1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet

The 1939 German Expedition to Tibet, also known as the SS Tibet Expedition, was a May 1938 - August 1939 SS expedition to Tibetan territory under the sponsorship of the Third Reich.

In 1937 Himmler decided he could increase the Ahnenerbe’s visibility by investigating Hans F. K. Günther’s claims that early Aryans had conquered much of Asia, including attacks against China and Japan in approximately 2000 BC, and that Gautama Buddha was himself an Aryan offspring of the Nordic race. Walther Wüst would later expand upon this, stating in a public speech that Adolf Hitler’s ideologies corresponded with those of Buddha, since the two shared a common heritage.

Members

Ernst Schäfer was a member of the SS when he showed up at the German consulate in Chung-King in 1935. Schäfer had just returned from a trip through parts of Asia, mainly India and China, in which the other two heads of the expedition had abandoned him in fear of native tribes.^[1] Schäfer turned the expedition from a complete failure into a great success, and the SS took note, sending him a letter informing him of a promotion to SS-Untersturmführer and summoning him back to Germany from Philadelphia where he was organizing the collection from his voyage. In June 1936, Schäfer met with Himmler, who consequently informed Sievers and Galke to start organizing an expedition to Tibet.

Schäfer recruited young, fit men who would be well suited for an arduous journey.^[1] At age 24, Karl Wienert (an assistant of Wilhelm Filchner, a famous explorer) was the team’s geologist. Also age 24, Edmund Geer was selected as the technical leader to organize the expedition. A relatively old teammate at the age of 38 was Ernst Krause (not to be confused with the German biologist of the same name) was to double as a filmmaker and entomologist. Bruno Beger was a 26 year old Rassekunde expert and student of Günther who was to be the team’s anthropologist.

The expedition's funding was provided by various public and private contributors, with the return flight to Germany paid for by the SS. The cost of equipping the expedition was RM 65,000, and the expedition itself cost another RM 65,000, excluding the flight back ^[2].

Background

Coincidentally, the Japanese ordered Kwantung Army agents to arrive in Tibet and Xinjiang to research the country and make contact with the inhabitants.

Other experts in the field such as Otto Rahn knew about the Tibet expedition. Others including Rudolph Hess, Vacher von Lapouge, Horbiger, Sievers, Oberth and Hielscher ordered an in-depth research into ancient Runic and Sanskrit texts, in hope of finding ancient powers related in legends.

The official plan of the expedition included research on the landforms, climate, geography, and culture of the region, and contacting the local authorities for the establishment of representation in the country. However the real (and undercover) objectives specially ordered by Himmler were:^{[citation needed]}

To obtain documents and texts relating to Tibetan Vajrayana (Diamond Way) Buddhism and knowledge of paranormal powers;
To measure the skulls of living Tibetans to determine if they were related to the original Aryans, which were believed by the Nazi to have migrated from Atlantis.
To establish ways to contact the Shambhala Tibetan Mythical kingdom;
To establish links with followers of the pre-Buddhist Bön and Dugpa religions;
To enable some SS personnel to receive the Kalachakra Tantra ceremony; it is supposed Schäfer or some other members of the group also received such a ceremony;
To contact an envoy from Tibet, one Tulpa or Tulku, as special incarnation, for aiding the Führer in his special function as spiritual leader of the Aryan cause. (In 1923, Houston Stewart Chamberlain recalled after an encounter with the future German leader in Bayreuth, "Hitler was a spirit awakener, the vehicle of messianic powers... here was the new leader sent by God to the German people in their hour moment of most need".)

Members of the expedition returned to Germany with a complete edition of the Tibetan sacred text the Kangyur (108 volumes), examples of Mandala, other ancient texts, and one alleged document regarding the Aryan Race. These documents were kept in Ahnenerbe archives, with others being kept by Hitler and Himmler in the Reichstag bunker.

