Bernd Arnold

Bernd Arnold, born on 28 February 1947, is a German rock climber and mountaineer known for more than 900 first ascents in the Saxon Switzerland climbing region of East Germany. During the 1970s and 1980s he established most of the hardest routes there and became one of the most influential German climbers of his era, and he is well known for climbing barefoot even on very hard routes. His first notable ascent was Route Zehn at the Meurerturm in 1966, aged nineteen, and in 1977 he was the first to climb grade IXc with Direkte Superlative at the Grosser Wehlturm. He reached Xa in 1982 and Xb in 1983, and his Xc first ascents of 1986 marked the peak of his rock climbing. After 1989 he travelled widely and went on expeditions to Patagonia and the Karakoram with Kurt Albert.