History

How a crazy idea became a legend within nine years: the history of the Jungfrau-Stafette from 1931 to 1939 is filled with remarkable details and anecdotes, underpinned by a tremendous amount of enthusiasm on the part of the initiators, participants and spectators. As told by Stefan Michel.

“I’m not fond of ‘Mr President, Sir, and the like,” Othmar Gurtner said to Fritz Erb, upon receiving him in his flat in Zurich shortly after New Year’s Day in 1931. “The best thing for the time being is to discuss the project alone – just the two of us.” Venturesome was the idea that the publicist and advertising specialist, whose area of expertise was alpinism, put to his friend and editor-in-chief of the “Sport” magazine, and only later did he reveal that quite a few simply dismissed it as absurd. He envisioned a one-day relay race through Switzerland, which would also involve a crossing of the Alps in an airplane. They spent the rest of that evening – and many others – bent over maps in the “planning bureau” in Gurtner’s flat in the Hadlaubstrasse.

Gurtner and Erb were avid alpinists and commissioned officers of the Swiss mountain troops. They competed in military ski-patrol contests. Gurtner himself had even organized a footrace from the Jungfraujoch via the Aletsch Glacier to the Grimsel in 1923. At that time, he had no idea that he was actually breaking new ground on a stretch of the future route. The two men soon agreed that the Jungfraujoch, in effect, the heart of the Swiss Alps, would be the ideal culmination – both as the highest point of the route and as a highly symbolic point as regards patriotic feelings. The name of the relay race was obvious: the Jungfrau-Stafette. Two words to express alpine appeal and team spirit in one name.

Athletic Nourishment

The two visionaries were acclaimed promoters of sport at a time when it was becoming a mass phenomenon. Dozens of sport organizations and associations were founded in the nineteen-tens and twenties in Switzerland. Passive sport was just as popular. Football, cycle racing, motor sports, boxing matches, track-and-field and tennis drew masses of spectators to stadiums, to the streets and in front of radios. The relay race through Switzerland would fuel this enthusiasm for sport. The Jungfrau-Stafette was to become a national event.

Gurtner, an exceptionally gifted propagandist, was the mastermind in the background. Erb communicated the idea to the outside world. Before the two could present their plan to the public, however, a couple of details had to be ironed out. One of these details involved the airplanes. Enthusiasm for flying was not the problem. That was tremendous: be it for a Zeppelin landing in Dübendorf or a hydroplane on Lake Zurich, crowds thronged to see it. People were captivated by accounts of Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic (1927) or Walter Mittelholzer’s expedition to South Africa in a hydroplane that same year.

At the beginning of the thirties, a crossing of the Alps was nothing for novices. It was also quite a feat for the machines, with the thin air taking their engine power to the limits. Not surprisingly, Gurtner and Erb, as officers, initially considered the Swiss Air Force. The most powerful machines and the best pilots were flying in service of the fatherland. Undaunted, the two decided to convince the Army of this patriotic plan. All of their good connections were to no avail, however, for the army officers predicted that it would be impossible to obtain the necessary permits. They did offer a crucial tip, though: sport aircraft. Although it would not be easy to make the climb to almost 4,000 meters with the small, light one- or two-seaters, it was the only chance for the Jungfrau-Stafette to live up to its name.

Flying was an exclusive hobby, particularly
in in the early days of aviation. But it was not only the well-heeled who dabbled in aviation in their leisure time. Engineering buffs with a sense of adventure formed clubs to share the costs. Thus, at the beginning of the nineteen-thirties a total of 16 sporting airplanes were made available by members of 15 sections of the Swiss Aero Clubs, with about 50 additional machines from private owners. Though rather scarce, it should suffice. Flying instructor Major Rhiner and First Lieutenant Morgenthaler joined the organization committee to take charge of aviation in the relay race.

Six Disciplines, Eight Cantons.

Theoretically, the Jungfraujoch had been overcome on paper, and now another crucial test was still in store. From the beginning Gurtner and Erb had planned to make the “Sport” trade journal, for which they both worked, the official event organizer of the Jungfrau-Stafette. The advantages were obvious: apart from the financial and human resources,
this “organ for all disciplines of sport”, according to its own description, was the ideal spokes. The magazine stood to benefit from this vast source of thrilling content for weeks, even months. A similar example from the French newspaper “L’Auto” had proved itself successful 25 years earlier: in order to raise their print run, they launched a cycling race called the “Tour de France”.

