Sunday 16 April 2017

Dave McKenzie, winner of Boston Marathon 50 years ago today.

West Coast runner Dave McKenzie shocked everyone but himself in winning the Boston Marathon 40 years ago. Yet, as Greg Lautenslager reports, the triumph did little to change him.

                      Dave McKenzie during the 1967 Boston marathon (West Coast Recollect)

The gold letter “G” that was emblazoned on Dave McKenzie’s green vest and carried  42km from Hopkinton, Massachusetts to Boston on that wet, freezing afternoon did not stand for “Greece,’’ as a reporter asked after his record run 40 years ago.
It didn’t stand for “Ginger,” as the diminutive red-head was called on his two-hour runs up and down the winding West Coast roads with his running mates. The “G” stood for the Greymouth Athletic Club, from an area he rarely wanted to leave and couldn’t wait to return after the 60 or so international reporters ceased asking questions and photographers stopped taking pictures of the 1967 Boston Marathon champion.
Within minutes the announcement came over the wire to the Greymouth Evening Star and to newspapers all over the world, “Boston, April 19, AAP – David C. McKenzie of New Zealand today won the 71st Boston Marathon in the (race) record time of 2hrs 15min 45sec.”
The words rang out over the teleprinter at the Nelson Evening Mail where George McKenzie, Dave’s oldest brother and also a runner, was working as a printer. “Gordon Hay  (a sub editor) came over and said, `Your brother’s won the Boston Marathon.’ I was over the moon.’’
By the next evening almost every newspaper in New Zealand told of McKenzie’s triumph. Many had photos of the 24-year-old crossing the finish line with his white gloves at his side and long-sleeve T-shirt tucked under his singlet or smiling with a victorious laurel wreath atop his head.
He shared a champagne toast with U.S. Ambassador John Henning upon his arrival in Auckland and was greeted by about a thousand citizens at a civic reception outside the Greymouth Borough Council Chambers. A photo in a local newspaper shows him shaking hands with a man in the gallery. The words from McKenzie underneath the photo read, “I was very pleased to win in the Greymouth colours – it was a great thrill winning for the Coast.”
Then he returned to his parents’ home in nearby Dunollie and to a life that had not changed a bit.

McKenzie was born in a maternity home down the block from his parents’ house. His mother later carried him 50 metres to their house on Inverness Street and he never moved out until he got married in his early 30’s. He bought a house across the same street, 40m from his parents’ house, and has lived there ever since.
“It’s a good quality life, why would I want to change?’’ he said.
 McKenzie, 64, started work as a machine print operator at the Grey River Argus newspaper after leaving school at age 15 and spent 38 years at the Greymouth  Star, before retiring a few years ago.
His first running competition came when his brothers and mates raced home from the movie theatre 1,500 metres away or on a 700m loop around their street. They pretended they were racehorses and gave each other names like Van Dieman, Johnny Globe, and Highland Fling.
McKenzie starred in rugby league and won the intermediate mile race at high school in 5:10 at age 14.
“I was having him on at the dinner table that night, saying that I had run faster when I was his age,’’ George McKenzie said.
Dave said, “One day I am going to run 26 miles at that pace.”
It was the exact pace he would run to win the Boston Marathon.
McKenzie joined the Greymouth Athletic Club at age 15. He and another Greymouth runner, Eddie Gray, started winning races on the track and the road and made names for themselves outside Greymouth. At age 16, McKenzie ran the fastest of all competitors on the Richmond to Tahunanui leg in the Motueka to Nelson Relay. He also won track races at Trafalgar Park and at the Mahar Cup meets.
McKenzie ran his first marathon, in Greymouth, at age 19 but pulled out at 18 miles with stomach cramps. He returned the next year, in 1963, to the Great Westland Marathon and won in 2hours 39 minutes. He improved to 2hrs 23min in 1964 despite having to step between the cars of a train that had been parked on the railroad tracks 15 miles into the race and finished fourth in the New Zealand Marathon Championships a few months later.
Later in 1965 he battled Bill Baillie, the then world record holder in the 20km and one hour run, into the final two miles of a hot, windy New Zealand ten mile road championships, only to fall 10 seconds behind in 48min 35sec.
“If I would have gone hard at halfway, I would have beaten him,’’ McKenzie told his brother George.”
By the end of 1966 McKenzie had won four straight marathons, including the New Zealand Championships in 2hrs 16min 59sec. and was named the West Coast’s sportsman of the year. He had to withdraw from the New Zealand Empire Games team  to Jamaica because of a leg injury but was gearing up for a sensational 1967 campaign.

