IN GERMANY, the fight continues. Messner, enraged at the "character assassination campaign" against him, recently announced to German newspaper Der Spiegel that he is teaming up with award-winning Munich film director Joseph Vilsmaier to make a documentary about the "crime" committed against him.

What will his teammates do now?

"We will find this man who is making this film and say, 'If you really want to make a documentary, you have to show both sides,' " says Saler. "And we will show him our side of the story."

Von Kienlin, for his part, says he refuses to overreact the way he believes Messner has. "He puts himself in such a ridiculous position, he hurts himself," he said. "Silence is better than to speak such idiocies. Everything is so totally overdone. He wants people to always be sad for him."

Then von Kienlin paused for a moment. "Maybe I'll write another book about the things that have happened since The Traverse was written," he said. "But maybe not. To talk is silver, but silence is gold."

Meanwhile, at press conferences in Islamabad, Pakistan, on September 4, and at his castle on September 8, Messner held the leather boot aloft, claimed vindication, and referred to his expedition mates as schafsköpfe (literally, "sheep heads") who were "miserable cheaters, liars, and criminals."

"What they've done to me is just like what the Germans did to the Jews—no difference!" he told Austria's News magazine this summer. When I called him later, he was still furious. "They took my reputation and spat on it!" he shouted.

Will the discovery of Günther's body end your anguish? I asked. Will the feud be over?

"It will never be over," he replied angrily. Then, in a fast-paced, 40-minute monologue, he railed against journalists for believing the "lies" of his teammates, against von Kienlin's cunning, and against the German Alpine Club for letting von Kienlin and Saler hold a press conference in their "holy house."

So why did he burn the remains?

"So nobody can go there and bring these bones over to the other side of the mountain!" he yelled. "That's why we cremated everything! The crime energy is so strong in these people!"

Messner was midstream when I thought I heard a voice calling in the background. "Ah, I must go now," he said abruptly. "Bye-bye." He sounded suddenly convival, then hung up.