Mountains and Memory: Unveiling Indo-German Histories in the Deutscher Alpenverein Archive, Munich

Pho­to: The Alpine Muse­um and the DAV Archive. Source: Pho­to­graph tak­en by the author, Munich, Jan­u­ary 2020.

Table of Con­tents
Intro­duc­tion | Ger­man Expe­di­tionary Prac­tices in the Himalayas (19th — 20th Cen­tu­ry) | Expe­di­tions as Sites of Cul­tur­al Pro­duc­tion | Hold­ings of the DAV Archive | End­notes | Ref­er­ences

Introduction

The Deutsch­er Alpen­vere­in (DAV), or the Ger­man Alpine Club, is one of the old­est and most sig­nif­i­cant moun­taineer­ing orga­ni­za­tions in the world, trac­ing its ori­gins to 1869. Its found­ing mem­bers had orig­i­nal­ly bro­ken away from the Öster­re­ichis­ch­er Alpen­vere­in (ÖAV), mark­ing the begin­ning of an inde­pen­dent Ger­man moun­taineer­ing orga­ni­za­tion. In 1873, the DAV and ÖAV uni­fied, form­ing the Deutsch­er und Öster­re­ichis­ch­er Alpen­vere­in (DÖAV), a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort that com­bined their resources and influ­ence. How­ev­er, this union came to an end in 1933, when the DÖAV split back into sep­a­rate entities. 

Ini­tial­ly found­ed to pro­mote alpine explo­ration and study, the DAV grew to become a piv­otal insti­tu­tion in the his­to­ry of Ger­man alpin­ism and its cul­tur­al, sci­en­tif­ic, and impe­r­i­al ambi­tions. The archival lega­cy of the DAV, housed in Munich, pro­vides a win­dow into its rich his­to­ry and entan­gled con­nec­tions with oth­er regions, includ­ing South Asia. This arti­cle explores the his­to­ry of the DAV, the struc­ture and con­tent of its archives, and how these hold­ings shed light on sig­nif­i­cant Indo-Ger­man interactions.

The DAV was estab­lished in an era of bur­geon­ing Euro­pean inter­est in nature, explo­ration, and the sci­en­tif­ic study of land­scapes. Over the decades, it expand­ed its scope beyond mere alpin­ism, serv­ing as a plat­form for cul­tur­al and sci­en­tif­ic exchanges that mir­rored Germany’s broad­er geo-polit­i­cal ambi­tions. By the ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, the club had become a cen­tral hub for moun-taineer­ing-relat­ed doc­u­men­ta­tion, facil­i­tat­ing the sys­tem­at­ic col­lec-tion of expe­di­tion records, per­son-al papers, and artis­tic rep­re­sen-tations of the alpine world and beyond.^[i]

The DAV archives were insti­tu­tion­al­ized to pre­serve these mate­ri­als, ini­tial­ly focus­ing on the Alps before expand­ing to include inter­na­tion­al expe­di­tions, such as those in the Himalayas. The archive hosts an exten­sive col­lec­tion, reflect­ing the mul­ti­fac­eted his­to­ry of the club and its glob­al endeavours.

German Expeditionary Practices in the Himalayas (19th — 20th Century)

The Schlag­in­tweit brothers—Hermann, Robert, and Adolph—stand out as among the ear­li­est Ger­man sci­en­tists to explore the Himalayas and Karako­ram regions, then large­ly unchart­ed by Euro­peans. Their expe­di­tion (1854–1857) was inspired by Alexan­der von Humboldt’s vision of uni­ver­sal sci­en­tif­ic inquiry and sup­port­ed by the British East India Com­pa­ny and Pruss­ian King Fred­er­ick William IV. How­ev­er, this dual patron­age cre­at­ed ten­sions, as the broth­ers nav­i­gat­ed com­pet­ing polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and sci­en­tif­ic priorities.

