1939 German expedition to Tibet

The 1939 German Expedition to Tibet was an August 1939 SS expedition to Tibetan territory under the sponsorship of the Third Reich.

On September 29, this group had been observed by the British authorities in India. The SS unit included Heinrich Harrer and was guided by Ernst Schäfer, an Ahnenerbe Institute member and SS commander. Coincidentally, the Japanese ordered Kwantung Army agents to arrive in Tibet and Xinjiang to research the country and make contact with the inhabitants.

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 the Elburz mountain 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 Elburz expedition because it was sacred to the Aryan Gods in ancient Persian cults.)

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 country. However the real (and undercover) objectives specially ordered by Himmler were:
* 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".)

The early Bön and Dugpa believers were regarded as the "Masters of the World" and were supposed to have both brain control and mass control powers, black magic, and telepathy. They also introduced concepts such as "sub-race", "main race", "coming race", "supermen" or "sixth main race". Such terms, similar to the teachings of Theosophy and further outlined in Ariosophy, were also used by the Nazis in their "Fire and Ice" doctrine and both cults used the swastika in a left orientation (Sauwastika), similar to the Nazi use of this symbol.

Also relevant are certain occult Hitler spiritual advisors pertaining to "Order of Green Dragon", linked with "Seventy Two Unknown Superiors of Seth".

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 and twenty selected SS guards intended to contact the Dalai Lama 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 Harrer, 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 Harrer and other group members undertaking research in the Tibetan mountains.

It is claimed that a Tibetan SS horsemen unit fought alongside other SS foreign units on the southern sector of the Eastern Front, and that the Russians found some corpses of Tibetan and Hindu monks in a bunker unearthed in Ahnenerbe installations in Berlin.

In August 1939, Harrer awaited orders to return to Nanga Parbat, one of highest Indian mountains, as part of the German research group. They discovered other new ways to raise and in Karachi awaited the vessel for recovered this group.

Heinrich Harrer and his group were captured by British forces in October 1939 and escaped from jail. He was later recaptured and escaped from his captors again. Harrer arrived alone in Tibet on May 17, 1944, thanks to other German representatives why if maintaining in Lhasa can to contacted with proper Dalai Lama for himself maintaining in same country until the Chinese Communist invasion. Some evidence of this expedition was kept in the National Archives of Washington D.C.

Karl Haushofer personally organised various expeditions to Asia, amongst ordered to arriving at Berlin at Ahnenerbe HQ. at Tibetan and Hindu initiates was burnt during the final stage of conflict. The Red Army encountered the corpses and submitted them for autopsy, but did not publish the results. The Soviet researchers of Atlantis, Gorbusky and Novikov, only are to access at minimal portion of Third Reich archives kept in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) and Moscow, they show that Soviet forces were the first to enter the Ahnenerbe Institute building and left tons of assorted documents from Berlin; but if evident are banned the seeing of confiscated material.

Allied forces reported the encounter in the last stages of the war in one set of flight documents and charts related to the flight plan of the four engine bomber Heinkel He 277. Apparently the aircraft departed from Salzburg, Austria with selected Nazi personnel in April 1945; its destination being a Far East mountainous area, possibly Tibet. Other sources comment that such a flight was similar to a legend told by Otto Rahn in 1931, related by one Languedoc peasant: "All Cathars perished in fire, except Esclarmonde de Foix, who, after knowing the Holy Grail was safe, left the mountain transformed into a white dove to fly to Farway Asian mountains"

References

* Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, "The Morning of the Magicians", Stein & Day, New York,1960.
* Spanish Review "Año Cero" (Year Zero), article "Nazi Occultist in Tibet" by Ernesto Mila, year VIII (N°89), Vol 12-0298-89, Editorial America Iberica
* Jean Robin, "Hitler l'Élu du dragon: reinaissance du nazisme ésoterique", Editions de la Maisnie, France (1°edition), 1987
* David Hatcher Childress, "Lost Cities of Ancient Lemuria & the Pacific", Chapter 1: "Lost Lemuria: Legends of an Ancient Land" (pp. 9-28), Adventures Unlimited Press, 1988.
* Alexandra David-Neel, "Mystics and Magicians of Tibet", 1929.

ee also

* Seven Years in Tibet
* 1939 Japanese Expedition to Tibet