The White Spider

Remembering Heinrich Harrer who died this week. Mountain climber and explorer. The Independent obit copied to alt.obituaries. He was one of the first party to ascend the North face of the Eiger. His book on the history of their climb and of other failures made me want to learn to climb back in the 1960's when I read it - and a family holiday that year(?) in Grindelwald only increased the impetus.
He was a member of the SS - the Guardian obituary claims that he hushed this up:

Harrer omitted to mention that as a young man in Austria he had joined the Nazi party, and, with his fellow climbers, had been congratulated in person by Hitler after making the first successful ascent of the north face of the Eiger.

but I seem to remember a picture of the handshake in the library copy of `The White Spider'.
The Eiger link has some of the old photos - and made me want to dig out and scan some of my climbing 35mm slides - just need to acquire that scanner first!!