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German research expedition (1938-1939)
The 1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet, a German scientific expedition, took place in Tibet between April 1938 and August 1939 under the leadership of the German zoologist and SS-officer Ernst Schäfer.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “German expedition to Tibet (1938-1939)”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The 1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet, a German scientific expedition, took place in Tibet between April 1938 and August 1939 under the leadership of the German zoologist and SS-officer Ernst Schäfer.
Nazi Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler wished to use the reputation of the scientist and explorer Ernst Schäfer for Nazi propaganda after Schäfer's first two trips to China and Tibet in 1930 to 1931 and 1934 to 1936 came to Himmler's attention. Himmler asked about Schäfer's future plans. Schäfer responded that he wanted to lead another expedition to Tibet and requested that his expedition be under the patronage of the cultural department of the Foreign Affairs Department or of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ("German Research Foundation"). Himmler was fascinated by Asian mysticism and therefore wished to send such an expedition under the auspices of the SS Ahnenerbe (SS Ancestral Heritage Society), and he desired for Schäfer to perform research based on Hanns Hörbiger's pseudoscientific theory of "Glacial Cosmogony", promoted by the Ahnenerbe. Schäfer had scientific objectives and therefore refused to include Edmund Kiss, an adept of the theory, in his team and required 12 conditions to ensure scientific freedom. Wolfram Sievers, from the Ahnenerbe, therefore expressed criticism concerning the objectives of the expedition, and Ahnenerbe would not sponsor it. Himmler was agreeable to the expedition going ahead if all members joined the SS, and Schäfer found that he had no alternative but to accept that condition even without sponsorship.
While he prepared the expedition, Schäfer used the term "Schaefer Expedition 1938/1939" on his letterhead and to apply for sponsorship from businessmen. The official expedition name had to be changed by order of the Ahnenerbe, however, to German Tibet-Expedition Ernst Schaefer (in capital letters), "under the patronage of the Reichsführer-SS Himmler and in connection with the Ahnenerbe" (in small letters).
After the German Consul-General in Calcutta had criticized the letterhead in a report to the German Foreign Office by "arguing that the prescribed letterhead was counter-productive and immediately generated mistrust among the British," Schäfer "ordered a new, discreet letterhead in Antiqua font, which read 'Deutsche Tibet Expedition Ernst Schäfer'." During the expedition, Schäfer used only the latter letterhead or his original "Schaefer Expedition" paper. The Ahnenerbe-prescribed letterhead was used only prior to the expedition's departure.
The British writer Christopher Hale claims that one cannot infer that Schäfer was independent of the SS and could do "pure science" simply from the special letterhead that he got printed for the expedition. To all intents and purposes, the expedition remained under Himmler's patronage, and Schäfer had no interest in losing his support.
In its time, the expedition was also commonly referred to in German newspapers and academic journals as the "SS Tibet Expedition", as it had Himmler as its patron, and all five members were SS officers. The "SS Tibet Expedition" designation was used by Schäfer himself in the Atlantis Journal. "SS Tibet Expedition" is the title used in a 1946 report by US military intelligence in Western Europe.
In the "Register of the Heinrich Himmler Papers", 1914–1944, archived at Stanford University's Hoover institution, the folder containing the material pertaining to the expedition bears the title "The SS-Tibet-Expedition, 1939".
That designation is still in use by modern scholars, such as Mechtild Rössler in 2001, and Suzanne Heim in 2002, as well as by the writer Peter Lavenda in 2002.
According to Christopher Hale, Schäfer was demanding more than 60,000 Reichsmarks for his expedition, and the coffers of the SS were depleted at the time. He was therefore forced to raise the funds himself.
According to researcher Isrun Engelhardt, the expedition was not funded by the Ahnenerbe. Schäfer raised the funds by himself, 80% of which came from the Public Relations and Advertising Council of German Industry (Werberat der deutschen Wirtschaft) as well as large German business enterprises, German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and Brooke Dolan II. Himmler's personal friends sponsored only the flight back to Germany.
According to the United States, the expedition's funding was provided by various public and private contributors, with the return flight to Germany being 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.
