National Socialist Germany and Tibet
By William Grimwald
There's a legend that Aryans, led by Thor, fled a cataclysm to settle in old Tibet. Sven Hedin, the Swedish explorer of Central and Inner Asia, went as far as Tibet. He was a friend of Hitler's and an outspoken admirer of National Socialist Germany. As we shall see, the National Socialist regime must have known much about Tibet and to maintain contacts with that remote nation. It is claimed that the SS sponsored various expeditions there, and this now seems likely given some of the connections which are finally being reliably discovered. That the Germans were permitted to enter a land forbidden to other foreigners is likely given that the Dalai Lama of the time was an enthusiastic admirer of Hitler.
OCCULT AND GEOPOLITICAL INTERESTS
As far back as the early 1920s when the National Socialist movement was
struggling for power, the geopolitical theorist Prof. Karl Haushofer was
teaching his pupils the geopolitical importance of Central Asia and Tibet.
Among these pupils was Rudolf Hess who introduced Haushofer to Hitler
at Landsberg Prison where the latter was confined as a result of the 1924
Munich Putsch. Haushofer had served on the Kaiser's Staff Corps in the
Orient and had studied the mysticism of Japan and India. He believed the
Indo-European race had originated in Asia, and control of the region was
pivotal to Germanic world power.
At this time there were two occult societies operating in Germany which
were to have a lasting impact on National Socialism, and especially on
the SS which was to set up a department specifically to explore occultic
matters, "Ancestral Heritage". These societies were Thule and
Vril. The Vril society was based on the ideas expounded by the Rosicrucian
Sir Bulwer Lytton in his book The Coming Race. Lytton claimed that there
is a psychic energy of immense power, latent in most humans, but being
utilised by adepts living in Tibet. It is claimed that Haushofer introduced
Hitler to both the vril concept and his geopolitical ideas.
Intriguingly, there was already a Tibetan community resident in Germany
with its own Lama. While many fanciful claims are made by pseudo-scholarly
books on the Third Reich, one of the most intriguing is the assertion
that large numbers of Tibetans in German uniform were found amidst the
ruins of Berlin by the Soviet Army. An article recently published by the
US paper The New Order sheds a uniquely reliable light on some of these
Tibetan-German connections, based as it is on the autobiography of the
present Dalai Lama.
MEIN KAMPF IN TIBETAN
During the 1920s the Dalai Lama was Thutpen Gyatso. He was a scholar of impressive intellect who sought to achieve a balance between Western technology and Eastern spirituality. He had heard about Hitler when the National Socialist movement was still struggling for power. Among the many European books the Dalai Lama had translated was Mein Kampf. He filled his copy with enthusiastic annotations and underlining of his favourite passages on virtually every page.
Of Hitler he said: "The inji (honourable foreigner) is assisted by God for some high purpose in this life."
He also believed there to be a synchronicity for the swastika being the symbol of both National Socialism and the ancient Bon-Buddhism of his warrior monks. Also noted were certain similarities between National Socialism and Buddhist doctrines, especially that service to one's folk is the highest purpose or dharma in life.
Therefore when Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 warm congratulations were received from far off Tibet.
TIBETANS IN GERMAN UNIFORM
During the 1940s Tibetan volunteers formed brigades attached to the Cossack regiments fighting Communism with National Socialist Germany. The Tibetans with their endurance of sub-zero temperatures, refusal to surrender made them among the toughest fighters against the Soviets. They were exceptional horsemen and staged some of the last cavalry charges in history. It was the remnants of these brigades that the Soviet army found in the ruins of Berlin, having fought to the last.
After the war, Tibet took those National Socialist fighters who could make it into sanctuary. Among these was an Austrian, Heinrich Harrer, who became a close confident of the new Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. Tenzin relates in his autobiography that Harrer was a delightful and humourous personality. He spoke fluent Tibetan and was well-liked by the Tibetans. Harrer had escaped British imprisonment in India during the war with another prisoner, and the two had lived as nomads for five years until reaching Lhasa. Harrer and Tenzin first met in 1948. For the next year and a half, before Harrer left they met about once a week. "From him I was able to learn something about the outside world and especially about Europe and the recent war."
Several years later the Tibetans were again in the frontline of the conflict between the materialist worldview and the spiritual/archetypal. Although the 80,000 troops of Red China overwhelmed the 8,500 Tibetan troops the Dalai Lama remarks: "it is necessary to say that the Chinese lost large numbers of men in their conquest of Tibet."
FOLKISH NATIONALIST
While Tenzin might be portrayed as a pacifistic internationalist by the media and scraps such as the Nobel Peace Prize are thrown at him by a condescending world Liberalism whilst his nation is subjugated by genocidal Chinese, Tenzin remains an opponent of those materialistic forces bent on driving humanity into a universal drabness. He is, like the National Socialists for whom his countrymen once fought, a proponent of folkish and national diversity.
Speaking at the 1993 Chicago Conference on World Religions, he said that the boundaries separating different peoples across the world were not bad if they preserved and defined genetic and cultural identities. He stated these differences need to be maintained in order that the individual have his own sense of identity. Tenzin is totally opposed to One Worldism, saying of the internationalists: "they fail to see that the so-called 'cultural diversity' they claim to admire would vanish in a One World system. No, true 'cultural diversity' values the different material and spiritual achievements of a people uniquely different from all others on the planet. Therefore it cannot exist without the barriers which separate and identify culture from culture."
Today, while the Tibetans are exiled and exterminated, their cause should be a worthy one for all Folkists to uphold, just as the Tibetans themselves once gave their lives in the service of folkish Dharma, from their remote homeland to the Russian steppes to the smoking ruins of Berlin.
Sources:
The Lost World of Agharti, A MaClellan, Corgi, Britain, 1983.
The Fuhrer & the Buddha, A V Schaerffenberg, The New Order #119.
Citing Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso,
Harper Collins, NY, 1990.