Police investigate man after girl, 17, left stranded on Germany’s highest mountain

A 21-year-old German whose 17-year-old female friend was left alone while descending Germany’s highest mountain in sub-zero temperatures is being investigated by Austrian police.

The pair had set off from the Austrian village of Ehrwald at around 1:30am local time and planned to climb the Zugspitze mountain to see the sunrise. They reached around 2,500 metres before the temperature plummeted to -12C and it began to snow heavily, according to German news agency dpa.

As they waded through knee-deep snow, the teen lost her strength and the young man from Bavaria her left her to descend the mountain.

She phoned for help and was rescued by authorities, before being taken to a nearby hospital suffering with hypothermia.

Police have not confirmed whether they believe the young man abandoned his girlfriend or whether it was a joint decision.

They cited the ongoing investigation when asked about the reason for the split.

But endangering another person’s physical safety is punishable with up to three months in prison in Austria. The Zugspitze mountain sits on the border between Germany and Austria, with the mountain’s peak inside Germany.

Robin Lutnig of the mountain rescue service in Ehrwald told German broadcaster SWR that the pair were not experienced enough for the ascent, and warned against a trend of inexperienced climbers talking on such hikes during winter.

Lutnig said a helicopter rescue was not initially possible due to the weather conditions.

Seven members of Ehrwald mountain rescue descended from the Zugspitzbahn mountain station on the mountain’s 2,962 summit to rescue her.

It has similarities to a similar case in the Austrian courts earlier this year.

An Austrian court has found an amateur mountaineer Thomas Plamberger guilty of manslaughter over his girlfriend’s death near the nation’s highest summit, where he had left her to fetch help, local media reported.

The defendant, from Salzburg, had argued he was in a trance and vomiting from the stress when he decided to abandon his partner. The court heard he left Kerstin exposed, without wrapping her in an emergency blanket or bivouac bag, to go and find help.

But over the course of the 13-hour hearing, prosecutors identified a series of “fundamental errors” that led the judge, himself a climber, to conclude that had the defendant acted differently, his girlfriend would have survived.

The court in the western city of Innsbruck on Thursday gave Thomas Plamberger a five-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of €9,400 (£8,200) for causing the woman’s death in January 2025 by gross negligence.

Plamberger, 37, who pleaded not guilty, told the court he was “terribly sorry”.

The victim, named during court proceedings as Kerstin G, 33, died of hypothermia just metres below the summit of Grossglockner, which rises 3,798 metres in the Hohe Tauern range and is considered one of the most demanding winter ascents in the Alps.