On February 19, 1916, the largest avalanche accident in the Eastern Alps to date occurred on the Mitterbergsattel between the Mandlwand (Hochkönig, Salzburg) and the Hochkeil, with over 200 people buried and 58 dead. To mark the centenary, Gerd Frühwirth has compiled some interesting records from contemporary witnesses. Ludwig Henker, the mining manager at the time, wrote in a transcript: Young, strong lads, who were chosen to join the battle against our numerous opponents as skiers, were the victims of an elemental event of a size and scope not seen in Salzburg in living memory. Through no fault of their own, they fell victim to a terrible death in the service of the Fatherland. Glory to their memory!" At that time, a total of 315 soldiers of the Imperial and Royal II Ski Company, Vienna, were imprisoned in the former Mitterberger Gasthof (later Arthurhaus) and the surrounding huts and residential buildings of Mitterberger Kupfer AG. II. ski company, Vienna, were quartered in order to complete exercises in alpine terrain and ski training. A total of 245 soldiers were buried. Of these, 79 were able to free themselves without outside help, 109 were dug out alive, 72 of whom were seriously injured. Unfortunately, all help came too late for 58 soldiers. They could only be recovered dead and were buried in a mass grave in the cemetery in Bischofshofen. Ludwig Henker describes the snow and avalanche situation that led to the disaster in his report as follows On February 16, 1916, according to the findings of the hydrographic observation station on the Mitterberg, heavy driving snow set in, which continued almost uninterruptedly until just before the hour of the accident. The initially low temperature rose during the snowfall, storm and rain were the alternating companions and the barometer registered a significant drop. The roofs of the factory, residential and agricultural buildings collapsed under the pressure of the snow, so that on the morning of February 19 the management decided to close down the afternoon third of the mine and use the team, around 180 men, for the most urgent snow work. 270 snow shovels were directed to Mitterberg during the morning. The depth of the last snowfall reached 2.85 m on the Barbarahorizont (1335 m SH) and is estimated to have risen by 15 cm per 100 m difference in altitude, so that at Gasthof Mitterberg (1517 m SH) the snow depth was 3.12 m and on the Hochkeil and the opposite Mandlwänden (around 2000 m) the snow depth had already risen to 3.80 m.
Memories of a witness
The foreman Jakob Egger, who was given the task of carrying out the snow scooping work at Gasthof Mitterberg and the surrounding alpine huts with Russian prisoners of war at lunchtime, recalls the following as an eyewitness to the first avalanche: In carrying out the order I had received, I went to Gasthof Mitterberg with 10 Russian prisoner-of-war workers to scoop off the heavily laden roofs of the buildings. The weather had cleared, it had become clear, clear-sighted and warm around midday and the storm had subsided. We started work at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. The Russians had spread out so that I could keep an eye on their work performance. After about three quarters of an hour's work, I happened to look towards the Kälberriedel and remembered the avalanche in 1896 and the avalanche barriers I had worked on myself. To the left, right next to the Kirchsteinhütte, I saw a platoon of soldiers, while in front of the house a lot of skis were rammed vertically into the snow surface.
Suddenly I saw snow clouds rising clearly above the avalanche wall, all visibility disappeared and I felt a moderate air pressure without hearing a particularly violent noise. After a few seconds, however, there was suddenly a huge gust of air that trapped me in the standing snow wall, I heard a terrible screaming and crashing in the rock and then silent stillness. About a minute later, a new but less powerful blast of air was heard. According to the Russians, some of them had been swept over the roof, one of them claimed to have been thrown about 10 meters. The avalanche had come to rest just in front of the Kirchsteinhütte and about one meter in front of the inn door, the height of the avalanche flow almost reached the height of the second floor. According to some soldiers, after the first avalanche, several people were still seen working their way out of the mass of snow, who were buried under the falling snow masses after the second air pressure. This was immediately followed by at least one more avalanche.
Rescue work
Peter Radacher Sr. describes the rescue work in his chronicle as follows, according to a tradition from his grandmother:At around 2.45 in the afternoon, the first news of an avalanche on the Mitterberg in Mühlbach was reported. Around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the mining management was requested by telephone by Lieutenant Loos to provide rescue teams along with the necessary tools etc.. Coincidentally, the MKAG mining management had held back the second third of the Mitterberg mining team (1 o'clock in the afternoon) from the entrance and directed about 250 snow shovels to Mitterberg.
The team of the second third, as well as the tools that had just arrived, were immediately made available, as were the rescue equipment available at the plant and an oxygen resuscitator ("Pulmotor") sent to the military operations. At the time of the telephone call by the head of the ski department, the report of the Mitterberg mining officials meeting in the Mühlbach mine was immediately canceled and all officials, led by their mining manager, went to Mitterberg. In the meantime, it was also ordered that the third third of the mining operations were to be stopped, and their crews were to arrive at the scene of the accident at 10 a.m. under the leadership of their foremen. After our arrival, it was discovered that two thirds of the so-called Schweizerhütte, north of the Mitterberg inn, which had been used as a shelter for part of the ski company, had been completely destroyed and buried under enormous masses of snow. The approximate size of the snow deposits reached an estimated length of 1500 m, a width of 500 m and an accumulation height of 8 - 12 m in the vicinity of the ubication. Due to the unstable weather, heavy snowfall, rain and storms, it was not possible to examine the situation in detail when we arrived, but it had to be stated that there was a constant risk of further avalanches and that the rescue and recovery work initiated immediately after the accident by the military and the workers who had arrived in the meantime was completely inadequate in view of the further danger. The mine management then decided to make a proposal to Lieutenant Loos to withdraw the crew, some of whom were very frightened and therefore almost incapable of working, and to leave the management and execution of the necessary work to us. The work was carried out purely by miners (cuts, tunnels and cross passages, excavation of air holes, carpentry, etc.) Within the first 10 hours after the disaster occurred, 109 people were rescued, some of them seriously injured, but all alive. After 12 o'clock at night, the responsibility for the safety of the rescue team could no longer be assumed with regard to the previously practiced type of mass attack, as new avalanches had fallen to a distance of about 20 meters. We then organized a division of the teams into groups of four men each and a supervisor with hourly relief, silent work on setting up notification posts.
