Leyden Victor von

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Biografie:
Victor von Leyden (1880 – 1963)
My father, Victor von Leyden, was born in 1880 and was introduced to the mountains at a very young age, since my grandparents were regular visitors to the Engadine. His first climbs appear to have been made in 1893 and included Corvatsch, Kesch and Morteratsch. He traversed Palü and climbed Bernina at the age of sixteen.
1898 proved an important year for him. While climbing Piz Roseg by the South-west face, which· in those years was the traditional route, he loosened a stone which narrowly missed a guided party following lower down. When they met on the summit the guide of the other party an imposing, bearded figure expressed an opinion not exactly complimentary to my father. However, my father was much impressed and promptly engaged this forthright and outspoken man for his further climbs. He was Martin Schocher, who, with Hans Grass and Schnitzler, then formed the elite of the Engadine guides. This chance encounter on Piz Roseg was the beginning of an association and friendship lasting over many years and only to be ended by the First World War in 1914. To my father, Martin Schocher was the great teacher and master in mountain craft, who climbed with him not only in the Engadine but also in Zermatt and Chamonix.
In 1904, they accomplished the first ascent of the Crast' Aglizza by the North face, a climb which was repeated only two or three times, followed in 1905 by Piz Bernina by the Bianco ridge and, in Zermatt, the Matterhorn and the Zinal Rothorn. In 1907 the Weisshorn was climbed, followed by a first visit to Chamonix which they reached on foot by the High-level route from Zermatt.
In 1909 my parents went on a world tour, during which they climbed Smerou, the highest volcano on Java, and were told that my mother was the first woman to reach the summit crater. My father also climbed Fuji-Yama and they ended their tour with a visit to Kashmir, where he shot an ibex and missed a bear.
In 1910 he returned to the Alps accompanied by his friend, Reinhold Richter (A.C. member 1912-14), who remained his companion for several seasons. From Chamonix they proceeded to the Dauphine and completed a good season with the successful traverse of the Meije and the Pointe des Ecrins. Schacher led them with, I believe, Siegfried Burgener as their second guide.
In 1911 Richter and my father met first in Zermatt, where, apart from Monte Rosa, they climbed the Täschhorn by the Teufelsgrat. They then proceeded to Italy to climb Monte Sissone and Monte della Disgrazia, finishing the season with a traverse of Scerscen and Bernina. During this long and difficult climb occurred the only serious accident in my father's long climbing career. Shortly before reaching the summit of Scerscen over the South-east face, a big slab of rock slid on Richter's foot and split it wide open. A retreat was no longer possible owing to the danger of falling stones, and they had no option but to complete the traverse and descend to Boval. Their guides were Schacher and, again, Siegfried Burgener. They descended from Bernina by the East ridge reaching the glacier by nightfall and Boval at 2 a.m. They were most fortunate, the weather being perfect throughout and with a full moon to guide them through the crevasses. Richter was taken to St. Moritz and completely recovered from his injury. They met again in Zermatt in 1913 for what proved to be a still better season with traverses completed of Mont Collon, L'Eveque, Grand Cornier, Dent d'Herens and Zinal Rothorn, Matterhorn by the Zmutt and Dent Blanche by the normal route. They then paid their first visit to Grindelwald, and climbed the Jungfrau and the Fiescherhörner.
Great plans were made for 1914 but on August 4, the date set for his departure for Zermatt, my father left for the Western front as Reserve officer, to return, seriously wounded, early in September. He recovered from his wounds and returned to the Western front early in 1915 where he served, without further injury, till the end of the war.
In the summer of 1919 my parents went to Grindelwald where my father climbed with Peter Almer, Schacher having died during the war. There is no written record of this season but I remember that they completed many successful ascents including Wetterhorn, Aletschhorn, Finsteraarhorn, Mönch and Eiger. Inflation in Germany in subsequent years made visits to Switzerland and guided climbing impossible. My father therefore went to Austria and, with my elder brother and myself, explored, unguided, the mountains of the Zillertal, Tauern, Stubai and Ötztaler Alps and other parts of Austria and Bavaria.
In I 927 we returned to the Engadine for a very short holiday; subsequent years took my father again to Zermatt, Zinal and Braunwald. He undertook no major climbs but professed his enjoyment of what he called 'high level rambles ' which benighted him on several occasions.
My father's love of the mountains was as profound as the enjoyment they gave him. Both found expression in many different ways. He took to photography and over the years achieved a fine collection of alpine views which he once I believe in 1913 sent to the annual A. C. exhibition. Photography led to painting of mountains and mountain scenes, in oil, pastel and water colour. Later, when he took up wood carving he produced some fine wooden reliefs of his favourite peaks, one of which, the Grepon, he presented to the A. C. in 1948. He was an avid reader of mountaineering books and periodicals and prided himself on a fine collection of alpine literature which was unfortunately destroyed in the Second World War. He was a member of the D. u. O.A.V., the Österreichischer Alpen Klub and the Swiss Alpine Club. In 1911 he was elected to the A. C., his proposer being A. F. Broun, an old friend he first knew in the Engadine and later met again in Egypt, and his seconder J. P. Farrar. It greatly pained him when he had to lose his A. C. membership as a result of the 1914- 18 war. He always professed his admiration of the Alpine Club, and its long history; its spirit and traditions, so very different from those of continental mountaineering Clubs, appealed to him. The Alpine Journal was a great favourite and he used to wear the Club tie daily almost to the end of his life. He was re-elected in 1954·
The advent of the Nazis cut short his career as a civil servant when, in 1934, he was sent into premature retirement. He built a house in Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps, and there learned ski-ing and woodcarving which, in addition to climbing, enriched and filled his life with absorbing interest. The happiness of his retirement, however, was short-lived, for in November, 1938, Nazi persecution forced my parents to leave Germany. They joined my brother and me in Bombay, where they lived for ten years. They went twice to Ranikhet in the Garhwal foothills and once to Manali in the Kulu Valley, which my father much preferred to the normal Indian hill station.
In 1948 they were able to return to Germany, where their Partenkirchen house was restored to them. My father promptly resumed ski-ing, but in 1949 met with an accident which greatly affected the remaining years of his life. After two operations he was left with his left leg shorter by nearly two inches. In 1951 he made his final ascent, Piz Languard, a mere walk with a footpath almost to the summit. The expedition, however, took mo.re than twelve hours and proved to be his swan song. He never climbed again.
His dismissal from the civil service in 1934, and his subsequent expulsion from a country he served so loyally, dealt him a blow from which he never quite recovered. It pleased· him when the German Government, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday in 1960, awarded him the Federal Order of Merit with Star, in belated recognition of his services, but I doubt if it quite healed the wound. He celebrated his Diamond wedding in February, 1963, but his health was already failing, and he died the following August.
A. R. Leyden
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 69, 1964, Seite 177-180


Geboren am:
1880
Gestorben am:
08.1963