Nazis of Tibet: A Twentieth Century Myth
Isrun Engelhardt
Along, multilayered, and complex process lies behind an alleged Nazi-Tibetan connection, most recently widely promulgated via the Internet. The kinds of distorted historiography exhibited in this process are exemplified in the oft-repeated claim that the Ernst Schäfer Tibet expedition of 1938-1939 had some occult purpose and intended to enlist mysterious powers in Tibet on the side of the Nazis in their search for world domination. The development of the popular perception of Tibet as the land of the occult and the home of such powers is taken up in this article, along with its contribution to the growth of myths about the occult and Nazism. Since the Schäfer expedition constitutes the main piece of “evidence” adduced to prove concealed links between National Socialism and Tibet, the author describes how the false attribution of occult purposes to the Schäfer expedition grew from a variety of unrelated elements to become eventually an object exploited by later speculative historiographers. After seeking to separate the fact and fiction as they appear in the most influential works of the Nazi-Tibet genre, the author proposes an explanation for this kind of occult historiography based on the concept of conspiracy myths. The prevailing and persistent occult perception of the Schäfer mission has retained far-reaching consequences to the present day, with the result that the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama are both unjustly co-opted by the right wing and neo-Nazis, or demonized by the Left as agents of a Tibeto-Buddhist global conspiracy.¹
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Notes
¹ Preface from »Nazis of Tibet: A Twentieth Century Myth.« In: Monica Esposito (ed.), Images
of Tibet in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO), coll. Études thématiques 22, vol. I,
2008, page 63