Bruno Beger
| Bruno Beger | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 27, 1911 Frankfurt am Main, Germany |
| Died | October 12, 2009 (aged 98) Königstein im Taunus, Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Alma mater | University of Jena |
| Occupation | Anthropologist |
| Known for | 1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet |
Bruno Beger (27 April 1911, Frankfurt am Main - 12 October 2009 Königstein im Taunus) was a German Racial anthropologist who worked for the Ahnenerbe. In that role he participated in Ernst Schäfer's 1938 journey to Tibet, helped the Race and Settlement Office of the SS identify Jews and helped locate subjects needed for a skeleton collection to help educate on the identification of Jewish peoples.
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[edit] Early life
Beger was born in 1911 to an old Heidelberg family that soon after came upon hard times when Beger's father was killed in World War I, but a family friend paid for him to attend the University of Jena where he was first exposed to Hans F. K. Günther during a lecture, a man who would encourage him through his early academic career in anthropology and ethnology.
[edit] Service in the SS
In 1934, Beger began working a part-time job in the Race and Settlement Office of the SS where he eventually became a section head. Beger was asked to be part of a journey to Hawaii, but while this expedition was waiting for final approval, he was invited on a trip to Tibet led by Ernst Schäfer which he accepted instead.
In a proposal he wrote to Schäfer, Beger stated his contribution to the expedition would be "to study the current racial-anthropological situation through measurements, trait research, photography and moulds... and to collect material about the proportion, origins, significance and development of the Nordic race in this region."[1]
[edit] The German Ernst Schäfer Tibet Expedition
All through the expedition, Beger kept a travel diary which was published in book form 60 years later, Mit der deutschen Tibetexpedition Ernst Schäfer 1938/39 nach Lhasa (Wiesbaden, 1998). Only 50 copies of it exist.[2]
[edit] Racial experiences
Beger worked together with August Hirt at the Reichsuniversität Straßburg. His duty, which he carried out, was to provide the Nazi physician with detainees of diverse ethnic types from various concentration camps in order to serve Hirt's lethal racial experiments. In these endeavours he was assisted by doctors Hans Endres, Hans Fleischhacker, Heinrich Rübel and Rudolf Trojan (Pringle:254).
[edit] After the war
In 1974 he was convicted by a German court as an accessory to 86 murders for his part in procuring and preparing the victims of the Jewish skeleton collection at Auschwitz concentration camp. He was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment, the minimum sentence, but did not serve any time in prison.
According to his family, Beger died in Königstein/Taunus on October 12, 2009.[3][4]
[edit] Published work
- Meine Begenungen mit dem Ozeam des Wissens, Kurt und Dieter Schwartz, Königstein, 1986, 11 p.
- Mit der deutschen Tibetexpedition Ernst Schäfer 1938/39 nach Lhasa, Schwartz, Wiesbaden, 1998, 280 p.
[edit] References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bruno Beger |
- Hale, Christopher. Himmler's Crusade: the True Story of the 1938 Nazi Expedition into Tibet Bantam, 2004. ISBN 978-0553814453
- Pringle, Heather. The Master Plan : Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. Hyperion, 2006. ISBN 0-7868-6886-4
- ^ Joseph Cummins, History's great untold stories: obscure events of lasting importance, Murdoch Books, 2006, 366 p., p. 327.
- ^ Detlev Rose, L’expédition allemande au Tibet de 1938-39, voyage scientifique ou quête de traces à motivation idéologique ?: "Bruno BEGER, Mit der deutschen Tibetexpedition Ernst Schäfer 1938/39 nach Lhasa, Wiesbaden, 1998, page 6. Ce livre récapitule les notes du journal de voyage de Beger, réadaptées pour publication. Il n’a été tiré qu’à une cinquantaine d’exemplaires."
- ^ Mention of death (in the middle of the article, in chapter called Auftrag erweitert).
- ^ Biography including information of death.
