In 1938, German researchers traveled to Tibet to find evidence of the German connection with the "superior race." However, according to The Times, due to the craving for knowledge about botany and mammals, as well as an addiction to alcohol, German researchers spat on the task entrusted to them by Heinrich Himmler, began to study the flora and fauna of Tibet and throw drunken parties.
The search by the Nazis for evidence of Germany's superiority on the Roof of the World, according to The Times, turned out to be that the researchers spent most of their time drinking.
The book "Nazis in Tibet" by Peter Mayer-Hüsing tells about the expedition of 1938-1939, financed by Heinrich Himmler. The goal of the expedition was to find scientific evidence supporting the racial theories of the Third Reich. However, the only thing that was discovered during the expedition was flora and fauna.
“Hitler agreed to the project with the belief that at least he would reflect the desire of the German nation to go to the ends of the earth to spread knowledge about his people,” reports The Times.
The expedition was led by "zoologist, duck hunter and SS member" Ernst Schaefer, whose thirst for knowledge of botany and mammals outweighed Himmler's demand to identify the missing link between the Tibetans and the Germans.
Today, according to The Times, in German museums there are 3.5 thousand birds, 2 thousand eggs, 400 skulls and skins, thousands of butterflies and grasshoppers, 2 thousand objects, minerals and maps, as well as 40 thousand photographs from expeditions. There is also a repository at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Production, which contains 7,000 seed varieties. Like birds and reptiles, they are sometimes used for academic purposes, but many researchers avoid them.
Mayer-Hüsing writes that the expedition was not "a carefully planned covert SS operation, but a trophy hunt of a brilliant explorer and adventurer that happened partly by accident." The writer notes that "the expedition was surrounded by mystery," and "Himmler's nonsense about the real Aryans meant nothing to the leader of the expedition."
The Council of Ministers of Tibet forbade them to take scientific equipment with them and kill any living creature. Both prohibitions have been violated. In Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, expedition members' cravings for drinking have become a proverb among the locals.
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"They invited prominent people in Tibet to numerous parties where Chang beer flowed and German records played on a gramophone," the German press reported. "What was officially called a meeting between the West and the East has turned into a reckless drunkenness."
In neighboring India, the British accused the Germans of "boorish behavior", and Schaefer himself was called "a clergyman of Nazism," writes The Times.
