Remembering the tragedy

“It was clear on the first day that they had frozen to death”

In 1954, over 400 people were looking for ten pupils and three teachers at Krippenstein.

(Bild: Marion Hörmandinger)

The "Heilbronn Dachstein accident" is considered one of the largest rescue missions in Alpine history. On April 15, 1954, 400 mountain rescuers, alpine gendarmes and volunteers searched for ten missing pupils and three teachers from Heilbronn. The Obertraun mountain rescue team was also deployed. Walter Höll, the only living witness of the search team, remembers.

"Krone": It's almost 71 years since the devastating mountain accident. Have you ever let go of what you experienced?
Walter Höll: The memories remain. Also because there hasn't been such a strong storm in the 70 years since. When the group started the tour on Maundy Thursday, there were already weather warnings. However, nobody could have imagined that the wind would be so strong. There were even peaks of well over 100 kilometers per hour in the valley. And the storm lasted almost a week, which is very unusual.