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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, Ahnenerbe Institute member and SS commander for SS leader Heinrich Himmler. Coincidentally, the Japanese ordered Kwantung Army agents to arrive in Tibet and Xinjiang to research the country and make contact with the inhabitants.
Harrer, expert alpinist, was a member of the SS Alpine unit. This unit practised on the Eiger mountain in Switzerland in 1938. When this group returned to Germany, Hitler met with them exclaiming: "Comrades, why having you?" Harrer responded "Ours raising the Eiger for arriving to you, Mein Fuhrer". This SS unit climbed the Elburz mountain in the Caucasus area and raising a Swastika flag on the summit in 1942 during the Eastern Front Campaign. Why Himmler ordered the Elburz expedition may be explained as this was regarded as a sacred place for Aryan Gods in accordance with ancient persian cults.
Other experts in the same area such as Otto Rahn knew about the Tibet expedition but he was in Iraq giving ideological support during the 1941 rebellion. Others including Rudolph Hess, Vacher von Lapouge, Horbiger, Sievers, Oberth and Hielscher ordered an in-depth research into ancient Runic and Sanscrit texts, in hope of finding ancient powers related in legends.
The official plan for the expedition was to include research on landforms, climate and geography of the region, culture and was to establish contact with 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 relatings to Tibetan "Vajrayana" (Diamond Way) Buddism and knowledge of paranormal powers.
- Establish ways to contact with the Shambhala Tibetan Mitycal heaven
- Establish links with followers of Pre-Buddist Bön and Dugpa religions.
- Enable some SS personnel to receive the Kalachakra Tantra ceremony; it is supposed Schafer or some other members of the group also received such a ceremony.
- Contact an envoy from Tibet, one Tulpa or Tulku, as special incarnation, for aiding to Fuhrer in his special function of spiritual leader of the Aryan cause. Similarly in 1923, Houston Stewart Chamberlain recalled after an encounter with the future German leader in Bayreuth, "Hitler was an spirit awakener, the vehicle of mesianic 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 suppposed to have brain control and mass control powers, black magic, and telepathy between other paranormal powers; they coined concepts how "subraces" and "main races" amongst "coming race", "supermens" or "sixth main race". Such terms 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 "Seventeeth Two Uhknowed Superiors of Seth".
Members of expedition returned to Germany with one complete resumen of the Tibetan sacred text of Kangyur (108 volumes), examples of Mandala, other ancient texts and one alleged document were Dalai Lama reconoited at Fuhrer how Aryan Race cause world leader. Such documents was kept in Ahnenerbe archives with others kept by Hitler and Himmler in the Reichstag bunker.
The group of five researchers and twenty selected SS guards, had the objective of contacting the Dalai Lama and visiting the sacred cities of Lhasa and Shigatse. Even with wartime difficulties the group contacted the Tibetan authorities and people. Other Nazi representatives contacted Xinjiang poeples for support with the political cause in same period. There exist some photos taken from the expedition with Harrer, Schafer and colleagues with Tibetan dignatries in one room decorated with black and white SS banners, Swastika and Tibetan flags. Others show Schafer with a background of the Potala Palace, in Lhasa and Harrer and other group members undertaking research in the Tibetan mountains.
It is claimed that on the Eastern Front a Tibetan SS horsemen unit fought alongside other SS foreign units in the Southern sector and that the Russians encountered some corpses of Tibetan and Hindu Monks dead in a bunker unearthed in Ahnenerbe installations in the German Capital.
In August 1939, Harrer between awaited the return orders if encountered in Nanga Parbat one of most highest Indian mountains how 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 of 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 keeped in 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 submited by autopsy, but has not published the results. The Soviet researchers of Atlantis, Gorbusky and Novikov, only are to access at mininal portion of third Reich archives kept in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) and Moscow, they declare why Soviet forces are the first in enter to Ahnenerbe Institute buliding and leaved 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 was perished by fire, except Esclarmonde de Foix, after knowing the Holy Grail was safe left the mountain transformed into a white dove for flight to Farway Asian mountains"
References
- Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier,The Morning of the Magicians,Stein & Day,New York,1960.
- Spanish Review "Año Cero" (Zero Year),Article "Nazi Ocultist in Tibet" by Ernesto Mila,year VIII (N°89),Vol 12-0298-89,Editorial America Iberica
- Jean Robin,Hitler L´élu du dragon;reinasance du nazism esoterique,Editions de la Maisnie,France(1°edition),1987
- David Hatcher Childress,"Lost cities of ancient Lemuria & the Pacific",Chapter 1 "Lost Lemuria:Legends of ancient land" (P.9-28),Edited for David Hatcher Childress,1988.
- Alexandra David-Neel,"Mistics and Magicians of Tibet"