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The Germans call it the Mordwand. The Murder Wall. The north face of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps is a vertical mile of unstable limestone, perpetual avalanches, and weather that can turn lethal without warning. Eighteen climbers had already died attempting it. In August 1957, four more went up.
They started as two separate teams. Claudio Corti and Stefano Longhi were Italians from Lecco, relying on strength and endurance. Günther Nothdurft and Franz Mayer were among Europe's finest mountaineers, so confident they began the climb almost casually, in the middle of a vacation. The teams met on the face and joined forces. None of them would make it back the same way they went up.
On the ninth day, after a series of catastrophes that left the climbers battered, frostbitten, and running out of options, Longhi fell thirty meters and was left dangling from a rope on a tiny ledge, unable to climb up or down. Rescuers could communicate with him but could not reach him in time. He died of exposure while the world watched through telescopes from the valley below.
The two Germans pushed for the summit, apparently succeeded, and then vanished. Their bodies would not be found for four years.
Corti alone was rescued, pulled up the sheer face on a steel cable by a German guide strapped to his back, in what became one of the most celebrated rescue operations in mountaineering history. Then the accusations began.
As one reviewer wrote: "To experience the Eiger one can climb the mountain, stand in the graveyard near the base of the North Wall, or read The Climb Up to Hell."
Jack Olsen, two-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling author, brings the same precision and humanity he brought to his celebrated true crime work to one of the most gripping true adventure stories ever written.
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About the author
Jack Olsen is the award-winning author of thirty-three books, which have been published in fifteen countries and eleven languages. Olsen’s journalism earned the National Headliners Award, Chicago Newspaper Guild’s Page One Award, commendations from Columbia and Indiana Universities, the Washington State Governor’s Award, the Scripps-Howard Award and other honors. The Philadelphia Inquirer described him as “an American treasure.”
Olsen was described as “the dean of true crime authors” by the Washington Post and the New York Daily News and “the master of true crime” by the Detroit Free Press and Newsday. Publishers Weekly called him “the best true crime writer around.” His studies of crime are required reading in university criminology courses and have been cited in the New York Times Notable Books of the Year. In a page-one review, the Times described his work as “a genuine contribution to criminology and journalism alike.”
Olsen is a two-time winner in the Best Fact Crime category of the Mystery Writers of America, Edgar award.