January 19, 1967, exactly three months before the Boston Marathon, is a day McKenzie – nor any other Coaster – will forget.
Shortly after 10 am a fireball from an explosion ripped through a section in the Strongman mine, 11 kilometres north-east of Greymouth, killing 19 of the 240 men who were working that day.  One of the fatalities was Hector McKenzie, Dave’s brother. Another was Harry van Looy, a training mate.
Dave’s father, also a coal miner, had been called away from that section and survived the blast. 
George McKenzie wondered how the tragedy would affect Dave or if he would even run the next week’s Canterbury Marathon Championships.  But there he was, at 15 miles, storming ahead of the field and off to another victory.
Jim McKenzie, Dave’s younger brother, turned to George as they watched him go by. “I think he’s running this one for Hec,” Jim said.
Perhaps somewhere deep in Dave’s inward soul, Hec’s spirit drove him to victory in a personal best 2hrs 16min 2 secs. But McKenzie said he was simply running.
“It’s a race, and you have to put everything else out of your mind and stay focused.”
McKenzie had all the tools to be a great marathoner.  He was compact at 1.6m, 55kg and had an efficient, rolling style. He lived a simple life at his parents home and
ate his mother’s cooking.  He had no distractions and could concentrate for long periods of time. He also was willing train as hard as anyone.
McKenzie coached himself, often reading running books by Lydiard and other coaches and experimented with training to find the best method to prepare for a marathon. His custom-made running shoes had a leather upper and a sole made from jandals.  He ran 10km to work and back everyday and the hilly coastal roads on weekends.
George McKenzie remembered Dave one Saturday running 40km along the gravel undulating roads to Barrytown and a 16km club run in the afternoon.  Dave would train up to 250km in a week.
“You could really see Ginger’s strength coming through (in early 1967),’’ said Gray, who would finish third in the World Cross Country Championships in 1971. “You could tell he was ready for Boston.’’
A trip to Boston was the prize for winning the New Zealand Marathon championship on March 11. “I didn’t know much about it other than it was a big race,’’ McKenzie said.
On April 7 McKenzie left his home for his first trip overseas without a thought of where the journey might lead him – other than back to Greymouth.

Helicopters hovered over the starting line of the 71st Boston Marathon. Spectators lined up, five deep in some places, along the course and others stood atop buildings and apartment balconies waiting for a glimpse of the more than 700 runners. Photographers and reporters jammed into pace vehicles as the world’s best marathoners toed the line in Hopkinton.
The route to Boston is hallowed ground, where Clarence DeMar and Johnny Kelley etched their names into the race’s storied history and where it would one day make Bill Rodgers and many other winners running legends.  It didn’t mean much to the freckled face lad from Greymouth.
“It was just another race,’’ McKenzie said. “Just like running to Barrytown and back.’’
McKenzie had more difficulty getting to the starting line than to the finish line.  His flight  from Greymouth to Nelson was cancelled due to mist and drizzle, and he had to take a taxi. The 4 1/2 – hour drive was followed by flights to Auckland, Tahiti, Los Angeles, and Boston.
He woke up race day to an icy drizzle and winds up to 20km per hour. The roads were wet and there was snow on the ground alongside the course.
“I was coming from the summer in Greymouth, so I wasn’t used to these conditions.”
McKenzie was less daunted by his competitors, which included a Japanese contingent that held the first six places in 1965 and the top four in 1966. He ran in the lead pack of 14 runners through the first half of the race through Wellesley. The pack whittled down to seven after a series of hills in Newton, leading to Heartbreak Hill at the 32km mark. The route wasn’t much different from the West Coast roads, and McKenzie likened Heartbreak to his 10-Mile Hill back home.
McKenzie surged up the hill and put 15m on a Japanese and an Italian. By the time he reached the Boston City line 2km later, he had lengthened his lead and had more than 400m on runner-up Tom Laris of the United States at the finish line.
A race report read that McKenzie  “took a jog around the finishing area before wrapping himself in a blanket and going inside.”

