Someone tells me that the Tibetan Buddhists at the time supported Hitler’s regime, and that the Dali Lama paid a friendly visit to Germany.
Is this true? And if so, in what way is it true?
-FrL-
Many links with the Dali Lama and hitler.
Most are posts in forums.
I’d take it with a grain of salt.
I think it’s mostly about some Nazi expedition to Tibet to find some mystical “Pure Aryan” something-or-other.
When I googled it, I only saw, as you mention, some people in forums saying something about a connection. But no citations or anything.
Hence, my post here.
-FrL-
Google Answers on Tibetan Nazis (not one of google’s finer moments)
According to my Words of Wisdom: Quotes by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the 13th Dalai Lama passed away in 1933. The current Dalai Lama wasn’t even born until 1935, was enthroned in 1940, and began his education at 6. He didn’t start getting politically involved until 1950.
So, any links between the Dalai Lama and Hitler, if there were any at all, weren’t between the Dalai Lama that most people think of when that title as used.
But the current Dalai Lama is said to be the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama.
Right, but there was a gap in the “Dalai Lamaness” between the 13th’s death in 1933 and when the 14th could even begin to make a significant political statement.
Read Christopher Hale’s Himmler’s Crusade for the full story. (The first of Squink’s links is a webpage for a TV documentary about the Schäfer expedition based on Hale’s book.) Among other things, Hale is very good on Tibetan politics in the late 1930s.
What is clear is that, although the Tibetan authorities formally welcomed the expedition, they (understandably) didn’t have much of a clue about its intellectual agenda and only the shakiest idea about German domestic politics. In so far as they were not just politely going through the diplomatic motions, they saw the Germans mainly as a possible counterweight to British influence in the area. Also, the Germans were able to benefit from the factional infighting in Lhasa following the death of the 13th Dali Lama; at the time of the German visit, the current Dali Lama, then still an infant, had only just been identified and had not yet been brought from his home province. The full implications of his identification for those in power in Lhasa were still being worked through. Those who welcomed Schäfer did so in order to strengthen their own positions in the palace politics of the Potala, not because they ‘supported Hitler’.
Just when you thought you’ve seen everything, along comes a curve ball. I’ve been pretty up on things Tibetan for a long time, but this is the first time I heard this one.
Heinrich Harrier, IIRC is Austrian, was a POW that escaped from British internment in India and made his way to Tibet. He even became a tutor to the current Dalai Lama.
Tibet didn’t have formal relations with anyone, including Germany. It’s been a real problem with trying to show de jeure independance rather than de facto. Squink’s link didn’t have a lot of content.
Back to the OP, Tibetan’s had no idea where Germany was much less the politics. The Dalai Lama’s (both the 13th and the 14th) whereabouts and travels were well known, and Germany was not on the itinerary. IIRC, Sikkim, India, China and Mongolia were the only countries that either one visited prior to some time in the 1960’s