On Saturday, January 21, at 8.15 p.m., French/German documentary channel ARTE screens "Der Erste auf dem Mount Everest?" (The First on Mount Everest?). This is the third (!) film coming out of our 2010 search for Andrew Irvine. In contrast to the others, the French version focusses exclusively on the forensic aspect of the story. Renowned experts like textile historians Mary Rose and Mike Parsons, high-altitude physiologist Oswald Oelz, meteorologist Karl Gabl, or British criminologists Samantha Pickles and James Shackle offer their opinions and reconstruct the last hours in the lives of Mallory & Irvine - true C.S.I. on Mount Everest! A must-see!!

On November 26th 2011, after watching the thirty three movies of the competition program, the members of the jury of the 11th International Mountain Film Festival in Bansko decided:

1. Grand Prix For the movie „First on Everest” by Gerald Salmina (Austria).

- the documentary about the Austro-German search for Andrew Irvine in 2010.

Details will follow.

With this year's "The Sherpas' Quest" project, a documentary film reflecting on the history and development of the Himalayan high-altitude porters, my (sometimes very public) involvement in Everest history ends for the time being, although I can envision another few "Everest years" to come in a decade or so.

The new expedition I am embarking on will be even more challenging, full of surprises and discoveries, and ultimately even more rewarding.

"Expedition Family" will start in the first week of October.

Some of you readers have already noted the new Mallory & Irvine segment on my webpage. It is neither long nor colorful - not the fizzy pink alco-pop drunk for distraction, but rather the distilled single malt tasted for essence.

I felt it necessary to write it this way, because there remains one essential fact in the Mallory case: What we actually KNOW is very little.

Which leads to the point of how the scant facts are dealt with. While it is interesting to read what certain researchers think right or wrong, and why, what it actually adds to the EVIDENCE is often a very different matter. Also, what comes disguised as well-informed criticism is often just personal opinion. And abuse between researchers is only revealing about themselves, worthless to the collective progress in the case. But perhaps it's just a language problem which can be answered appropriately: Only facts and constructive criticism matters - f**k the rest ...

My attitude to criticism is best expressed in a quote from one of my favorite movies:

In many ways the work of a critic is easy.

We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those

who offer up their work and their selves to our judgement.

We thrive on negative criticism,

which is fun to write and to read.

But, the bitter truth we critics must face

is that, in the grand scheme of things...

the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful

than our criticism designating it so.

(a free glass of single malt for who guesses that one right ... :-)

Have a nice day!

The new feature-length (91 min) documentary about Mallory & Irvine.

Edmund Hillary was the first to reach the top of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, in 1953. Or so history books tell us. But German researcher Jochen Hemmleb has his doubts. In 1999, he and his team discovered the well-preserved body of George Mallory below the summit of Everest, who attempted to climb the mountain together with his partner, Andrew Irvine, back in 1924. Did Mallory reach the summit 29 years ahead of Hillary?

In 2010 we follow Jochen Hemmleb on another risky search expedition to the roof of the world. With forensic methods, Hemmleb and his team now want to find the body of Mallory's partner, Andrew Irvine. Irvine took with him a small camera, the film of which could provide an aswer to the question: Who was the first to summit Mount Everest?

A film by Gerald Salmina - producer of the award-winning "Mount St. Elias".

"Gerald Salmina's 'Erster auf dem Everest' (First atop Everest) is the documentary about the Mallory story I wanted to see produced for the past nine years. It is 'CSI on Everest' and doesn't deal with the myth but with the hard facts of the Mallory case. With forensic investigations by renowned criminologists, high-altitude physiologists, meteorologists, and equipment experts as well as state-of-the-art animations and re-enactments it delivers a blow-by-blow reconstruction of the events of June 8, 1924." (Jochen Hemmleb)

http://nangaparbat1970.at

It is perhaps the most told and most fiercely debated story in mountaineering history: the story of Reinhold Messner and the death of his brother, Guenther, on Nanga Parbat in 1970. It is a story of contradictions, controversies, suspicions, and apportioning of blame - polarized to this day.

Is there a way beyond the polarized debate? A way to prevent an author being automatically cornered as either a Messner-supporter or Messner-critic?

It's the way of this book.

