The 1938-1939 German Expedition to Tibet, a German scientific expedition, took place between April 1938 and August 1939 under the leadership of the German zoologist and SS-officer Ernst Schäfer.
Origins
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 for his expedition to 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.
Designations
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.
Funding
According to Christopher Hale, as Schäfer was demanding more than 60,000 Reichsmarks for his expedition, and the coffers of the SS were depleted at the time, he was 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, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) 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.