Biner Bernhard

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Biografie:
geboren in Zermatt (Schweiz)
gestorben in Zermatt (Schweiz)
Bergführer und Hotelier
Gründer des Gornergrat V????
30 Jahre Präsident des Zermatter Skiklubs;
Präsident des Zermatter Bergführer-Vereins;
Seine besondere Vorliebe galt der Monte Rosa Ostwand;
Quelle: Archiv Proksch (Österr. Alpenklub)

Bernard Biner (1900- 1965)
Bernard Biner, guide of Zermatt, died on April 12, 1965. He was sixty-four. His health had been worsening for some years, and he had been seriously ill during the winter; but he was thought to be better, and his actual death was sudden and unexpected. His family telegraphed at once to the Alpine Club, and the Club was represented at his funeral in token of the esteem in which he was held among British mountaineers. His links with the British had become especially close in the last phase of his career when, after his retirement from active guiding, he found a new direction for his vocation as the counsellor and friend of the young guideless climbers who made the Hotel Bahnhof their headquarters. On the day of the Alpine Club centenary dinner in Zermatt in 1957 he flew the Union Jack side by side with the Swiss flag over the front door. His sister flew it again on the Matterhorn centenary day in 1965. It might have flown there always.
Bernard was born on December 29, 1900, the second (and eldest surviving) of the seven children of Alois Biner, himself chief guide of Zermatt in his day. He received an excellent education, ending at the technical high school in Berlin, but he returned to Zerrnatt to start guiding as soon as his education was complete. He was early apprenticed in the mountains. His sister recalls his stories of walks when about twelve years old with his father's clients to the Riffelalp, Gornergrat or Schwarzsee, carrying their coats, which were often too heavy for him. He climbed the Matterhorn for the first time when he was sixteen, being engaged as a porter, but in the event (as he used to tell) having to take a large and heavy man on his own rope, following the older guide. His Führerbuch shows that he obtained his guide's certificate on March 14, 1924, but he was active as a porter long before that. Entries by clients begin in 1918 and he was guiding on the Matterhorn in 1923.
Between the wars he was one of the most active of the Zermatt guides. Occasionally he visited other parts of the Alps, but he does not appear to have climbed much outside his own district. There, however, he built up a large international clientele, many of whom came back year after year. In the testimonials in his book the same themes recur over and over again: patience, willingness and skill in teaching, companionship. 'He always makes one feel that the climb is an adventure we are sharing.'
Records are incomplete, for after the first few years he rarely bothered to make entries in his book, but his repertoire included all the most enterprising climbs of his day round Zermatt. He had the reputation of doing many of them in record time. Favourite climbs, which he did many times, included the Younggrat on the Breithorn, Zmutt ridge on the Matterhorn, Rothorngrat from the Triftjoch, East ridge of the Dent Blanche, Weisshorn Schalligrat, and Lyskamm North-east face. In March, 1929, he made an interesting first ascent, in winter, of the West flank of the Lyskamm. But the climbs with which he 'vas particularly associated were those on the East face of Monte Rosa. According to Les Alpes he was the first Zermatter to do the direct route to the Dufourspitze. He climbed the face at least a dozen times, mostly by the Marinelli, but also by the Brioschi route. These repeated ascents did much to revise the exaggerated reputation the face once had.
A sign of his standing among his fellow guides was his election as President of the Zermatt guides for no less than five three-year terms, so that he filled that office for fifteen of the years between 1926 and 1956. He \vas also head of the rescue service for many years. He \Vas one of the founders of the pension scheme for Zermatt guides introduced in the 1920's. He was no less prominent in ski-ing. He obtained his diploma as ski-guide in 1926. He took a leading part in building up Zermatt as a winter resort, especially by developing the Gornergrat Derby as an international race. He was President of the Ski Club of Zermatt for many years, and was appointed Honorary President in 1961. Of his conscientiousness in such offices witness an anecdote told when tributes were being paid to his memory at the Alpine Club. When inspecting a ski-lift, he was seen to insist on riding personally on each 'meat-hook' separately before he would pass it for use. No less exacting was his conception of the duties of a guide. Discussing an accident in which a guide had been pulled off by a client's unexpected slip, he maintained categorically that while no doubt sympathy was due, it was the right of anyone who engaged a guide to fall off at any time with impunity. 'That is what a guide is for.'
Throughout his life Bernard was active in the affairs of his village. He was a member of the seven-man Gemeinderat for twenty-four years. A special distinction came to him, and through him to Zermatt, when during the war he was appointed an official delegate of the International Red Cross. He served in this capacity in Berlin. Shortly before his death he was invited to serve as President of the Matterhorn centenary celebrations, but he felt obliged to decline because of his health.
Just after the war, when he was forty-five, he suffered a heart attack. This compelled him to curtail his climbing, but he continued on a restricted scale for a few more years. In 1951 he had the misfortune to be immediately behind Otto Furrer on the Matterhorn on the day when Furrer was killed by the breaking of a fixed rope on the Italian ridge. The first aid he rendered to Furrer's client probably saved her life, but Bernard was profoundly shocked by the death of Furrer, his lifelong friend, and by the controversy that followed the accident. This was virtually the end of his active guiding. In the years that followed he climbed only rarely, usually with old friends. His last climb was the Trifthorn, on July 9, 1963.
But 1951 was by no means the end of his career. Rather, it was the beginning of a new and perhaps uniquely fruitful phase, for in that year he and his sister opened the Hotel Bahnhof. They did so almost by accident. The hotel had been built by their father, and for many years rented to the Seilers; but latterly it had been closed, being in need of modernisation. A party of French schoolboys, in the charge of a priest, enquired about cheap accommodation in Zermatt. Someone suggested to Bernard that he might allow them to use the disused Bahnhof. He agreed, and then forgot about it. The schoolboys arrived, Bernard and his sister were found and the building hurriedly unlocked. It was the beginning of a new life for the Bahnhof, and for Bernard. In collaboration with his sister Paula, he made it a real home for young climbers. It was cheap, it was informal, and no genuine climber was ever turned away, though sometimes he might have to sleep on the floor or in an outhouse. And Bernard was always there to take a friendly interest in his doings, to give good advice if asked (but not otherwise), and to give unfailing help in any crisis or difficulty.
He kept a fatherly eye on all who passed through the hotel. The advice he gave was always matched to the recipient. He was a remarkably shrewd and rapid judge of character, seeming to divine accurately after the briefest of talk and observation both a man's personality and his climbing ability. He had no time for those he thought conceited, but was full of encouragement for the properly enterprising, however modest their attainments. As one example among many who enjoyed his friendship and his help, the late John Emery may be mentioned. Bernard took an intense interest in his return to climbing after he lost his fingers and toes in the Haramosh disaster. A close friendship formed between them. When in 1963 John was lost on the Weisshorn, it was to Bernard that his friends turned for help. None of those who were concerned can ever forget his kindness. Today John and Bernard lie not far apart in the Zermatt cemetery.
Fluent in several languages, a man of wide culture and interests, keen student of affairs and of men, Bernard was a delightful companion. 'I am only a simple peasant,' he would say. He was far from that, but deep in him was a proud love of Zermatt, of its mountains and its people, and of his vocation as a guide. He was an outstanding son of his native valley. But it is as a personal friend that he is most deeply mourned.
A. K. Rawlinson
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 70, 1965, Seite 378-381


Geboren am:
29.12.1900
Gestorben am:
12.04.1965