When the adulation died down after his Boston victory, McKenzie returned to his normal life as a machine print operator.  He finished third at the Fukuoka Marathon the following December in 2hr 12min 25sec and never ran faster. He competed in the 1968 Mexico City and 1972 Munich Olympic Games but did not contend for a medal.
After Munich, he married and raised his two sons and daughter. He eased back on the training and did mostly club runs.  He was invited to run a marathon in Rotorua at age 35, and on half the training he did in his glory years, he finished second in 2hrs 22min.
McKenzie  ran until a few years ago, when he hurt his knee in an accident. He still shows up at the Anzac Park track for meets and coaches Josh Komen, a promising 19-year-old middle distance runner who lowered his 800m best from 2min 3sec to 1min 53sec this season. He watches horse races, plays with his grandchildren, and travels to Nelson and Christchurch. But he always comes back home to Inverness Street, and is well known in the community for his past achievements.
“I had bit of success, and was that was part of life. Enjoying life is the main thing, with no stress.’’
Fifteen years after McKenzie’s triumph, prize money was offered at the Boston Marathon.  Winners today make six-figures in prize, appearance, and bonus structures. They live all over the world in mansions and drive fancy cars. Had McKenzie won during this era, George McKenzie was asked if his brother’s life would be different
“No, I don’t think so. He’d just be Dave.’’  

Another article by Roger Robinson.


Dave McKenzie: the Coaster who against odds won the 1967 Boston Marathon

The Boston Athletic Association has invited West Coaster Dave McKenzie to April's 50th anniversary of his record-breaking Boston Marathon victory in 1967. He and wife Adele will be among VIP guests at a celebration that will also include Kathrine Switzer, who famously first ran that year. McKenzie still lives in the same street in Dunollie, near Greymouth, that he left to go overseas for the first time in 1967. 