While the Schlag­in­tweits sought to emu­late Humboldt’s com­pre­hen­sive approach by map­ping both nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al land­scapes, their British spon­sors pri­or­i­tized eco­nom­ic intel­li­gence and ter­ri­to­r­i­al knowl­edge. This diver­gence in goals, com­pound­ed by the uneven under­stand­ing of Asia in Britain and con­ti­nen­tal Europe, led to polar­ized eval­u­a­tions of the expe­di­tion. Crit­ics either laud­ed the Schlag­in­tweits as pio­neer­ing explor­ers or dis­missed their efforts entire­ly (Brescius 2015).

The Schlag­in­tweit expedition’s out­puts were remark­able for their scope, includ­ing vast inven­to­ries of geo­graph­i­cal, topo­graph­ic, and mete­o­ro­log­i­cal data along­side artis­tic and sci­en­tif­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tions. Among their sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions are the water­colours and draw­ings pre­served in the archive of the Deutsch­er Alpen­vere­in, which doc­u­ment land­scapes, flo­ra, and cul­tur­al sites across the regions they tra­versed. These art­works reflect not only the expe­di­tion’s sci­en­tif­ic rig­or but also the cul­tur­al per­spec­tives and aes­thet­ic sen­si­bil­i­ties of the era.

In the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, the inter­war years marked a sig­nif­i­cant expan­sion of Ger­man alpin­ism beyond the Alps, dri­ven by shift­ing cul­tur­al atti­tudes toward moun­tains and moun­taineer­ing. Once seen as sites of recu­per­a­tive leisure, moun­tains became are­nas for assert­ing ide­olo­gies of mas­culin­i­ty and nation­al­is­tic pride, often with racial under­tones (Mier­au 2006; Keller 2016). With­in this con­text, the Deutsch­er und Öster­re­ichis­ch­er Alpen­vere­in (DÖAV) emerged as a key insti­tu­tion in redefin­ing moun­taineer­ing as a way of life, shap­ing Ger­man alpin­ists’ ambi­tions to con­quer ever-high­er peaks.

A turn­ing point came with the Ger­man-Sovi­et Alai-Pamir expe­di­tion of 1928, which cul­mi­nat­ed in the ascent of Pik Kauf­mann (lat­er renamed Pik Lenin), set­ting an alti­tude record for the time. This suc­cess fuelled the Ger­man alpin­ists’ aspi­ra­tions to tack­le the Himalayas. Between 1929 and 1939, Ger­man expe­di­tions tar­get­ed Kangchen­jun­ga in the East­ern Himalayas and Nan­ga Par­bat in the west. These ear­ly attempts, begin­ning with Kangchen­jun­ga expe­di­tions in 1929, 1930, and 1931, were fol­lowed by a shift in focus to Nan­ga Par­bat in 1932 and 1934.

Par­al­lel to these devel­op­ments, the polit­i­cal cli­mate in Ger­many catal­ysed struc­tur­al changes in moun­taineer­ing orga­ni­za­tions. In 1933, the DÖAV was restruc­tured and renamed the Deutsche Alpen­vere­in(DAV). Rec­og­niz­ing the ide­o­log­i­cal and pro­pa­gan­dis­tic val­ue of moun­taineer­ing, the state inten­si­fied its involve­ment, lead­ing to the cre­ation of the Deutsche Himala­ja Stiftung (DHS, Ger­man Himalaya Foun­da­tion) in 1936 (Mier­au 1999). Under the lead­er­ship of Paul Bauer, the DHS pro­vid­ed fund­ing, exper­tise, and logis­ti­cal sup­port for expe­di­tions to the Himalayas. A series of climbs—1936, 1937, 1938, and 1939—attempted to scale Himalayan peaks, solid­i­fy­ing Germany’s pres­ence in the region.

While these expe­di­tions were under­tak­en under the ban­ner of Ger­man nation­al­ism, the climbers’ expe­ri­ences were shaped not sole­ly by nation­al ide­olo­gies but also by per­son­al and region­al iden­ti­ties. Many Ger­man alpin­ists, par­tic­u­lar­ly those hail­ing from south­ern regions such as Swabia or Bavaria, drew on spe­cif­ic, region­al­ly root­ed mem­o­ries to con­nect with the unfa­mil­iar Himalayan land­scapes (Neuhaus 2012, 190). These climbers often evoked imagery of the Alps as they sought to make sense of and relate to the strange and awe-inspir­ing envi­ron­ments they encoun­tered. This inter­play of nation­al and region­al iden­ti­ty high­lights the com­plex moti­va­tions dri­ving these expe­di­tions, blend­ing ide­o­log­i­cal nar­ra­tives with deeply per­son­al attempts to sit­u­ate one­self with­in an unfa­mil­iar world (ibid.).

