Lorenz Saladin
Lorenz Saladin ( born October 28, 1896 in Nuglar -St Pantaleon, . † September 7, 1936 in Kyrgyzstan ) was a Swiss expedition climber and photographer.
Life
Saladin came from humble, working in various jobs, including as a sanitary engineer, made border service in World War II. Early passionate mountaineer and climber, active in the tourist club nature lovers, Section Zurich and the Swiss Alpine Club. Politically, he was engaged in the KPS (Communist Party of Switzerland ).
On adventurous trips 1920-1932 through Europe, South America and the United States, he began to photograph and developed a self-taught to the outstanding photographers.
1932 participants in the Caucasus expedition of the Alpine Ski Club Zurich ASCZ He meets the Moscow music students and mountaineers Georgi Charlampiew know. Saladin began reports with your own photos in the alpine specialist press and in magazines to publish.
In 1934 he organized with support Charlampiews own Caucasus expedition reach the big ascents, including the first ascent of the five -thousand Mishirgitau.
In 1935, he participated in an event organized by the Soviet authorities geological expedition to the Pamir. He meets the top Russian climbers Vitaly and Yevgeny Abalakow know. Difficult climbs, including spades Granitnij and the six-thousand spades trapeze.
In 1936, he traveled back to the Pamir and explored by geologists, among others, be the first Western Europeans the Kara- Su Valley in Karavshin area, now a paradise for extreme climbers. He then travels further into the Tien Shan with the aim of Khan Tengri. After bureaucratic difficulties, a long walk with horses on the 60 km long glacier Iniltschek Lorenz Saladin, Evgeny and Vitaly Abalakow, Leonid Gutman and Mikhail Dadiomow succeed on September 5, 1936, the third ascent of the 7010 meter high Khan Tengri on the west ridge.
The expedition was much too late for this season at the most northerly and coldest Seven thousand of the earth. The descent in the snow storm is to the drama, Gutman crashes, gravely wounded, material is lost, bivouacking in snow caves. All suffer from altitude sickness, dehydration and frostbite. On the consequences of infection by manipulating its frostbite with a knife Saladin died on September 17 on the way back on the back of a horse at the end of Iniltschek. His grave was rediscovered only in 2008.
From his travels, and in particular his expeditions Saladin left a large number of excellent alpine and ethnographic photos, some in stereo. Based on these pictures and detailed research, including in Moscow, wrote the Swiss writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach a biography of Saladin, who was soon out of print. Long the photos remained missing. While conducting research for a new issue of Schwarzenbach's book, the authors Robert Steiner and Emil Zopfi Saladin's photo archive found and could transfer it from private ownership to the Alpine Museum in Bern.