Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

in 1943 took over the scientific leadership of the notorious project, “Ahnenerbe” (‘ancestral
inheritance’), primarily devoted to racial studies. His third research trip to the Himalayas was
officially described as the “SS Schäfer Expedition” and was considered a huge success (Kater 1997,
p. 80). Upon his return in August 1939, the scientist was presented with the SS skull ring and dagger
of honor in recognition. Subsequently, the Reichsführer of the black corps (Himmler) had grand plans
for his protégé: Schäfer was supposed to return to Tibet and “stir up the Tibetan army against the
British/Indian troops” with a shock troop of 30 men (Kater, 1997, p. 212). The undertaking was,
however, called off at Hitler’s direct order. In the years to follow, Schäfer instead built up the Sven
Hedin Institute for Central Asian Research with great success, making it the largest division within
the Ahnenerbe project.
But let us return to Heinrich Harrer. War broke out while he was still in India and the young German
was interned by the British. It was not until 1944 that he was able to flee to Tibet with a comrade.
Coincidence or fate led to his acting as the young Dalai Lama’s personal tutor until the early 50s, and
teaching him about all the “wonders” of western civilization and introducing him to the English
language as well. It is very likely that his lessons were tainted by the contemporary zeitgeist which
had swept through Hitler’s Germany, and not by the British attitudes of the envoy Hugh Richardson,
also present in Lhasa. This led in fact to some problems at the court of the young god-king and the
English were not happy about his contact to Harrer. But there are nevertheless no grounds for
describing the lessons the former SS member gave his “divine” pupil as fascist, particularly since they
were primarily given after the end of the World War II. In 1952 His Holiness’s German “teacher “
returned to Europe.
The adaptation to film of Harrer’s autobiographic bestseller, Seven Years in Tibet, triggered an
international protest. Since the famous traveler through Tibet had told director Jean Jacques Annaud
nothing about his “brown-shirt” past, and this only became public knowledge after the film had been
finished, Annaud felt pressured to introduce “corrections”. A remorseful Austrian was now shown,
who begins his mountain-climbing career as a supporter of a regime accused of genocide and then,
under the influence of the young Kundun and Tibetan Buddhism, reforms to become a “campaigner
for human rights”. In the film, he says of the brutal Chinese: “Terrible — I dare not think about how I
myself was once so intolerant “ (Stern 41/97, p. 24).
Reinhold Messner, the famous mountain climber, found such an admission of guilt from Hollywood’s
dream factory difficult to understand. He spoke up, confirming that he had long known about Harrer’s
political opinions. This man, he said had up until the present day still not learned anything, he still
believed in the national socialist alpinist ideals. In contrast, the Dalai Lama’s brother, Gyalo Thondup,
defended the former SS member with the tasteless argument that what the Chinese had done to the
Tibetans was worse and more cruel than what the Nazis had done to the Jews.
It is a fact that Harrer — in his own account- first turned against the Chinese invaders at the end of the
fifties, after he had already left Tibet. There is not the slightest trace of a deep catharsis as depicted in
Annaud’s film to be found in the German’s books. This was purely an invention of the director to
avoid losing face before a world audience.
The journalist Gerhard Lehner also pursued a second lead: on September 13, 1994 eight veterans who
had visited and reported from Tibet before 1950 met with the Dalai Lama in London. In a photo taken
to record the occasion a second major SS figure can be seen beside Heinrich Harrer and directly