Which People Always Lived With Their Guilt?

Reinhold Messner.

To my recollection, he hardly spoke about it, but he must have suffered for decades from terrible feelings of guilt over the death of his brother Günther.

Günther Messner, like his older brother Reinhold, was also a mountaineer and formed a close team with him.

It was in the fall of 1969, and Reinhold, despite his young age, had already achieved a certain fame in the mountaineering world.

He was only 26 years old, but thanks to his successes he was invited to join an Austrian rope team organized by Karl Maria Herrligkoffer.

They wanted to attempt the ascent of Nanga Parbat, the "naked mountain". After one participant withdrew, the invitation was extended to Günther, then 24 years old, who gladly joined the group.

The expedition took place the following summer.

Due to a sudden deterioration in weather conditions, Reinhold decided to climb the Rupal Face alone.

The other participants equipped the gully with ropes to facilitate their descent. Surprisingly, Günther joined his brother.

So the two continued together and reached the summit late in the afternoon of June 27.

The climb had taken an extreme amount of energy and Gunther was so exhausted that he began to suffer from hallucinations due to the altitude and the cold temperatures.

In addition, they had no food, water or ropes, and the storm was approaching.

It was 30 degrees below zero and they set up an emergency camp in conditions that were on the edge of survival.

They made it through the night reasonably well and on June 28 they begin their descent.

Reinhold decides to take the Diamir face, which at that time was unexplored, for the descent. He decides against the well-known Rupalwand , because he considers the path too long.

Reinhold walks about 150 meters ahead of his brother and makes his way through crevasses.

Both are at the end of their rope.

On June 29, when they have almost made the descent, Günther is swept away by an avalanche and disappears.

Desperate, Reinhold searches in vain for his brother for a day and a night until he collapses from exhaustion.

During the dramatic searcher suffered frostbite on seven toes, which later required a partial amputation, because of which he later could not walk well.

The members of the expedition considered the two Messner brothers dead and did not launch a search or rescue operation.

Reinhold Messner commented that there was nothing left. No trace, no equipment, no brother. Just chunks of ice and snow. That's when he realized that an avalanche had hit his brother. Messner says that he spent a day and a night searching and roaring for him like an animal sore from a deer. He got no answer. It was the worst day of his life, he says.

Only Reinhold's experience allows him to reach the valley, where he finally receives help from the locals.

The return home is equally traumatic.

Reinhold is devastated by the disappearance of his brother and is plagued by guilt.

Public opinion makes everything worse, as many accuse him of having sacrificed Gunther to his own ambition.

He had abandoned him on the summit to be the first to descend the Diamir face alone or to send him down the Rupal face alone.

Not even his family is sympathetic to him. He said that at home he was exposed to the gaze of everyone. His parents, his seven brothers. He could feel their reproaches. That he had to bring his brother back. It was very painful.

Despite the criticism, Reinhold returned to the cursed peaks the following year.

He searched and searched, but he could not find the body of his beloved brother.

It would be 30 years before the glaciers on the Diamir side of the mountain uncovered a human bone which, after DNA analysis, was confirmed to be part of Günther's body.

The body was found on August 17, 2005 in the Diamir face at an altitude of 4600 meters, exactly in the place where Günther had disappeared.

It was Reinhold himself who identified the body. He recognized Günther's hair and clothing.

The remains were cremated according to Tibetan custom, but had retained a boot with a few bones.

A DNA analysis of the remains will later confirm that it was Günther's body.

It was probably extremely important to Reinhold that the body was found, as the location of the body proved that he had not left his brother alone.