On 20 February, ½ 8 o'clock in the morning, after it could no longer be assumed that it would still be possible to rescue the living, the rescue operation was aborted in view of the team's own danger.
A total of 188 living (70 of them before our team arrived) and 40 dead were rescued. The living, some of whom were slightly or seriously injured, were housed in the crew quarters of the Josefi Unterbauberghaus (now the Hochkeilhaus), where they were fed and cared for, while the dead were taken to the wagon shed at the Josefi Unterbau tunnel. Even before this event in 1916, protective structures against avalanches had been built on the Mitterberg, but unfortunately these measures proved to be insufficient. After the destruction of the Arthurhaus in 1967 by a powerful dust avalanche, the avalanche barriers were then further extended throughout the catchment area to protect the buildings. Since 1901, the Radacher family (Arthurhaus, Hochkeilhaus) and the Kreuzberger family, the former landlords of the Mitterfeldalm hut, have been closely observing, documenting and assessing the snow and avalanche situation around the Mitterbergsattel. Thanks to their experience and the structural protection measures, there have been no personal injuries or damage to inhabited buildings caused by avalanches in this area since then.
Description of the avalanche
The now 86-year-old Peter Radacher analyzed the avalanches of 1916 on the basis of the descriptions and drew the following conclusions: 1.) It was neither a base avalanche nor a dust avalanche, but a fresh snow avalanche, namely three of them, which were triggered in more or less short intervals one after the other, or rather, one after the other. In this respect, I am sticking to the testimony of Jakob Egger, the only eyewitness to the fall of the western avalanche described as 1): whirling up of snow in the uppermost part of the avalanche channel, the terrain becoming invisible and weak air pressure.2) The course of the first avalanche crossed the uppermost edge of the existing avalanche barrier, reached the western edge of the Schweizerhütte and then turned to the right in the terrain, descending towards the west. In all probability, the basin in front of the avalanche barrier was completely filled in and its uppermost layer had solidified. As a result, a deflection towards the eastern ridge by the avalanche barrier was not possible. Even if the period between this avalanche and the following one had been short, the same avalanche should be credited with saving many lives, especially as some people are said to have managed to reach the western part of the Schweizerhütte before the second avalanche caused the eastern part to collapse. However, the descent of the first avalanche was the cause of the second avalanche, which literally tore apart thirds of the Schweizerhütte, carried away the debris and broke roof beams like matchsticks. In and around the building, dead and injured people lay in the most terrible predicaments, often up to 12 (!) meters below the snow cover. The average height of the avalanche around the western part of the building was 8 meters. The location and position of the trapped soldiers lead to the conclusion that they were fleeing towards the western part of the building. Unfortunately, the trapped soldiers chose the route towards the north-west, i.e. against the direction of the avalanche, and some of them were probably crushed to death by the pieces of rock from the collapsed, solidly built north wall. Most of the dead were found at the rear under the broken cribs, especially as the remains of one half of the roof had been pressed into the middle of the outline of the building and pushed forward to form a kind of hut. There were still small gaps between the broken timbers and the snow walls, through which a slight exchange of air was possible. Nevertheless, this part of the rescue operation was the most difficult and dangerous joint effort, as individual soldiers could only be freed from difficult situations with great caution, the removal of broken timbers and relatively slow progress. In one case, for example, a man could only be freed with a broken foot after all the timbers around his position had been cut off and standing roof rebates had been rebuilt after about an hour's work. The pleas for rescue and the helplessness of those buried were, in short, so nerve-wracking that there is no need to go into further details: the base of the second avalanche cannot be determined, but it can be assumed that the force of the impact on the north front of the Schweizerhütte was broken. The people fleeing were then, as has been clearly established, surprised and buried by the third avalanche on their escape route or in the process of trying to save themselves. The third avalanche started at the same place as the second, at an altitude of around 2100 m above sea level, and is likely to have been set in motion by the air shaking as well as due to the common starting point. Its path did not reach the ridge (cut east-west) in order to spread out there and rise in the ascending terrain towards the Hochkeil, but adapted to the terrain fall towards the west, leaving the Götschenhütte and the Kirchsteinhütte intact, dragging the Jägerhäusl without seriously damaging it and shaving the half of the stable between the above-mentioned objects (Note: This half of the stable was probably the "Triglhütte" which was still used as a stable at that time). Eventually it filled the hollow of the saddle (cut north-south), burying the fleeing people. A few more 1000 m3 of snow would undoubtedly have destroyed the Kreuzberghütte, the student hostel (the old Hohlbichlhütte used as a mattress dormitory) and the Mitterberg inn. How close these buildings were to being destroyed can also be seen from Jakob Egger's description, who found the height of the left wing of the avalanche to be almost two meters, the northern front of the first-mentioned buildings were still slurping, between the inn and the mass of snow there was just under a meter of free space! From the peak of the accumulated mass, however, one could easily climb into the windows of the upper floor. In the following I have tried to form as clear a picture as possible of the events of the Mitterberg catastrophe, based on my own impressions as well as those of others, with the aim of putting a stop to all possible rumors circulating about the avalanche. However, we all have only one wish: may God protect our homeland from the same danger or similar misfortune in the future. Many thanks to the Radacher family for the information and the historical images!This report originally appeared in the Salzburg LWD touring forum.