death_date death_place birth_place knownfor firstascents nationality birth_date article_title name
06 june 1954 salcantay , peru vienna , austria-hungary eiger north face first ascent tre cime di lavaredo cima grande eiger north face austrian 03 july 1910 fritz kasparek
 fritz kasparek
fritz kasparek

fritz kasparek -lrb- 3 july 1910 -- 6 june 1954 -rrb- was an austrian mountaineer who was on the team that made the first ascent of the eiger north face .
kasparek gained his first alpine experiences on the `` peilstein '' in the wienerwald and in the ennstaler alps .
after emilio comici had been the first to climb the north face of the cima grande of the tre cime di lavaredo in 1933 , in february 1938 kasparek and sepp brunnhuber made the first winter ascent .
on 24 july 1938 , with anderl heckmair , ludwig vörg and heinrich harrer , he made the first ascent of the north face of the eiger .
this climb , previously deemed impossible and described by reinhold messner as `` a glorious moment in the history of mountaineering and a great sensation , since several climbers had previously perished on the face '' , made headlines around the world and is recounted in heinrich harrer 's 1958 book , `` the white spider '' .
kasparek died in 1954 , falling to his death through a broken snow cornice near the peak of the salcantay in peru .