The mate­ri­als from these expeditions—ranging from pho­tographs and cor­re­spon­dence to tech­ni­cal equipment—are pre­served in the DAV archive. These records pro­vide a rich resource for under­stand­ing not only the orga­ni­za­tion and out­comes of the climbs but also the cul­tur­al frame­works and per­son­al nar­ra­tives that under­pinned these endeav­ours. After World War II, the DHS con­tin­ued orga­niz­ing expe­di­tions until its dis­so­lu­tion in 1998. Anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant insti­tu­tion, the Her­rligkof­fer Stiftung (Deutsches Insti­tut für Aus­lands­forschung, DIAF), sup­port­ed sev­er­al expe­di­tion to the Himalayas.^[ii] Found­ed in 1952 by Karl Maria Her­rligkof­fer, this orga­ni­za­tion sup­port­ed numer­ous post-war moun­taineer­ing ven­tures, ensur­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion of Germany’s alpine ambi­tions on an inter­na­tion­al scale (Her­rligkof­fer-Stiftung).

Expeditions as Sites of Cultural Production

The jour­ney­ing of indi­vid­u­als into South Asia from the mid-19th cen­tu­ry, which com­bined ele­ments of explo­ration and moun­taineer­ing, encom­pass­es a wide array of cul­tur­al, tech­no­log­i­cal, and nar­ra­tive dimen­sions. This mul­ti­fac­eted nature of such expe­di­tions results in a rich vari­ety of mate­r­i­al, high­light­ing the inter­play of adven­ture, media pro­duc­tion, and cul­tur­al inter­ac­tions. The hold­ings of the DAV illus­trate these dynam­ics, posi­tion­ing expe­di­tions as key sites of cul­tur­al production.

Draw­ing on Mar­tin Thomas’s frame­work (Thomas 2015), four defin­ing traits of these ven­tures emerge. First, expe­di­tions are char­ac­ter­ized by the arche­typ­al strug­gle of man ver­sus nature. They test human lim­its, blend­ing phys­i­cal endurance with the ethos of extreme sports. Sec­ond, tech­nol­o­gy plays a piv­otal role. Expe­di­tions rely on advanced tools and instru­ments for nav­i­ga­tion, sur­vival, and doc­u­men­ta­tion. These tech­no­log­i­cal aids not only facil­i­tate the jour­ney but also frame the inter­ac­tion between explor­ers and the less tech­no­log­i­cal­ly advanced cul­tures they encoun­tered. Sci­en­tif­ic instru­ments and cam­eras, for instance, shaped how these encoun­ters were record­ed and inter­pret­ed. Third, expe­di­tions func­tion as “machines for pro­duc­ing dis­course” (Thomas 2015, 16). They gen­er­ate nar­ra­tives that feed into the broad­er cor­pus of explo­ration lit­er­a­ture. Visu­al objects—such as pho­tographs, paint­ings, and postcards—serve as visu­al texts that rein­force or chal­lenge dom­i­nant nar­ra­tives of the time, influ­enc­ing both aca­d­e­m­ic and pop­u­lar per­cep­tions of the regions explored. Final­ly, media pro­duc­tion emerges as a cen­tral pur­pose of expe­di­tions. Doc­u­men­ta­tion through pho­tographs, films, and pub­li­ca­tions tran­scends the imme­di­ate goals of explo­ration, con­tribut­ing to a broad­er media ecosys­tem. These mate­ri­als not only com­mem­o­rate the expe­di­tions but also engage with larg­er audi­ences, cre­at­ing a cul­tur­al foot­print that extends far beyond the jour­neys themselves.