As editor-in-chief, Erb was responsible for initiating his superiors at the publishing house and ultimately convince them of the plan. Armed with a tentative plan for each stretch, the possible composition of a team and a schematic diagram of the route, he appeared before Jean Frey, the senior partner, and his sons Carl, Fritz and Max. His sons were avid athletes, so the meeting didn’t last long. After a brief discussion, they approved the plan, and the Jungfrau-Stafette, organized by the publisher and editorial staff of “Sport”, was born.

“Jungfrau-Stafette – Monumental plan demands teamwork from six disciplines. Amateurs carry messenger bag through eight cantons – on the road, in the snow and in the air –21 June – a great day for the spirit Swiss of sport,” was announced to the readers of “Sport” on 6 May 1931. From them on, the Jungfrau-Stafette filled front page after front page of the magazine. Information for prospective participants and for spectators, as well as regulations, the registration list and news about the preparations all served to gradually increase the interest and suspense.

Time was limited for those who wanted to put together a team. Required were three runners, three cyclists, one aviator, two skiers, two alpine runners, one motorcyclist and one racing car driver. Accepted were only members of an accredited sport association, who were requested to wear the official club uniform if available. Ambitious athletes, several nationally famous, others potential stars of the future were signing up. If there wasn’t an athlete to start a leg of a relay, the OC provided assistance in finding one. Naturally, this was most often case with pilots.

Gurtner and Erb spoke again and again about the “ big wheel” they would set in motion on the day of the Jungfrau-Stafette. While the sport nation was banking on the event, thousands of details had to be worked out. The start and finish of the race would be in front of the publishing house in the Dianastrasse. Ten transfer stations had to be organized, two on airfields, one at 3500 meters. “Sport” encouraged athletes to participate, but also sought volunteers, for example, “fit for high mountains and authoritative skiers”. Two days before the premiere, the organizers prepared alternative plans in case bad weather rendered the flight over the Alps impossible.

Plan B

The big day had come. Ten runners stood in pouring rain in front of the “Sport” building early Sunday morning on 21 June 1931, waiting for the sound of the historical starting signal. In one hand they held the rolled aviation messenger bag that their team would carry through Switzerland. Race organizers had taken up their position on the Jungfraujoch. The weather was not any better there: heavy clouds and snow flurries in the Bernese Alps forced them to proceed with Plan B. The highlight of the relay race, the airdrop on the Jungfraujoch, had to be omitted. Instead, the pilots flew from Dübendorf directly to Lausanne, and the skiers were furnished with a new relay bag and sent down the valley.

Fritz Erb was in charge on the Jungfraujoch and was described as the “Muezzin des alpes” in a report in “Sport” because he summoned the spectators to stamp on the snow and sent skiers off every two minutes. Thereafter, the new relay race ran according to plan, with a second skier and two alpine runners bringing the relay bag down to Fiesch. Downright brutal was the second running stretch from Hotel Jungfrau on Eggishorn in the fall line to Fiesch 1100 meters below, where the motorcyclists waited with running engines. This “bone-crunching stretch” would prove to be every orthopaedic surgeon’s nightmare after the first Jungfrau-Stafette.

Speeding Through Valais

The general traffic regulations applied to the motorcyclists and racing car drivers of the relay, though there were practically no regulations in 1931, particularly no speed limits. Thus, the racers put their engines to the test as they thundered down the dusty roads to Lausanne and directly on to the La Blécherette airfield, the fastest doing over 100 km/h on average. The fact that there were no accidents was attributed to proper organization on the part of those in charge and the drivers’ common sense. Apparently, not all the inhabitants of Waadtland and Valais were equally enthused about the vehicles racing through their villages. As of the third Jungfrau-Stafette, the sports drivers had to complete their stretch within a target time. The stipulated average speeds, however, still allowed for racing speeds.

In Dübendorf the aviators still had the opportunity to complete the airdrop. The cyclists snatched the messenger bags falling from the sky and pedalled back to Zurich. At the finish of the Jungfrau-Stafette in front of the “Sport” publishing house, crowds thronged in front of the display window, where updates of the intermediate results were announced.

