wettkampf, moderne Technik Bannware. Ein starker Drang nach Abenteuern, nach unbekannten Gebieten brachten Visser 1914 in den Kaukasus und zwischen 1922 und 1935 viermal in das Karakorum. Diese Expeditionen brachten große Erfolge in wissenschaftlicher und sportlicher Hinsicht und verschafften Visser internationalen Ruf. Der altniederländische Entdeckerdrang unserer Entdeckungsreisenden des 17. Jahrhunderts ist in ihm in voller Pracht wiederaufgeblüht. Seine zahllosen Vorträge im In- und Ausland bleiben bei Tausenden in dankbarer Erinnerung, seine Bücher gehören zur klassischen alpinen Literatur.
Auch gesellschaftlich erreichte Visser hohe Posten: seine Diplomatenkarriere beendete er als Botschafter in Moskau.
Sein Leben war von seinem ersten Berg im Jahre 1922, dem Galenstock, bis zu seiner letzten Matterhornbesteigung im Jahre 1949 den Bergen und den Bergkameraden gewidmet.
Am 7. Mai 1955 wurde Dr. Philip Visser von seinen Verwandten und Freunden die letzte Ehre erwiesen. Sein Pickel lag auf seiner Bahre.
Der KNAV wird seiner mit Respekt und Dankbarkeit gedenken.
H. G. Engelberts
Quelle: Österreichische Alpenzeitung 1955, September/Oktober, Folge 1283, Seite 161-162

Philips Christiaan Visser (1882- 1955)
Ii the fifty-odd years of its existence, the Netherlarids Alpine Club has produced no more distinguished mountaineer than our late member, Dr. P. C. Visser.
He was born at Schiedam in Holland on May 8, 1882, and died at Wassenaar on May 3 of this year. He had been a member of the Alpine Club for nearly forty-two years.
Educated at Schiedam and Rotterdam, he entered the family manufacturing business in Schiedam. He went on a climbing expedition to the Caucasus in 1914, but on account of the outbreak of war had to return by a circuitous route through Russia and Sweden. In 1916, as Secretary to the Nether lands Ambulance organisation in Russia, he took up his headquarters in St. Petersburg, remaining there until the 1917 Revolution. His other official appointments were:
1919 Honorary Secretary of the Nether lands Legation, Stockholm.
1931 Netherlands Consul-General in Calcutta.
1938 Netherlands Minister to Turkey: and from I94I also to Iraq.
1945 Netherlands Minister to South Africa.
1948 Netherlands Minister to the U.S.S.R.
1950 Netherlands Delegate to the United Nations' Balkan Commission.
1952 A member of the Netherlands Defence Centre.
He commenced climbing in 1902 and from then onwards, for every year up to 1913 (the year of his election to the A. C.), he was in the Alps. In 1912 he married Miss Jenny van't Hooft, who became a constant companion on his mountain expeditions, both in the Alps and in the Karakorum (A.J. 51 329). To list all his climbs would be pointless, involving as they did most of the standard routes round Zermatt and in the Oberland, the latter a region that he frequently visited. He himself recorded, for those who can read Dutch, some of his experiences in Boven en Beneden de Sneeuwgrens (1910). Professor Finch gives below some account of his 1910 campaign with Visser, but the latter had already done quite a lot of guideless climbing, in the Dauphine and Valais, including what was thought to be a fresh variation on the South face of the Cornes de Pie Bérarde.
Between the two wars his four Karakorum expeditions (1922, 1925, 1929-30 and 1935) occupied most of his time spent on mountaineering, though he went to the Alps in I 924 and paid a visit to Nepal in 1932. Whilst Minister in South Africa he took the opportunity to climb on, 1"'able Mountain and to visit the Drakensberg; he was an honorary member of the Mountain Club of South Africa.
But it is by his expeditions to the Karakorum that his name will be principally remembered in the history of mountaineering. In 1922 he and Mme. Visser-Hooft, with Franz Lochmatter and Johann Brantschen, visited the Sasir-Kangri, and he read a paper to the Club on the results of the expedition on April Io, 1923 (A.J. 35· 75). The 1925 venture was to the north of the main Karakorum range, in Kanjut, a district of Hunza, and was the subject of a pleasant volume by Mme. Visser-Hooft, Among the Kara-Koram Glaciers in 1925 (A.J. 39 186) : Franz Lochmatter and Johann Perren were the guides on this expedition. The later expeditions took the Vissers northwards as far as Yarkand and Kashgar, and eastwards of the Karakorum Pass.
Dr. Visser's own writings were strictly scientific and abound in details of the zoology, ethnography, meteorology and glaciology of the areas he visited (A.J. 51. 152).
His distinguished services to mountain exploration were recognized by an honorary membership of the Netherlands A.C. (1923), by the Gold Medal of the Societe de Geographie (1927), and by the Back Grant of the R.G.S. (1929). Among other distinctions accorded him was honorary membership of the Guides' Society, St. Niklaus.
Mme. Visser-Hooft died in 1939 and Dr. Visser married again, this time Miss C. A. de Graeff, to whom the Club extends profound sympathy on her loss.
T. s. Blakeney

