The story
The German Alpine Club was founded as Bildungsbürgerlicher Bergsteigerverein on 9 May 1869 in Munich by 36 former members of the Austrian Alpine Club around the Ötztal curate Franz Senn. It was founded in order to promote the development of tourism in the Eastern Alps through the building of mountain huts, and establishment of hiking trails, and via ferratas. The association had a large membership from the beginning, attracting 1,070 members in the first ten months.
The German and the Austrian societies merged in 1873 to form the German and Austrian Alpine Club (DÖAV). By the late 19th century, the association's policies became increasingly nationalistic and antisemitic. In 1899, the Brandenburg section amended an "Aryan paragraph" to exclude non-Christian members, followed by the Vienna section in 1905 and the Alpine associations of Vienna in 1907 and Munich in 1910. After World War I, Jewish members, including Viktor Frankl and Fred Zinnemann, who made up one third of the membership, were banned in most branches. They, in turn, established a separate Donauland section, insisting on recognition by the DÖAV. The Donauland members were officially ousted in 1924. Jews were even banned from using the DÖAV mountain huts.
Following Austrian Anschluss to Nazi Germany in 1938, the DÖAV, under the leadership of Arthur Seyss-Inquart, was renamed as the Deutscher Alpenverein (DAV) and was incorporated into the Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen (National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise) as its mountaineering association. After World War II, the DAV was dissolved by the Allied authorities. Its assets were held by the Austrian Alpine Club, acting as trustees.
The German Alpine Club was re-established in 1952. It joined the Deutscher Sportbund in 1992. After leaving the Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme in 2008 due to differences of opinion regarding competitive and recreational sports, the German and Austrian Alpine Clubs rejoined the Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme in 2013.
From Wikipedia’s article on German Alpine Club, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5