Alix von Melle

[1][2] Alix von Melle was the third of four children born to a school teacher and businessman in Ahrensburg.

[3] After high school, she studied geography in Hamburg and in 1992 transferred to the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

After university, she spent a decade managing the Bavarian regional office of the German Alpine Club while Stitzinger was a mountain guide.

[10] Over twenty-five years together, the two became Germany's most high profile mountaineering couples, and would climb many of the world's highest peaks together.

[13] Later she managed the press and public relations department of Globetrotter, a German sporting goods retailer[14] before becoming a self-employed PR consultant.