The group of five researchers intended to contact the Regent of Tibet and visit the sacred cities of Lhasa and Shigatse. Even with wartime difficulties the group was able to contact the Tibetan authorities and people. (Other Nazi representatives contacted Xinjiang peoples for support with the political cause in same period.)

There exist some photos taken from the expedition of Schäfer and colleagues with Tibetan dignitaries in a room decorated with black and white SS banners, Swastika and Tibetan flags. Others show Schäfer with the Potala Palace in the background, and other group members undertaking research in the Tibetan mountains.

Expedition details

File:Tibetahnenerbe1.jpg

Video still.

In July 1937 the team suffered a setback when Japan invaded China, ruining Schäfer’s plans to use the Yangtze River to reach Tibet. Schäfer flew to London to seek permission to travel through India, but was turned down by the British government who feared an imminent war with Germany.

Another problem to come up in the preparations for the Tibetan expedition occurred during a duck hunting accident on November 9, 1937 when Schäfer, his wife of four months, and two servants were in a rowboat. A sudden wave caused Schäfer to drop his gun which broke in two and discharged, mortally wounding his wife. Despite subsequent emotional problems, Schäfer was back to work on the expedition in eight weeks.^[1].

Schäfer asked Himmler for permission to simply arrive in India and try to force his way into Tibet. Himmler agreed with this plan, and set about furthering it by contacting influential people, including Germany’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. On April 21, 1938 the team departed from Genoa, Italy on their way to Ceylon where they would then travel to Calcutta, India.

The day before the team left Europe the Völkischer Beobachter ran an article on the expedition, alerting British officials of their intentions. Schäfer and Himmler were both enraged: Schäfer complained to the SS headquarters and Himmler in turn wrote to Admiral Barry Domvile. Domvile was a Nazi supporter and former head of British naval intelligence who gave the letter to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who allowed the SS team to enter Sikkim, a region bordering Tibet^[1].

In Sikkim’s capital of Gangtok, the team assembled a 50-mule caravan and searched for porters and Tibetan interpreters. Here, the British official, Sir Basil Gould observed them, describing Schäfer as “interesting, forceful, volatile, scholarly, vain to the point of childishness, disregardful of social convention,” and noted that he was determined to enter Tibet regardless of permission^[1].

The team began their journey June 21, 1938, traveling through the Teesta River valley and then heading north. Krause worked light traps to capture insects, Wienert toured the hills making measurements, Geer collected bird species and Beger offered locals medical help in exchange for allowing him to take measurements of them.

In August 1938, a high official of the Rajah Tering, a member of the Sikkimese royal family living in Tibet, entered the team’s camp. Although Beger wished to ask the guest’s permission to measure him, he was dissuaded by the Tibetan porters who encouraged to wait for Schäfer to return from a hunting trip. Schäfer met with the official, and presented him with mule-loads of gifts^[1].

In December 1938 the Tibetan council of ministers invited Schäfer and his team to Tibet, but forbid them from killing any animals during their stay, citing religious concerns.^[3] After a supply trip back to Gangtok, Schäfer learned he had been promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer, and the rest of the team had been promoted to SS-Obersturmführer^[1].

During the trip to Tibet’s highlands, Beger began making facial casts of local people, including his personal servant, a Nepalese Sherpa named Passang. During the first casting, paste got into one of Passang’s nostrils and he panicked, tearing at the mask. Schäfer threatened the employment of the porters who had seen the incident, if they told anyone. However, most of the Tibetians had a much more friendly and light-hearted attitude, and a solid amount of photographic and film footage remains of smiling and laughing Tibetians undergoing facial and skull feature measurements.