They say that once you win the Boston Marathon, life will never be the same. The victory brings fame, respect, money.
For some like Amby Burfoot it opens the way to a career; for some like American Bill Rodgers it means almost a new identity; for some like Stylianos Kyriakides, who carried a message from starving Greece in 1946, it confers a permanent place in history.
But for other champions, life changes only inwardly. In 1967 the unknown Dave McKenzie beat the bitter weather, the hills, the effects of travelling overseas for the first time, the all-conquering Japanese, and the race record - and then went quietly home to his family and his job as a printer on a small New Zealand newspaper.
Dave McKenzie on the Coast with his Greymouth singlet.
Jared Smith
Dave McKenzie on the Coast with his Greymouth singlet.
In 2016 he lives in the same modest house on the faraway west coast of the South Island that he left to run Boston in 1967.
McKenzie is a private man, reticent about his days as a world-class runner. When you know him well, you might be shown his well-ordered collection of memorabilia. But the only visible evidence of his achievement is in the bar of the local hotel (pub), where a simple case displays the shoes he wore to win the Boston Marathon.
Dave McKenzie's Boston Marathon medal.
Jared Smith
Dave McKenzie's Boston Marathon medal.
Bars are important on the Coast (as the locals call their home region). This is a remote, rugged little world, once a gold-rush frontier, a narrow rain-soaked strip of farms and coal mines between the crashing surf of the Tasman Sea and the spectacular peaks of the Southern Alps. It is rarely on the map and fiercely proud when it is.
The local sport is Rugby League, and if you think regular rugby is tough, try watching league. Like all Coast boys, McKenzie wanted to play league, but he was pale, freckly, sometimes sickly, 1.60m/54kg, so at 20 he finally gave up hopes and became a runner.
In those days that meant a "club harrier." With his bow legs and swivelling stride, McKenzie placed well in races on Greymouth's grass track or through the winter mud of cross-country, but he never looked like a future champion. The earliest sign of that came when he ran his first marathon in 1964. It was a modest 2hr 40min, and no one noticed, except McKenzie.
He quietly realised that his rock 'n roll running action was well suited to the smooth road surface. And for the 26.2 miles distance, deep down he had iron will and long-term concentration.   
For two years he ran to and from work, between Greymouth and his home in the even smaller settlement of Runanga, a lonely little figure with his sandy hair bowling along the winding Coast Road, 190km a week up and down those wicked hills, developing the versatile efficiency of his rolling yet springy gait.
In 1966 the unfancied McKenzie crossed to the North Island and shocked Arthur Lydiard's dominant Aucklanders by winning the New Zealand marathon championship. He ran 2hr 16min 59s, a world-class time.
Suddenly, he became marathon news. Hundreds of welcoming Coasters greeted him at Greymouth train station when he arrived home after a two-day rail and ferry journey.
But the road to Boston got hard. A stress fracture put McKenzie out of the 1966 Commonwealth Games, a marathon he could probably have won. (Mike Ryan, who was two minutes behind him in New Zealand, placed third.)
Then worse happened. As he was returning to full training, in January 1967, a sudden explosion devastated the Strongman Coal Mine, killing 19 men, including Dave's brother Hector, and his closest running friend.
The Coast was grief-stricken. Dave, as always, kept it inside, and two weeks after the funeral won the Canterbury Marathon in fierce dry heat in 2:16:02, in what has been called one of the greatest solo marathons ever run.
"He's running it for Hec," said a watching friend. 
In Auckland a month later McKenzie retained his New Zealand title, beating the world record-breaker for one hour, Bill Baillie, and the rest of Lydiard's boys on their home roads. This time it was humid and windy - the man seemed impervious to extreme conditions. Running every day through the wind-lashed spray off the ocean had prepared him for anything. He looked ready to take on the world.
A running friend somehow persuaded the French Pacific airline to give him a flight to America. The Greymouth Lions' Club, in memory of Hector, sold "meat raffles" (sides of lamb donated by local farmers) round the bars, and raised his fares between Los Angeles and Boston. And so in April 1967 Dave McKenzie left New Zealand for the first time in his life, with the mission of turning grief into celebration for the tiny community where he belonged. 
He was a house guest for the week in Winchester near Boston - no gilded hotels for elite athletes in those amateur days. But the Williams made the shy little stranger feel at ease, gave him privacy, and watched him head out twice a day "for a bit of a jog."
He still looked an unlikely prospect for the BAA, with the Japanese back in greater force than ever. He ranked sixth on best times. Reticent in interview, he gave little away with his short bursts of West Coast idiom. The only person to pick him, significantly, was organiser Jock Semple, who could recognise a hard and resolute marathoner when he saw one. 
Years later Jock, in his famously impenetrable Glasgow dialect, had the temerity to complain to me, "Och, Wee Davie, aye, he was grrrreat, e'en though he did ha' a funna accent."
Terasawa, Hiroshima, Aoki and Inoue from Japan, Boychuk from Canada, Ambu from Italy, and Americans as good as Johnny Kelly, Tom Laris, Amby Burfoot and Ron Daws - Boston 1967 had maybe the greatest strength in depth the old race had ever assembled.
In freezing sleet, McKenzie wore white gloves and long sleeves under his green club singlet, with a big "G" sewn on the front, for Greymouth. He waited till the hills at 16 miles, and then – there is no other way to describe it – he simply took off.
"It clicked," is how he put it when he told me about that day. None of those world-ranked Olympians could match his springy Coaster's roll up the hills. By the top of Heartbreak Hill, he was a minute clear. Laris chased him hard into downtown Boston, but McKenzie knew all about running alone. The race was his, and the record, in some of the worst conditions the event had seen.
In film footage of the finish line, Jock Semple throws a blanket around McKenzie's wet shoulders, which Dave shrugs impatiently off, and stumps away along Boylston Street, for some quiet space away from the crowds and the fuss.
Two hours later, a 20-year-old called Kathrine Switzer, plugging on toward the finish-line despite the now-infamous attack on her by Semple, was entering the city. The evening papers were already on the streets, and as she and her coach Arnie ran by, a newsboy was shouting, "Read all about it! New Zealander wins Boston Marathon."
"We've got five miles to run, Arnie, and that guy's showered and is having a beer," she said yearningly.
Once she finished, the news stories changed. Headlines and pictures across the world splashed the amazing scenes of a "girl" gate-crashing the race, and the snarling Jock attacking her, and her big gallant boyfriend bouncing Jock.
Dave McKenzie didn't mind. He had done the job – for Hector, for the friends who raised his fares, and for the West Coast community. He wanted to go home.
But now he was one of the world's top marathoners, as well as Number 2 in Greymouth's cross-country team. At Fukuoka in December 1967 he ran a brilliant 2:12:25.8, behind Derek Clayton's historic world record 2:09:36.
His 1968 Olympic hopes, as for so many others, drifted away in the rarefied air of Mexico City (37th). The Coast Road had prepared him for anything, but not altitude. He was still good enough in 1972 to make his second Olympic team, at Munich (22nd).
My more circuitous path crossed with Dave's in 1968, and we became rivals, friends, and Canterbury team-mates. One time I had the privilege of being his team manager when he ran one of his wondrous solo victories in the New Zealand marathon championship.
Another time we were locked in battle at the head of the field in a rural West Coast road race when we were joined by a terrified (or competitive) cow, who persisted in galloping alongside. Dave won narrowly, with the cow a distant third.
On two occasions, once in his home town of Greymouth and once at the Christchurch Marathon, Dave has come out of his reticent reclusion to join Kathrine Switzer and me in public retellings of the colourful story of the 1967 Boston Marathon. His astuteness and talent for detail made those occasions memorable. He was also among the reunion of champions at the 100th Boston in 1996.
Now in his 70s, Dave walks with a limp, from an accident when his dog pulled him over on ice, but is still out daily coaching young runners. Retired from 44 years as a respected printer and type-setter, he shows those orderly skills in his meticulous collection of news clippings. "I double-check everything," he says. 
As he quietly browses and remembers, you think perhaps his life did change that cold Boston day more than 40 years ago. But only on the inside.
Notes:
* the race is on April 17 this year.
* The McKenzies will travel via San Francisco and New York, then have six days in the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston.
* All winners' names are engraved in the Boston Marathon Memorial set in the pavement of Copley Square. There you will find Kiwis McKenzie, Allison Roe, Lorraine Moller, Bernie Portenski, and article author Roger Robinson.
* Kathrine Switzer will be running again this year, 50 years on from her infamous debut. She now lives in Wellington.
* Author Roger Robinson has been competitive runner for more than six decades. He has run for New Zealand and England, won several world and national masters championships, and set age-group records in major marathons. He has worked for 40 years as announcer and commentator.                                                                                                                                                                                                   

