• The first ascent was made on Nanga Parbat in the year 1953 by Hermann Buhl (The first winter ascent was made on 16 February 2016 by Simone Moro, Alex Txikon, and Ali Sadpara). Nanga Parbat was first climbed, via the Rakhiot Flank (East Ridge), on July 3, 1953, by an Austrian climber a member of a German- Austrian team. The expedition was organized by the half-brother of Willy Merkl, Karl Herrligkoffer from Munich, while the expedition leader was Peter Aschenbrenner, who had participated in the 1932 and 1934 attempts.

• By the time of this expedition, 31 people had already died on the mountain. And made this mountain as the deadliest mountain.

• The final push for the summit was very dramatic: Buhl continued alone for the final 1,300m (about4,300 feet) after his companions had turned back. Under the influence of the Drug, Padutin, and tea from coca leaves, he reached the summit dangerously late, at 1900 hours, the climbing harder and more time-consuming than he had anticipated. His descent was slowed when he lost a crampon and Caught by darkness, he was forced to stand upright on a narrow ledge, holding a small handhold with one single hand. He was very exhausted as he was dozed but managed to maintain his balance anyhow.

• He was also very fortunate to have a calm night, so he was not subjected to wind chill. He finally reached his high camp at 1900 hours the next day, 40 hours after setting out. And the big thing was that ascent was made without oxygen, and Buhl is the only man to have made the first ascent of an 8,000-metre (about 26,000 ft) peak alone.

• The attempts to summit Nanga Parbat began very soon after it was discovered by Europeans. In the year 1895, Albert Mummery who led an expedition to the peak, and reached almost 6,100 m (about 20,000 ft) on the Diamir (West) Face, but unfortunately Albert Mummery and his two other Gorkha companions died reconnoitering the Rakhiot Face.

• In the year 1930, Nanga Parbat became the focus of German Mountaineers. The German mountaineers were unable to attempt the Highest Mountain in the world, Mount Everest since only the Britishers had access to the Tibet region. Initially, German efforts focused on Austin Godwin (the second-highest mountain in the world), to which Paul Bauer led two expeditions in the year 1930 and 1931, but with its long ridges and steep faces Austin Godwin was found much more difficult than Mount Everest and neither expedition made any progress. Austin Godwin considers as harder to scale still today, and its remoteness meant that even reaching its base would be a major success. Nanga Parbat was therefore the highest mountain accessible to Germans and was also deemed reasonably possible by climbers at the time.

• The first German expedition to Nanga Parbat was led by W. Merkl in the year 1932. It is also referred to as a German-American expedition, as the eight climbers included. While the team all raw climbers, none had a Mountaineering experience in the Himalayas, and absolutely poor planning, coupled with bad weather, prevented the team from progressing far beyond the Rakhiot Peak northeastern face of the Nanga Parbat summit, reached by Peter and Herbert Kunigk, but they did establish the feasibility of a route via Rakhiot Peak and the main ridge.

• Merkl led another expedition in the year 1934, which was well prepared and financed with full support from the new Nazi Government. Early in the expedition, Alfred Drexel died, likely due to high altitude sickness. The tyrolean climbers, Peter Aschenbrenner and Erwin Schneider reached an estimated height of 7,900 m (about 25,900 ft) but were forced to return because of bad weather. On July 7, they and 14 other mountaineers were trapped by a storm at 7,480 m (about 24,540 ft). During the desperate retreat that followed, three German mountaineers and six Sherpas died of exhaustion, exposure, and altitude sickness, and several others suffered severe frostbite.  It has been said that the disaster, “for sheer protracted agony, has no parallel in climbing annals.”

• In 1937, Karl Wein led another expedition to the mountain, following the same route as Merkl’s expeditions had done. Some Progress was made, but more slowly than before due to heavy snowfall. About 14 June, seven Germans and nine Sherpas, almost the entire team, were at Camp IV below Rakhiot Peak which was a great success but unfortunately, the whole team was overrun by an avalanche. All sixteen mountaineers died. The search team found that the tents had been buried by ice and snow rather than swept away. One of the victim’s diaries read “our situation here is not quite safe from avalanches”.

• The Germans returned in 1938 led by Paul Bauer, but the expedition was plagued by bad weather, and Bauer, mindful of the previous disasters, ordered the party down before the Silver Saddle, halfway between Rakhiot Peak and Nanga Parbat summit, was reached.

» Aufschnaiter expedition :-

Heinrich Harrer, an expert alpinist, was a member of the Alpine unit. The unit practiced on Mount Eiger in Switzerland in the year 1938. When the group returned to Germany, Adolf Hitler met with them. In May 1939, Harrer was selected by the German Himalayan Mountaineering Foundation to take part in a new expedition to the Nanga Parbat, under the leadership of Peter Aufschnaiter. And their goal was to create new ways to ascend the north-western face. They explored the Diamir Face with the aim of finding an easier route. They concluded that the face was a viable route, but World War-2 intervened and the four men were captured by the Britishers in Dehradun, India. Harrer’s escape and subsequent wanderings across Tibet. Some evidence of this expedition is kept in the National Archives of Washington DC, USA.

• In the year 1984 French climber Liliane Barrard became the first woman to summit Nanga Parbat.

• In the year 2005, Americans Vince Anderson and Steve House climb the Central Pillar of the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat in five days duration and then took two days to descend. Their alpine-style ascent is one the boldest Himalayan ascents till date. Steve House described this first ascent, “Summit day was physically one of the hardest days I have ever had in the mountains. We had climbed for five days with a very limited chance for recovery. Fortunately, the weather was perfect. But I was not sure that we would succeed until we arrived just below the south summit at over 8,000 meters and could see the last easy meters to the top.”