By com­bin­ing these ele­ments, expe­di­tions into the Himalayas not only reflect the adven­tur­ous spir­it of their par­tic­i­pants but also serve as rich sites of cul­tur­al, tech­no­log­i­cal, and nar­ra­tive pro­duc­tion, leav­ing a lega­cy in the form of diverse mate­r­i­al and intel­lec­tu­al contributions.

Holdings of the DAV Archive

The DAV archive con­tains a vast range of mate­ri­als cat­e­go­rized into the­mat­ic col­lec­tions, each offer­ing unique insights into the his­to­ry of moun­taineer­ing, explo­ration, and cul­tur­al exchanges. While a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the archive focus­es on the Alps, it also holds exten­sive mate­ri­als from Ger­man Himalayan expe­di­tions. These col­lec­tions demon­strate the DAV’s involve­ment in inter­na­tion­al moun­taineer­ing and reveal the broad­er scope of its archival hold­ings, encom­pass­ing both Alpine and Himalayan explo­ration. The archive’s exten­sive cat­a­logue, which includes details of these mate­ri­als, can be accessed online at https://www.historisches-alpenarchiv.org/. Key hold­ings include:

1. Kun­st- und Sachgut­samm­lung (Kunst/Sachgut) — Col­lec­tion of Art and Mate­r­i­al Goods

This col­lec­tion fea­tures approx­i­mate­ly 200 paint­ings, 2,200 prints, and a small selec­tion of art objects that doc­u­ment the cul­tur­al fas­ci­na­tion with moun­tains from the mod­ern era onward. High­lights include trav­el water­colours and draw­ings by the Schlag­in­tweit broth­ers, who tra­versed India in the mid-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry. The mate­r­i­al col­lec­tion also con­tains about 3,000 objects relat­ed to moun­taineer­ing equip­ment and alpin­ism since 1850.

2. Archiva­lien der Bun­des­geschäftsstelle (BGS) und der Sek­tio­nen (SEK) — Records of the Fed­er­al Office and Sections

These records encom­pass cor­re­spon­dence, con­struc­tion plans for alpine huts, and admin­is­tra­tive files dat­ing back to the DAV’s found­ing in 1869. 

3. His­torische Doku­mente zur Alp­ingeschichte — His­tor­i­cal Doc­u­ments on Alpine History

This col­lec­tion includes hut and sum­mit books, let­ters, prints, and news­pa­per clip­pings, offer­ing a gran­u­lar view of moun­taineer­ing his­to­ry and first­hand expe­ri­ences of climbers.

4. Archiva­lien von Expe­di­tion­s­ge­sellschaften (EXP) - Records of Expe­di­tion Organizations

The archival mate­r­i­al from expe­di­tion orga­ni­za­tions, such as the DHS and the DIAF, spans the 1920s to 1990s. These hold­ings include expe­di­tion files, pho­tographs, films, and sound record­ings that doc­u­ment Germany’s Himalayan endeav­ours.^[iii]

5. Nach­lässe (NAS) — Per­son­al papers

Per­son­al papers of promi­nent alpin­ists and expe­di­tion orga­niz­ers pro­vide bio­graph­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal insights, enrich­ing the under­stand­ing of indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions to the DAV’s lega­cy.^[iv]

6. Fotografien und Postkarten (FOP) — Pho­tographs and Postcards

With over 25,000 items, this col­lec­tion offers a visu­al his­to­ry of alpin­ism, from the­mat­ic albums to rare glass plates. The pho­tographs reveal not just land­scapes but also cul­tur­al encoun­ters and expe­di­tionary practices.

7. Werbe­mit­tel — Adver­tis­ing Materials

Posters, stamps, and oth­er pro­mo­tion­al mate­ri­als with alpine motifs reflect the DAV’s role in pop­u­lar­iz­ing moun­taineer­ing and fos­ter­ing a nation­al iden­ti­ty tied to the Alps.

8. Doku­men­ta­tio­nen (DOK) — Documentations

This col­lec­tion focus­es on moun­taineer­ing mis­sions abroad, cap­tur­ing the glob­al reach of Ger­man alpinism.