 

Tuesday 4 April 2017

Nazis on the Roof of the World


A Bizarre SS Expedition to Tibet

In 1938, an SS expedition led by German zoologist Ernst Schäfer 
trekked to Tibet, returning with priceless animal specimens. Many 
believe they had actually been sent to search for a lost Aryan race, 
but a new book argues that the truth is more complicated.
The German expedition of 1938-39 is regarded as one of the most controversial forays in modern science. Schäfer's team measured human heads, sat in tents made of yak hair and downed East Prussian caraway schnapps in one gulp with local officials, who called the German drinking frivolities "dry cup."
The expedition returned with 7,000 seed samples from wildflowers, grain varieties and other flora. These are now at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics in Gatersleben, a town in central Germany. The men also brought back wooden masks and odd-looking furniture, 17,500 meters (57,400 feet) of used film and a letter from the Tibetan head of state to "His Excellency, Mr. Hitler."
The question as to why the letter never arrived at its destination (and is now at the Bavarian State Library) is as mysterious as the rest of the expedition. Himmler had reportedly ordered the group to search for a "root race" with blond, curly hair -- the original Aryans. The Germans were also interested in finding cold-resistant horse breeds for the war economy.
The British intelligence service, which eyed the German march across British India with suspicion, suspected espionage. Historian Wolfgang Kaufmann, for his part, believes the Nazis wanted to explore the area where the spheres of interest of Japan and Germany, the expected winners of the upcoming war, would collide.
A new German-language book, "Nazis in Tibet," by Peter Meier-Hüsing, a religious scholar from the northern German city of Bremen, examines the true reasons behind the mission. Hüsing researched archives and original documents for his book and concluded that the journey to the snow-covered Himalayas was not a carefully planned, secret commando mission by the SS, but a trophy hunt by a brilliant researcher and adventurer that had come about partly by chance.
Schäfer was an "excellent marksman" and trapper, obsessed by the loneliness of the wilderness and disgusted by the "soft cushions" of civilization, Meier-Hüsing writes. British colonial officials called him strong, moody and well-educated, but also childishly vain.
A Talented Explorer
He had acquired his talents at an early age. The son of a business executive, Schäfer had hunted deer in the Odenwald region as a teenager before beginning his zoology studies at the age of 19. He later came into contact with American millionaire Brooke Dolan II, who was planning an expedition into relatively unexplored western China and needed an able companion.
In 1931, the two young men dove into the faraway bamboo forests, where the German proved an excellent hunter, such that their trunks were soon filled with rare animal pelts, including goat-like gorals, serows and takins. He also killed a panda -- a first.
The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia was so enthusiastic about his zoological foray that it made Schäfer a member. Back at home, the young ornithology student wrote a lengthy, best-selling account of his adventures and joined the SS in 1933. But that didn't stop him from once again answering the call of the wild, spending almost two years in the untouched headwaters region of the Yangtze Kiang River with "Yankee" Dolan.
The rising zoology star spent his 26th birthday drinking whiskey and playing golf at the Dolans' luxury ranch. The Americans courted this Indiana Jones of zoology while his German benefactors, including Nazi Party foreign press chief Ernst Hanfstaengl and the German general consul in Shanghai, sought backers in the Third Reich for an expedition Schäfer was planning to Tibet.
At the time, the Dalai Lama's realm seemed like an isolated fortress full of natural secrets. The British had already forcibly opened up Tibet when they invaded the country with 3,000 soldiers in 1903. Using machine guns, they mowed down the local soldiers, who were riding ponies and armed with spears. But the region still remained semi-autonomous, rejecting progress and refusing entry to foreigners.
When Himmler learned of the bold plans for the expedition, he immediately expressed interest, and in spring 1936, he sent a trans-Atlantic cable reading: "Return to Germany requested." Schäfer obeyed.
He later called the alliance with Himmler, who went on to become the architect of the Holocaust, his "biggest mistake." Author Meier-Hüsing, however, describes Schäfer as an opportunist who had a "tremendous craving for recognition."
The young scholar's Faustian bargain with the SS soon brought him into the orbit of Himmler's "Ahnenerbe" Society, whose members championed the "Welteislehre," (world ice theory) which held that there was once a "Nordic-Atlantic original culture" which was destroyed when a moon crashed into the Earth, and that the remnants of this super-race survived only in the Himalayas.
'Nonsensically Mystified'
Karl Maria Wiligut, a former colonel in the Austro-Hungarian army, had dreamed up this nonsense, believing himself to be an incarnation of the German god Thor. When Schäfer visited the charlatan at his villa in the Dahlem district of Berlin, he blurted out his prophecies -- apparently while high on opium.
