Thoughts of Mountain Climbers in Interwar Austria: Liberality by the Alpine Association for Workers, the Friends of Nature

Takako FURUKAWA

Main theme of this article is to clarify, how the mountain climbers’ association for workers in Austria, the Friends of Nature, accepted liberal mountain climbing thoughts by bourgeois mountain climbers. The workers’ alpine club maintained such thoughts even during the interwar period of political conflicts. The worker’s mountain climbers had experienced sense of equality, independence and friendship with bourgeois mountain climbers on the top of mountains after hard climbing. Therefore, they did not need struggling for the socialist society as the Social Democratic Party hoped. They believed that their ideal equal society had already come true in the real world. It was generous of liberal bourgeois climbers, especially intellectuals, to admit strenuous efforts by male worker’s mountain climbers.