On January 19, 1939, the team reached Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Schäfer proceeded to pay his respects to the Tibetan ministers and a nobleman. He also gave out Nazi pennants, explaining the shared symbol’s reverence in Germany.^[1] His permission to remain in Lhasa was extended, and he was permitted to photograph and film the region. The team spent two months in Lhasa, collecting information on agriculture, culture, and religion, even receiving a copy of the 108-volume encyclopedia of Tibetan Buddhism (only three copies of which had been given to Europeans and had never been translated).^[1]

After leaving Lhasa, the team traveled to the Yarlung Valley – a region British officials had been denied entry into. The team observed the valley and the ancient stronghold of Yumbulagang, but the approaching war threatened their research, and they began preparing plans to return via a flight from Calcutta to Baghdad, and eventually back to Germany.

Return to Germany

Their final inventory included nearly 2,000 photographs, 17 head casts and the measurements of 376 people, as well as having sent back specimens of three breeds of Tibetan dogs, rare feline species, wolves, badgers, foxes, animal and bird skins, and the seeds for 1,600 types of barley, 700 varieties of wheat, 700 varieties of oats and hundreds of other types of seeds. In addition, the team had been given a Tibetan mastiff, a gold coin and the robe of a lama (believed by Schäfer to have been worn by the Dalai Lama) to be gifted to Adolf Hitler.^[1]

Schäfer arrived in Munich on August 4, 1939, and was greeted personally by Himmler, who presented him a Totenkopfring. Because of the war, Schäfer’s writings about the trip were not published until 1950, under the title Festival of the White Gauze Scarves: A research expedition through Tibet to Lhasa, the holy city of the god realm.

The Nanga Parbat expedition (May 1939 - August 1939)

File:Ahnenerbe-Tibet.jpg

German climbers at the summit of Mount Elbrus

Heinrich Harrer, an expert alpinist, was a member of the SS Alpine unit. The unit practised on the Eiger mountain in Switzerland in 1938. When the group returned to Germany, Hitler met with them. (This SS unit also climbed Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus and raised a Swastika flag on the summit in 1942 during the Eastern Front Campaign. It has been suggested that Himmler ordered the Elbrus expedition because it was sacred to the Aryan Gods in ancient Persian cults.)

In May 1939, Harrer was selected by the German Himalayan Foundation to take part in a new expedition to the Nanga Parbat ^[4], one of the highest Indian mountains, under the leadership of Peter Aufschnaiter. Their goal was to discover new ways to make the ascent of the North-western face. In August 1939, their mission accomplished, the team left for Karachi where a vessel was supposed to have recovered them.

The group were captured by British forces in October 1939 and escaped from jail. Harrer was later recaptured and escaped from his captors again. Harrer arrived with Aufschnaiter in Tibet on May 17, 1944, and was introduced to the Dalai Lama in 1949, staying in the country until the Chinese Communist invasion. Some evidence of this expedition is kept in the National Archives of Washington D.C.

Footnotes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Pringle, Heather, The Master Plan: Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust, Hyperion, 2006.
^ The Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, United States Forces - European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, APO 757 Final Interrogation Report (OI-FIR) No. 32, Feb. 12, 1946. Accessed 2009-06-17. Archived 2009-06-19.
^ Christopher Hale. Himmler’s Crusade: The Nazi Expedition to Find the Origins of the Aryan Race, p200. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. ISBN 0-471-26292-7
^ See the July 1955 edition of National Geographic: "We left our native Austria in 1939 as members of the German Nanga Parbat Expedition".

References

Pringle, Heather (2006). The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. Hyperion. ISBN 978-0786868865.
Hale, Christopher (2003). Himmler’s Crusade: The Nazi Expedition to Find the Origins of the Aryan Race. Hoboken, N. J.: John Wiley & Sons. p. 200. ISBN 0-471-26292-7.
Schellenberg, Walter (1956). The Schellenberg Memoirs. London: Andre Deutsch.
Levenda, Peter (2003). Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. pp. 191–202. ISBN 0-8264-1409-5.
The Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, United States Forces - European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, APO 757 Final Interrogation Report (OI-FIR) No. 32, Feb. 12, 1946.