It is this aspect of the Tibet mission that right-wing esoterics latched onto. In novels and on Nazi websites, the zoologist is still portrayed as a servant of Hitler in search of the Holy Grail.
This nonsense culminated in the so-called "Buddha from space," which surfaced a few years ago. The sculpture is adorned with a reverse swastika, a symbol of luck in the Far East. The sculpture was supposedly 1,000 years old and was part of the spoils of Schäfer's mission. An analysis by the Stuttgart Institute of Planetology even showed that the idol was made from the ferrous Chinga meteorite, which fell to Earth more than 10,000 years ago between Siberia and Mongolia.
It was an astonishing result, but disappointment soon followed: the material is indeed from space, but the Buddha itself was made by a modern-day forger. Apparently an unknown individual had attempted to create a dramatic source legend for the object in order to increase its value.
The expedition was "nonsensically mystified," says Meier-Hüsing. Himmler's drivel about original Aryans meant nothing to the leader of the mission, he insists. The president of the Ahnenerbe Society was at times so irritated with Schäfer that he wanted to back out of the project. Himmler eventually took over the sponsorship and, with the stroke of a pen, turned the entire team into SS officers. But he provided almost no funding.
Nevertheless, the Nazi insignia on the explorers' tropical helmets were enough to alarm the British. When the "Vikings of Science" began their journey in April 1938, they had no entry documents for British India, and the Empire blocked their way.
But the expedition leader applied his charm. After arriving in Calcutta, he took a 36-hour train ride through the country and requested an audience with the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow. He was "so pathetic and subservient," according to a memorandum by the colonial authority, that the British promised their assistance.
The diplomatic carousel was also turning in London. British Admiral Sir Barry Domvile, an anti-Semite and friend of Himmler's, personally intervened with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who eventually gave the green light to the expedition in the spirit of appeasement.
But the visa that was issued was only valid for the principality of Sikkim, a tiny country high up in the mountains. What could the Germans do? They were stuck in India with tons of equipment.
Entry into Tibet
Without waiting for another permit, they set out on their expedition anyway. It was already June when they began their journey in Darjeeling, using ox carts and horses. Heavy clouds from the Bengali plains built up against the Himalayan ridges as the caravan began climbing on muddy paths into the majestic peaks.
The caravan came to a temporary halt at the Kongra La Pass. Tibet, with its mysterious wildlife, was on the other side of the 5,130-meter pass but the SS adventurers had no choice but to set up a base camp near the border.
In the evenings, the melancholy Schäfer would sit in his tent reading Goethe's "Faust." His wife had been killed prior to the expedition in November 1937, having been hit in the head by a stray bullet during a duck hunt.
The dance music coming from a short-wave radio they had secretly brought from Berlin was not enough to lift his mood, nor was the monotonous food, which consisted of "noodles, nothing but noodles."
But then an opportunity arose. A Tibetan administrator from across the border paid a visit to the Germans' wind-blown camp and Schäfer flattered the man, serving him tea and pastries and giving him rubber boots, Bahlsen cookies and an air mattress. In return, the man used his powers of persuasion to request a visa for Lhasa.
He was successful. After weeks of waiting, Tibet's council of ministers permitted the "master of a hundred sciences" to visit the closed off capital of Tibetan Buddhism, but without scientific equipment. He was also not permitted "to kill birds or mammals," the permit read.
On Dec. 22, 1938, the SS men entered the forbidden plateau and two days later, they decorated a Christmas tree with home-made tinsel. After New Year's Eve, the temperature dropped to -35°C and they burned yak dung as fuel.
Despite the ban, the team had brought along their technical equipment. They trekked for 400 kilometers through snow-covered steppes, through ice and hail storms. When they reached Lhasa, the Germans looked like vagrants. "They had blonde hair, blue eyes and dirty, unkempt beards," one Tibetan noted.
There were 25,000 people living in the holy city at the time and roughly the same number of red-robed Buddhist monks lived in the three government monasteries in the surrounding area. The massive Potala, the seat of government, stood in the center of Lhasa.
Unlike the showy and stiff British officials in Lhasa, the Germans remained casually dressed and relaxed, even after their first bath. Their fondness for drink quickly became the talk of the city: They invited Tibet's notables to numerous parties, where the Chang Beer flowed freely and German songs were played on the gramophone.
Despite being the sent by "the Aryan master race" to search "for forgotten cousins in the East," writes Meier-Hüsing, the team did not put on airs.