PROFESSOR G. I. FINCH writes from Poona:
My records and photographs of the pre-1914 era are not with me, so I can only quote from memory. I met P. C. Visser first in 1909 in Zermatt. It was late in the season and we went for walks together and patronised the Shoehorn boulder. Eventually we climbed the Lyskamm, after having attended the Schonbühl hut opening with Whymper. In 1910 we climbed in Chamonix and did the Moine and some interesting needles on the Moine-Aig. Verte ridge ; the Requin ; traversed the Tour Ronde and a number of other peaks.
I visited Visser and his father in, I believe, I9IO or 191 I, in Schiedarn and met Miss Jenny van't Hooft, whom Visser later married ; she herself was a keen climber. Visser and I did no further climbing together, but we kept in touch throughout the years. The last time we met was in Zermatt in 1949, when Visser made his last ascent of the Matterhorn, an event which we celebrated as it should be celebrated.
Visser was a warm-hearted, kindly gentleman with a strong sense of humour. He had a great love for the mountains and did much to stimulate a like interest in Holland ; the Dutch A. C. owes much to him. Visser could climb fast if the occasion demanded, but he preferred to take his time and taught me to do what he himself loved to do, to savour every moment spent on the mountains.
Visser rose high in the Diplomatic Service of his country. As Consul in Calcutta, he found time to explore and climb in the Karakorum with Jenny, and in Istanbul he climbed in the Anatolian mountains. Jenny's death was a terrible blow to him, but later he married again and regained his happiness.
I always remember him for his innate kindliness, his infectious good humour, and his great love of the mountains and sound appreciation of the meaning and aims of mountaineering and mountaineering endeavour.

MR. D. L. Busk writes from Addis Ababa :
I first met Visser in London before the war, when he had just returned from one of his Himalayan expeditions with his first wife, who was a most accomplished traveller and wrote charming accounts of their voyages in perfect English. She died not long afterwards.
Later, in 1942, Visser and I found ourselves together in Ankara where he was the Netherlands Minister. He and his second wife were as charming as ever and the British community had much hospitality from them. He was an excellent representative of his country in those dark days and helped us officially in many respects. His Legation was a hundred yards below the British Embassy and it was his practice to walk up almost every morning to see the Ambassador . or myself with the latest news. His pace, even uphill, was a rapid trot and we had some difficulty with the security guards who were supposed to stop unauthorised persons from entering the Chancery. It was no use trying this on Visser. He brushed aside all opposition, including a wooden barrier, and shot up the stairs three at a time. New security guards who did not know him sometimes pursued him, to be greeted with a cheerful: ?I am the Dutch Minister ; I am in a hurry ; I am quite mad ; do not bother about me.' Thus treated they retired baffled. They called him, of course the ' Flying Dutchman.?
Though he was now getting on in years Visser did not forget his mountaineering and, in 1941, before my arrival, he led a party to the 13.000-foot peak of Mount Erciyas in central Anatolia. This was quite an expedition in wartime when few facilities were available.
Later, Visser was transferred to the post of Netherlands Minister in the Union of South Africa and he ended his career with great distinction as his country's Ambassador at Moscow. Before leaving the Soviet Union he obtained special permission to make a trip to the Caucasus to see again the mountains he had visited in his youth. He was now too old to make any ascents, but at least he could revisit the scene of his former triumphs.
Visser retired to Wassenaar and had been in poor health for some months. His loss will be greatly felt by all who knew him and the sympathy of members of the Club will go out to his wife and children.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Vol. 60. Nr. 291, 1955, Seite 412-415



Geboren am:
08.05.1882
Gestorben am:
03.05.1955