“Our relationship is strained,” the 79-year-old mountaineer told “Apotheken Umschau” in an interview published on Sunday. “The moment I distributed my material inheritance to my children and wife, the family fell apart,” he added.
Munich. “The question of who got more was paramount and at 75 I was on the brink of ruin,” said Messner, who comes from South Tyrol in Italy. He was “disappointed” by the behavior of his children. One of his biggest mistakes in life was to have left the majority of his assets to his children in his will before his death.
Messner is one of the most famous extreme mountaineers in the world. In 1978, together with his climbing partner Peter Haberle, he was the first person to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain, the 8,848-meter-high Mount Everest in the Himalayas, without the support of oxygen equipment. Messner was also the first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders in the world.
