Himmler's Crusade: The Nazi Expedition to Find the Origins of the Aryan Race |  | Author: Christopher Hale
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
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Seller: goHastings
Rating:  25 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 0471262927
Dewey Decimal Number: 909
UPC: 723812135875
EAN: 9780471262923
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Product Description
" As the Indiana Jones films showed, Nazis, new age mumbo-jumbo and exotic locations are a formula that works. Christopher Hale's gripping and well-researched tale of an SS-sponsored scientific mission to Tibet in 1938-39 has the whole shebang: mad occult beliefs, mountains, strange charactors called Bruno or Ernst and stomach-churning concentration camp experiments to round things off." -- The Sunday Times (London) A scientific expedition or a sinister mission? Why would the leader of the Naziâs dreaded SS, the second-most-powerful man in the Third Reich, send a zoologist, an anthropologist, and several other scientists to Tibet on the eve of war? Himmlerâs Crusade tells the bizarre and chilling story one of historyâs most perverse, eccentric, and frightening scientific expeditions. Drawing on private journals, new interviews, and original research in German archives as well as in Tibet, author Christopher Hale recreates the events of this sinister expedition, asks penetrating questions about the relationship between science and politics, and sheds new light on the occult theories that obsessed Himmler and his fellow Nazis. Combining the highest standards of narrative history with the high adventure and exotic locales of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Himmlerâs Crusade reveals that Himmler had ordered these men to examine Tibetan nobles for signs of Aryan physiology, undermine the British relationship with the ruling class, and sow the seeds of rebellion among the populace. Most strangely, the scientistsâall SS officersâwere to find scientific proof of a grotesque historical fantasy that was at the center of Himmlerâs beliefs about race. Set against the exquisite backdrop of the majestic Himalayas, this fast-paced and engaging narrative provides new and troubling insight into one of the strangest episodes in the history of science, politics, and war.
Book Description
Why would the leader of the Nazi's dreaded SS, the second most powerful man in the Third Reich, send a zoologist, an anthropoligist, and several other scientists to Tibet on the eve of war? This book is the bizarre and chilling story of one of history's most perverse, eccentric and frightening scientific expeditions.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
 A Brilliant Account of History October 23, 2003
45 out of 51 found this review helpful
This is a brilliant and incredibly well researched book analyzing a little known, but powerfully important, part of Nazi history. I picked the book to read because it received such a stellar review by Michael Burleigh, the most renowned international authority on the Third Reich. Immediately, I was entranced by every aspect of Hale's account of an SS-sponsored expedition to Tibet in 1938-39. Hale goes way beyond doing a comprehensive book study of the subject. He actually conducted his own expedition to Tibet, retracing the steps that the SS-sponsored expedition leaders took and interviewing individuals who were either part of the expedition or who were associated with it. For example, throughout the book Hale provides astonishing information from his interviews with Bruno Beger, an anthropologist and SS member who would later be brought to trial and imprisoned for selecting over 100 inmates for "study" at Auschwitz (all of whom were gassed). I would recommend Hale's book for anyone interested in the origins and perpetuation of Nazism. Himmler's Crusade is already a classic in the field.
a compelling book October 24, 2003
Peter G. Buckley (Brooklyn, NY United States)
34 out of 41 found this review helpful
I found this account of the Himmler sponsored expedition to find the mythical origins of the Aryan race utterly absorbing, not only because it sheds light on one of the odd, yet central strands of the Nazi cosmology but also because of the ways in which it was observed by the British. I had little idea that Tibet formed the locus of Western spiritual projections over so many decades.
Underlying forces in the Third Reich October 22, 2003
Steven E. Romer (Woodstock)
38 out of 51 found this review helpful
This is an excellent book. It describes the mostly unknown drive of the Nazis to discover the roots of their people and their influences around the world for many thousands of years before the Third Reich. It doesn't get any more interesting than this. The title is somewhat of a misnomer, however. The Nazis never questioned where the Aryan race originated, they were only trying to discover their history and influences around the world. Modern archaeology shows us that caucasian peoples were in North America over 11,000 years ago. The northern European caucasian mummies found in the arid lands of northeastern China show the unrelenting wanderlust of the curious peoples from the north. These exoduses of the European peoples are what the Nazis sought to discover. These are the real "diaspora peoples" whose languages have been confused and who have been spread around the world. That is what drove them in Indiana-Jones-like fashion to try to find these things. Still, it is an excellent book full of great information to those who have never thought or read about these things. Most books parrot the tired old terms about Hitler: "Monster", "Murderer", etc. It is nice to see a book which shows a glimmer of the kinds of underlying motivations which could so fanatically compel an extremely advanced and intelligent population to do the things they did. This book serves to help raise that curtain.
A strange cast of characters September 26, 2005
Justin Jeffers (Right here)
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
After reading some earlier reviews, I must say that I am glad Mr. Hale did not make an exhaustive effort to list facts in a way that, although they may be correct, would have been banal and unnecessary. The important part of this book was attempting to gain insight into the people, the characters, of this little known story. Not only did this book give me a sense of what life and work in a Nazi government was like, but what it was like to be in Tibet in the early 20th century. It depicted the members of the expedition not as 'Nazis' and thus 'evil, bad and terrible beasts' but as breathing beings who experienced this one particular (and peculiar) event.
Now I've romanticized it a bit and it is a shame that Mr. Schafer and others' interior motives could not possibly be touched in this book but Mr. Hale does an adequate job of attempting to recreate his persona through the writings and observations of others.
A Chilling and Compelling Account of a Nazi Obsession November 14, 2003
16 out of 25 found this review helpful
This is a gripping historical account of a little known chapter of Nazi history. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was indeed based on truth stranger than fiction. Hale details the Nazi quest for the origins of the "Aryan master race" in a German led expedition to Tibet in 1938 supported by nut-bar extraordinaire, mass murderer and head of the S.S., Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler himself. Hale brilliantly documents from a wide range of sources a strange brew of bizarre Nazi race theories, poisonous ambition and swashbuckling adventures in China and Tibet ending in the horrors of Auschwitz. In a time of when the shameless Madame Blavatsky is still taken seriously and the outer fringes of New Age ideas verge on the lunatic- David Ick et al- this book is a powerful reminder of the requirement for clear-headed rational scientific thinking. Bravo to Christopher Hale for writing a story that needed to be told!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
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