Ludwig 'Wiggerl' Vörg was a notable German mountaineer. With Heinrich Harrer

Heinrich Harrer

Heinrich Harrer was an Austrian mountaineer, sportsman, geographer, and author.He is best known for his books Seven Years in Tibet and The White Spider .-Athletics:...

, Fritz Kasparek

Fritz Kasparek

Fritz Kasparek was an Austrian mountain climber.Kasparek gained his first alpine experiences at the Peilstein in the Wienerwald mountains and in the Ennstaler Alps...

, and Anderl Heckmair, he successfully climbed the north face of the Eiger

Eiger

The Eiger is a mountain in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mönch to the Jungfrau at 4,158 m...

 in 1938, which was regarded as unclimbable at the time. He also made the first ascent of the West Face of Ushba

Ushba

Ushba is one of the most notable peaks of the Caucasus Mountains. It is located in the Svaneti region of Georgia, just south of the border with the Kabardino-Balkaria region of Russia. Although it does not rank in the 10 highest peaks of the range, Ushba is known as the "Matterhorn of the...

 in the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

. Vörg was killed in action on the first day of Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

, Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.

The 'Bivouac King'

Prior to attempting to north face of the Eiger, Vörg had been the first person to climb the west face of Ushba

Ushba

Ushba is one of the most notable peaks of the Caucasus Mountains. It is located in the Svaneti region of Georgia, just south of the border with the Kabardino-Balkaria region of Russia. Although it does not rank in the 10 highest peaks of the range, Ushba is known as the "Matterhorn of the...

 in the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

. It was during this climb on the 7000 ft high ice face that Vörg earned his nickname from his fellow climbers.

1937 on the Eiger

Vörg and Matthias Rebitsch were planning an attempt of the North Face in 1937 when news came that two Austrian climbers, Franz Primas and Bertl Gollackner, were stuck high on the North East face in ferocious conditions. Vörg and Rebitsch immediately began their climb up the Lauper Wall, where they too were caught in the storm. The face was streaming with torrents of water, glazed rocks, and avalanches. They were forced to bivouac high on the face on a tiny perch of rock. In the morning they pushed on to the hut on the Mittellegi Ridge, taking a break to dry their clothes and rest. Late in the afternoon, two guides reported to the hut that they had brought a freezing exhausted Primas down from the ridge, but that Gollackner was dead 500 ft below the summit. They volunteered to recover the body, and carried it down the knife edge of the Mittellegi Ridge. Vörg and Rebitsch had put their own lives at risk for the sake of others; it was a trait in Vörg that would come out again the following year.

Climbing the Eiger's North Face in 1938

Vörg was attempting the Eiger with Anderl Heckmair. They had set off in pursuit of the preceding team in a race to the top. When they caught up with the Austrian team of Heinrich Harrer and Fritz Kasparek (Vörg and Heckmair's superior 12-point crampons were more useful on the Eiger; Harrer didn't have any crampons at all) they decided to proceed as a four. When they reached the 'Spider' icefield high on the face, they were hit by a ferocious storm, avalanches pounding down upon them. Andreas Heckmair describes what happened when he slipped from the face.

I bore straight down on him in a lightning swift slide. Wiggerl let the rope drop and caught me with his hands, and one of the points of my crampons went through his palm. The force with which I came down on Wiggerl knocked him out of his holds, but he, too, had been able to save himself and there we were, standing about 4 feet below our stance on steep ice without any footholds.

Our Friends...hadn't even noticed anything had happened. If we hadn't checked our fall we would have hurled them out from the face with us in a wide arc.

Vörg, it seems, saved the whole party from certain death, and without his bravery there would never have been the legendary tales of Heinrich Harrer. The four went on to reach the summit, and glory, on the 24th of July, 1938.

Death

Vörg was a Gefreiter

Gefreiter

Gefreiter is the German, Swiss and Austrian equivalent for the military rank Private . Gefreiter was the lowest rank to which an ordinary soldier could be promoted. As a military rank it has existed since at least the 16th century...

 in the German Army and killed on 22 June 1941 at Siolo on the Russian front. He is registered in the memorial book at the German graveyard in Przemyśl

Przemysl

Przemyśl is a city in south-eastern Poland with 66,756 inhabitants, as of June 2009. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship....

, Poland.