The White Hell of Pitz Palu (German: Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü) is a 1929 German silent mountain film co-directed by Arnold Fanck and G. W. Pabst and starring Leni Riefenstahl, Gustav Diessl, Ernst Petersen, and World War I pilot Ernst Udet.

Dr. Johannes Krafft and his bride Maria are spending their honeymoon mountain climbing in the Bernina Alps in southeast Switzerland.

Just then a violent avalanche descends on the couple, the safety rope breaks, and Maria is swept down into a deep crevice in the Piz Palü glacier.

Later when Maria discovers that Hans left with Krafft for the north face, she skis after the men, catches up with them, and insists that they take her along.

As they ascend the icy mountain, a slightly jealous Hans (the three had innocently shared a bed the night before) insists on taking the lead.

Concerned for their safety in the coming storm, the mountain guide sets off after them, but soon is turned back by the blizzard conditions.

The next morning, after learning of the stranded party, pilot Ernst Udet takes off in his aircraft in search of Krafft, Maria, and Hans.

With no help in sight, however, Krafft takes off his jacket and wraps it around Hans to prevent the young man from freezing to death.

Christian finally rappels down to them and discovers a note Krafft left for him indicating that he did his best to save the two young people.

The set design was by Ernő Metzner, the cinematography by Fanck's long-time collaborators Sepp Allgeier, Richard Angst and Hans Schneeberger.

Fanck would continue to work with actors Leni Riefenstahl and Ernst Udet in the films Storm over Mont Blanc (1930) and S.O.S.

[citation needed] In the first four weeks the film was seen by more than 100,000 people at the UFA Palast in Berlin, at this time Germany's largest and most important movie theater.

With the Nazi regime in power since 1933, all nightclub scenes with the Jewish actor Kurt Gerron (who was later murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944) were cut from this release, and the film shortened to 90 minutes.

[4] Hall concluded: Despite its surface simplicity there is a swift undercurrent of tenseness and anticipation that carries one along through the avalanches, up the precipitous and threatening mountainside and finally to the climax of the rescue.

Leni Riefenstahl is convincing as Maria, the brave girl of the group, and Gustav Diesel as Dr. Krafft appears to advantage as the disillusioned searcher.

A remake was produced in 1950 under the title The White Hell of Pitz Palu directed by Rolf Hansen and starring Hans Albers and Liselotte Pulver.