Christopher Hale (1)

Here is a very interesting snippet from pg 5 "Himmler had modeled the SS on a Hindu warrior caste and was fascinated by the East and it's religions. He hated Christianity and carried a pocket book in which he had collected homilies from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita".

So apparently none of the lofty ideals of that holy book rubbed off on this chief of desk bound criminals. The book basically chronicles and tracks the careers of all the participants of that expedition, the main one being Ernst show more Schafer. Their return back to Germany at the beginning of WWII and their involvement in the crimes and machinations of the SS in some gory detail. show less

Here is a very interesting snippet from pg 5 "Himmler had modeled the SS on a Hindu warrior caste and was fascinated by the East and it's religions. He hated Christianity and carried a pocket book in which he had collected homilies from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita".

So apparently none of the lofty ideals of that holy book rubbed off on this chief of desk bound criminals. The book basically chronicles and tracks the careers of all the participants of that expedition, the main one being Ernst show more Schafer. Their return back to Germany at the beginning of WWII and their involvement in the crimes and machinations of the SS in some gory detail. show less

This is a very thoroughly researched and interesting book. As it is a dark topic, however, it does not lend itself to bedtime reading. The protagonists involved are characterised in detail and well referenced throughout. It was frankly shocking to see the extent of physical collaboration in WW2 in the actual final solution by people from throughout countries who were subsumed into the German Reich. Hale as an author is clearly motivated to expose and highlight the appalling hypocrisy of what show more happened after the end of the War when many collaborators were able to take up new lives with either the US/UK or USSR Governments in a Cold War world. In addition he is keen to highlight that those who enlisted in the SS and fought against Russia on the Eastern Front did not do so solely for those reasons but also participated in many atrocities which they are keen to hide particularly in Baltic countries such as Latvia. To my mind he has published a good book and gotten his arguments across well. show less

I was fascinated by the depiction of Tibet at the end of the Colonial period and leading into World War II. The depiction of the expedition and its support for the Nazi agenda was interesting, and I especially enjoyed the interviews with those associated with Schafer's party. All in all, a good read!