The first cyclist to cross the finish with the messenger bag was over one hour earlier than predicted. It was Willy Stocker, wearing the white-blue jersey of the Grasshoppers. He and his team mates had six hours and 26 minutes for the some 500 kilometers. The first Jungfrau-Stafette was “A Triumph for Amateurs”, according to the “Sport”. Gurtner and Erb were, like so many other sports fans of that time, imbued with the amateur’s ideal, a sporting achievement out of pure joy, at best in honour of the fatherland, but by no means for money. The Olympic Games adhered to this principle until 1980. During the period between the two World Wars, a part of sport was professionalized, and the two promoters of sport fought it. “Unfortunately, there is no lack of complaints concerning materialism in sport these days.” There was no complaint about the Jungfrau-Stafette, however, certainly not about its first edition. “Not one participant was offered material gain or benefit in any form whatsoever.”

Only The Airdrop Is Better

The third Jungfrau-Stafette, held in 1935, finally saw the long-desired exchange on the Jungfraujoch. Consequently, Erb and Gurtner were able to prove that their idea truly functioned. ”After the success of carrying out the Jungfrau-Stafette as originally planned, we were almost tempted to speak of a milestone or at least of a historical day in the history of Swiss sports and of our ‘Sport’ magazine, with its heartfelt connection,” they wrote the day thereafter. Milestone or not, the airdrops on the Jungfraujoch were the most thrilling part of the race and provided for precarious moments at the relay races from 1935 to 1939. Even if the organizers defended themselves vehemently against accusations of creating a “hazardous game”, the crossing was risky for the aviators. Many of the machines they used were too weak to make the climb with such difficult wind conditions due to frequent fall winds at the ridge. Many managed the crossing only by taking advantage of a local thermal to rise high above the 3800 meters required to make the crossing and then rattled over the ridge with a dive.

The young pilot Walo Hörning described his flight in 1935 for “Sport”: “With a groan, I thought about how nice it would be if I could only give a bit more gas. But that was out of the question. The downwind was stronger than my engine, and the accursed Jöchlein was almost a hundred meters higher.” He found an upwind and made a new attempt. “I was sinking again, but not as low as the first time, and eventually, I thought, there would be an aircushion just above the glacier that might carry me. At about 20 meters lower than the Joch, I came up towards the glacier, it carried, and my additional speed took care of the rest. With about 20 meters of height for safety, I shot over the darned Joch between the Mönch and Kranzberg and was relieved that I could finally descend to the site of the airdrop.” Werner “Gäggeli” Lindecker was not as fortunate in 1939. Contrary to all recommendations, he flew into the middle of the clouds, hoping to fly directly to the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.

Doubts arose after flying blind for quite some time, so he made a 180-degree turn and sunk below the clouds to see where he was. If he had flown further, he would have smashed into the Hasliberg. With massive crusts of ice on the wings, he struggled to gain altitude on Mönchsjoch, just barely managing it after several attempts. While approaching the airdrop site, he got caught in a strong downwind and had to swerve. He found an upwind and piloted again to where he had to drop the bag. But he got caught in a downwind again, his machine made a dive, and Lindecker just barely managed to touch down, albeit with a hard landing on the glacier. The pilot escaped without major injuries, the Leopard Moth had seen its last Alpine flight, however, and was disposed of, so the story goes, in a glacial crevice.

The End

The Jungfrau-Stafette came about as impact of the worldwide economic crisis after the Stock Crash of 1929 was gradually being felt in Switzerland. The nation was caught in a fierce political battle between the Left and Right. Many sport associations were attached to one or the other camp. Gurtner and Erb wanted to bolster the sense of community with their team contest. “One for all and all for one! Team sport is valuable, as it is demanded of us in the struggle for existence time and again, especially during this time of callous selfishness,” appeared in “Sport” on 6 May 1931.

Worries about work and wages gave way to the fear of another World War in 1937. The Jungfrau-Stafette took place in conjunction with a regional exhibition in 1939. Mentally, it was a symbol of national defence. “The name was no accident. In the heart of our small country stands the summit of the Jungfrau, a symbol of the proud, bold Swiss spirit, which prefers taking action over simply talking,” implored Erb and his colleagues. “The Jungfrau-Stafette is also a unique competition, just as our country has a ‘special status’.” The Wengen Ski Club, quasi the home team on Jungfraujoch, won in record time. Just three months later the Second World War broke out. Carrying out the relay again was not an option, with active service for many OC members and the rationing of fuel just two of the many reasons. Thus, the Jungfrau-Stafette became a legend.