Ernst Schäfer was a member of the SS when he arrived at the German consulate in Chongqing in 1935. He had just returned from a trip through parts of Asia, mainly India and China, in which the two other heads of the expedition had abandoned him out of fear of the native tribes. Schäfer turned the expedition from a complete failure into a great success, and the SS took note by sending him a letter informing him of a promotion to SS-Untersturmführer and summoning him back to Germany from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In June 1936, Schäfer met with Himmler, who 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. At 24, Karl Wienert (an assistant of Wilhelm Filchner, a famous explorer) was the team's geologist. Also 24, Edmund Geer was selected as the technical leader to organize the expedition. A relatively old teammate, who was 38, was Ernst Krause (not to be confused with the German biologist of the same name), who was to double as a filmmaker and an entomologist. Bruno Beger was a 26-year-old Rassekunde expert and student of Hans F.K. Günther and was to be the team's anthropologist.
The researcher Roger Croston described the objective of the expedition as "an holistic creation of a complete biological record of Tibet alongside a synthesis of inter-relating natural sciences with regard to geography, cartography, geology, earth magnetics, climate, plants, animals and mankind."
Reacting to Dr Isrun Engelhardt's conclusions that the Schäfer expedition was "purely scientific" and her claim that the historical context of Germany in the 1930s made the expedition's goals appear as somehow sinister, the British writer Christopher Hale observed that "while the idea of ‘Nazi botany’ or ‘Nazi ornithology’ is probably absurd, other sciences are not so innocent – and Schäfer's small expedition represented a cross-section of German science in the 1930s." To Hale, that has considerable significance as "under the Third Reich anthropology and medicine were cold-bloodedly exploited to support and enact a murderous creed." There have been allegations that one of the expedition's purposes was to determine whether Tibet was the cradle of the "Aryan race". The taking of cranial measurements and the making of facial casts of local people by the anthropologist Bruno Beger did little to dissipate those allegations.
However, Croston agreed with Engelhardt and stated that the expedition "was planned as a scientific mission [...] but it was caught up in the politics of the time.[...] Schaefer’s vehement refusal to accept Himmler’s plans led, eventually, to the expedition not being sponsored by Himmler’s SS or its organisations 'because it would lie outside the scope of his work'."
According to the American journalist Karl E. Meyer, one of the expedition's aims was to prepare maps and survey passes "for possible use of Tibet as a staging ground for guerrilla assaults on British India."
The Italian essayist Claudio Mutti stated that the official plan 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.
According to Claudio Mutti, the group of five researchers intended to contact the Regent of Tibet and to visit the sacred cities of Lhasa and Shigatse. Even with wartime difficulties, the group contacted the Tibetan authorities and people. They returned to Germany with a complete edition of the Tibetan sacred text the Kangyur (108 volumes), examples of Mandala, other ancient texts, and an alleged document regarding the "Aryan race". The documents were kept in the Ahnenerbe archives.
The Tibetans wanted to establish friendly contacts with Germany in order to balance the influence of Britain, while Nazi leaders were interested in investigating the geographical origin of pure-blooded Aryans.
In July 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, which ruined 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, which feared an imminent war with Germany.
Another problem 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.
In a move that lost the Ahnenerbe's support, Schäfer asked Himmler for permission simply to arrive in India and to try to force his way into Tibet. Himmler agreed with the plan and set about furthering it by contacting influential people, including German 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, British India.
The day before the team had left Europe, the Völkischer Beobachter ran an article on the expedition, which alerted British officials to its intentions. Schäfer and Himmler were enraged. Schäfer complained to SS headquarters and Himmler in turn wrote to British Admiral Barry Domvile, who was a Nazi sympathiser. Domvile sent the letter to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who permitted Schäfer's team to enter Sikkim, a region bordering Tibet.
In Sikkim's capital of Gangtok, the team assembled a 50-mule caravan and searched for porters and Tibetan interpreters. There, British official Sir Basil Gould observed them and described Schäfer as "interesting, forceful, volatile, scholarly, vain to the point of childishness, disregardful of social convention". Gould noted that Schäfer was determined to enter Tibet regardless of permission.
The team began its journey on June 21, 1938, traveled through the Teesta River valley, and then headed north. Krause worked light traps to capture insects, Wienert toured the hills to make 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 Tsering, 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 him to wait for Schäfer to return from a hunting trip. Schäfer met with the official and presented him with mule-loads of gifts.
In December 1938, the Tibetan council of ministers invited Schäfer and his team to Tibet but forbade them from killing any animals during their stay by citing religious concerns. 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.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.