The DAV archive serves as a vital resource for under­stand­ing the his­to­ry of Ger­man alpin­ism and its entan­gle­ments with oth­er regions, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Himalayas. Its exten­sive hold­ings offer insights into the cul­tur­al, sci­en­tif­ic, and geopo­lit­i­cal dimen­sions of moun­taineer­ing, reveal­ing how expe­di­tions tran­scend phys­i­cal jour­neys to become sites of cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion and his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry. By engag­ing with these mate­ri­als, researchers can uncov­er rich per­spec­tives on Indo-Ger­man his­to­ry, explor­ing the lay­ered nar­ra­tives of explo­ration, tech­nol­o­gy, and cross-cul­tur­al exchange that emerge from the inter­ac­tions between Ger­man climbers and the Himalayan region.

Endnotes

^[i] For a detailed his­to­ry on the Archive of the DAV: https://www.alpenverein.de/museum/sammlungen/archiv/archivgeschichte.

^[ii] For com­plete list of moun­taineer­ing expe­di­tions, see Lem­tur (2021).

^[iii] See Lem­tur (2020).

^[iv] See DAV MIDA Daten­bank for list of per­sons: https://www.projektmida.de/datenbank/#/document/18868.

References

Brescius, Moritz von, Fred­erike Kaiser, and Susanne Klei­dt (eds.), Über den Himalaya: die Expe­di­tion der Brüder Schlag­in­tweit nach Indi­en und Zen­tralasien 1854 bis 1858. Wien: Böh­lau Ver­lag, 2015. 

Göt­tner, Adolf, Himalayan Quest: The Ger­man Expidi­tions to Sin­iolchu and Nan­ga Par­bat, ed. Paul Bauer, trans. E. G. Hall. Lon­don: Nichil­son and Wat­son Ltd., 1938.

Her­rligkof­fer-Stiftung, “Stiftungs­geschichte”. https://www.herrligkoffer-stiftung.de/index.php/stiftung/stiftung-geschichte.

Keller, Tait, Apos­tles of the Alps: Moun­taineer­ing and Nation Build­ing in Ger­many and Aus­tria, 1860–1939. Chapel Hill: The Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na Press, 2016.

Lem­tur, Nokmedem­la, “Locat­ing Himalayan Porters in the Archiva­lien Der Expe­di­tion­s­ge­sellschaften of the Ger­man Alpine Club (1929–1939)”. MIDA Archival Reflex­i­con (2020). https://doi.org/10.25360/01–2022-00026.

——–, “Quellen zu deutschen Himalaya­ex­pe­di­tio­nen (1929–1989) im Archiv des Deutschen Alpen­vere­ins (DAV), München.“ MIDA The­ma­tis­che Ressource (2021). https://doi.org/10.25360/01–2022-00047.

Mier­au, Peter, Die Deutsche Himala­ja-Stiftung von 1936 bis 1998: Ihre Geschichte und ihre Expe­di­to­nen. Doku­mente des Alpin­is­mus Bd. 2. München: Bergver­lag Rother, 1999.

——–, Nation­al­sozial­is­tis­che Expe­di­tion­spoli­tik: Deutsche Asien-Expe­di­tion 1933–1945. Münch­n­er Beiträge zur Geschichtswis­senschaft 1. München: Utz, 2006.

Neuhaus, Tom, Tibet in the West­ern Imag­i­na­tion. Hound­mills, Bas­ingstoke, Hamp­shire, New York: Pal­grave Macmil­lan, 2012.

Thomas, Mar­tin, Expe­di­tion into Empire: Explorato­ry Jour­neys and the Mak­ing of the Mod­ern World. Rout­ledge Stud­ies in Cul­tur­al His­to­ry 31. New York: Rout­ledge, 2015.

Nokmedem­la Lem­tur, Georg-August-Uni­ver­sität, Göttingen

MIDA Archival Reflex­i­con

Edi­tors: Anan­di­ta Baj­pai, Heike Liebau, Nico Putz
Lay­out: Jannes Thode
Host: ZMO, Kirch­weg 33, 14129 Berlin
Con­tact: archival.reflexicon [at] zmo.de

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