Invasive Documentation and Measurements
Anthropologist Bruno Berger's behavior was particularly egregious. He used a compass, skull tongs and a device for the lower jaw to measure the bodies of local residents. He also smeared a material called Negocoll onto the faces of test subjects to make skull impressions.In their dossiers, the British accused the Germans of loutish behavior, describing Schäfer as a "priest of Nazism," but their assessment also contained a hint of jealousy.
Despite the British criticism, Schäfer rose more and more into favor. As a master of what Meier-Hüsing calls "flattering declamations," he even convinced the state's ruler, Radreng Rinpoche, to extend the group's permit for another six months. According to an SS memo from late 1939, Schäfer also secretly offered weapons to the regent, although it is unclear today whether anything came of it.
The mission -- a strange mixture of espionage, drunken revelry and a zoological foray -- ended three weeks before World War II began. In addition to the more than 3,000 bird carcasses, the group took home 2,000 eggs, 400 skulls and pelts of mammals, as well as reptiles, amphibians, several thousand butterflies, grasshoppers, 2,000 ethnological objects, minerals, topographic maps and 40,000 black-and-white photographs.
Many of these treasures are still tucked away in the archives today, frowned upon because of their association with the Nazis. Schäfer fell into similar obscurity. If he had moved to the United States in time, he would probably have risen into the pantheon of great discoverers. But in postwar Germany, he was tainted with Nazism and only barely acquitted in his denazification trial. Ultimately, he ended up writing for a German hunting magazine.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Breaking barriers: The female mountain guide battling machismo


