Holy Mountains and Hollow Men: The Search for Sanctuary in the Eastern Alps

During the interwar years, the Alps became a point of pilgrimage for Europeans.  With their “unchanging nature,” “eternal presence,” and “almighty strength,” the mountains provided a firm foundation and sense of security, something that many found lacking on the slippery slopes of modern life.  The Alps offered relief from the weight of temporal existence, the confinement of spatial restraints, and the demands of a material world.  The peaks served as an emotional edifice for anyone seeking solace from civilization.  Communion with the storms and crags provided spiritual fulfillment in the midst of social and political chaos.  Following the collapse of their empires in 1918, many Germans and Austrians felt that the Alps held the key to national salvation.  Reaching for the heights allowed those left hollow by defeat and despair to feel whole again.  Yet the search for sanctuary in the Alps carried troubling implications.  Defining the heights as hallowed ground resulted in restricted access.  Frictions among various socials groups intensified.  Devout mountaineers viewed mass tourism as profane.  Some men saw the growing presence of women on the summits as sacrilege.  Identifying the mountains as “sacred” and as “ancient German earth” typically meant Christian ground for climbing clubs like the German and Austrian Alpine Association.  The Alpine sanctuary turned into a battleground in the 1920s when Eduard Pichl, the chairman of Sektion Austria, called for a racially pure Alpine Association and devoted his efforts to dissolving the Vienna-based, primarily Jewish chapter, Donauland.  For Pichl and his followers, sacred mountains meant Aryan Alps.  By the 1930s, reference to sacred mountains in Germany and Austria was not innocuous.  Once portrayed as the realm of deliverance, the holy mountains now also provided sanctuary for darker dreams of domination.