It asks critical questions without moralizing. It observes and analyses, but doesn't judge and value. Because there are no heroes and villains in this book, no victims and culprits - only human beings, who, in differing proportions, are always both. This book is about understanding the events from back then to today, about the diversity of voices and opinions, about evolution and repeating patterns of a story.

"Circumstances do not shape the man; they only reveal him." (Epiktet, greek philosopher, 50-125; quoted on p. 220)

"The constant repetition of moralistic outrage is as natural as it is irrelevant. Outrage alone fosters neither knowledge nor understanding. And understanding is not approval."

(Carolin Emcke in "Stumme Gewalt", p. 72; quoted on p. 219)

My new book is due mid-March. As the book deals a lot with how history is written and perceived, the following text - which I recently came across in a book - seems very fitting. Enjoy!

"Newspapers, journals, books are traditional sources of information and opinion. Today, telephones and computers are added to the mix, along with radio and television. Knowledge is a step further from belief. We are bombarded with knowledge - data, information, opinion, advice, etc.

But the saying that 'knowledge is power' is another one of those ego-feeding illusions. Knowledge by itself is incomplete. The step beyond knowledge is understanding. Do we understand what we know? Could it be, for example, that half of what we know [...] is really irrelevant and nonessential?

Understanding demands time, alone. To sort out and then put together again - in some order - what we think we know. Our trap is to treat 'knowledge' as a be-all-and-end-all. If the knowledge we have at hand doesn't immediately offer us a solution, then we rush out to find more knowledge, more data, more information. I suggest a very contrarian, 'counter-cultural' alternative. We need to stop and think, to see if we understand the knowledge we already have at hand. [...] Logic, analysis, and deduction have become virtually lost arts. It's because we don't take the time to practice them. We know a lot, understand little. We are easily led, easily influenced. We spend too much time on the phone and on computer bulletin boards, and not enough time alone, thinking - for ourselves.

People who are at the forefront of research are particularly vulnerable. Knowledge, opinion and advice simply flow their way. They have to insist on time and space - alone - to think. Otherwise they can literally 'overdose' on knowledge. The mind-control devices of attention deflection and disinformation are designed to create this overload."

If this text strikes a chord and you'd like to know how this relates to mountaineering history, tune in again in mid-March ...

The renowned German climbing magazine "Alpin" rated "Tatort Mount Everest" their Book of the Month in September. "Can you ask for more?" is the conclusion of their review of a compelling detective story.

The informative British website "Mount Everest - The British Story" recently posted an interview with me. You can read the full interview at

http://www.everest1953.co.uk/JochenHemmleb.php

Enjoy!

Ten Years ago, on May 1, 1999, the "Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition" (of which I was one of the instigators and participants) discovered the body of Himalayan pioneer George Mallory, 75 years after his disappearance on Mount Everest in 1924. The find made headlines worldwide and reignited a decades-old debate: Were Mallory and his partner, Andrew Irvine, the first to climb the world's highest mountain, 29 years before Hillary and Tensing?

The search for a solution to the riddle of Mallory and Irvine is a threefold journey. First, there is Mallory and Irvine's last climb and the traces telling of its course. Then there are the experiences of other expeditions, giving insights into what Mallory and Irvine might have done. And lastly, there are my own formative years of detective work.

All three of the journeys are told in my new book:

Tatort Mount Everest - Der Fall Mallory

Neue Fakten und Hintergründe

(Crime Scene Mount Everest - The Mallory Case)

• Including exclusive interviews with the man who probably found Irvine
• Including all findings of the Mallory & Irvine Research Expeditions 1999, 2001, and 2004
• Including the most detailed chronicle of the British and Chinese expeditions to the north side of Everest 1921-1979
• Including previously unpublished photographs and documents
• With a foreword by Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits

Terra Magica, June 2009; 272 pp., color throughout; 17,3 x 24,5 cm, Hardcover with DJ

24,95 €

ISBN: 978-3-7243-1022-8

More information on this website after June 22.

The 2nd edition of "Broad Peak-Traum und Albtraum" (Broad Peak-Dream and Nightmare" is out since the beginning of January. It has an additional chapter about the successful recovery of Markus Kronthaler's body from the mountain last summer.