Juliana García poses on the slopes of the Antisana volcano in EcuadorImage copyrightROBERTO ESPINOSA F.
Image captionJuliana García passed her exam on the Antisana volcano
It is just a little metal pin, but for Juliana García its significance is as great as the tallest mountain.
It shows that the bearer has been internationally certified to guide tourists on mountains all around the world.
It was awarded to the 32-year old Ecuadorean on Friday, making her the first female mountain guide in Latin America to be officially certified by the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA).
Juliana García shows off the pin awarded to herImage copyrightROBERTO ESPINOSA F.
Image captionJuliana García is proud of the pin which shows she is an officially certified mountain guide
Juliana García with a group of climbers on the Antisana volcanoImage copyrightROBERTO ESPINOSA F.
Image captionShe had to demonstrate her skill on the slopes of the Antisana
Part of the exam took place on the glacier of the 5,758m-high Antisana volcano, south-east of the capital, Quito.
Under the scrutiny of national and international instructors, Juliana García and six male fellow mountaineers had to show their skills using ropes, crampons and ice axes, and demonstrate their capability to self-rescue.

Male terrain

Ever since she started practising mountaineering as a young teenager, Juliana García has been stepping onto what in Latin America and also the rest of the world is still widely considered a male terrain.
Juliana García on the Antisana volcanoImage copyrightROBERTO ESPINOSA F.
Image captionJuliana García says her path has not been easy
Years ago she attended a course at an international guiding school in Bolivia, but failed the IFMGA exam at the end of it.
She witnessed a strong culture of machismo among the instructors and her fellow students.
Laughing, she recalls how the month-long experience almost made her give up on her great dream of becoming an officially certified mountain guide.
But she persevered and in 2015 became the president of the Ecuadorean Mountain Guide Association.
As one of only two women in the world - the other is from the US - to lead a mountain guide association, she has won the respect of fellow mountaineers.
"I'm so proud to be a part of an association that has a woman representing us at the international assembly," says Joshua Jarrín, technical director of the guide school in Ecuador.

'Women aren't trusted'

But for Juliana García that distinction was not enough and she set out again to try to get the mountain guide certificate.
Juliana García on the Antisana volcanoImage copyrightROBERTO ESPINOSA F.
Image captionJuliana García did not give up after failing the exam the first time
She found that the machismo in her homeland of Ecuador was just as strong as what she had encountered years previously in Bolivia.
"It is difficult in a society that has never trusted women to do such work," she says.
The job carries great responsibility as climbers trust guides with their lives. If a climber falls, it is the guide's job to stop that fall.
Decisions taken by the guide - for instance judging the weather and snow conditions - can determine whether the party gets safely down the mountain.
In some cases women are more cautious when making these decisions.
"Some clients have told me to my face that they don't trust female guides."
Juliana García and other climbers on the AntisanaImage copyrightROBERTO ESPINOSA F.
Image captionThe number of female mountain guides is low in other countries, too
Since she passed the exam, many of her colleagues have come out to say how proud they are of her achievement, and not just in her native Ecuador.
Francois Marsigny is in charge of the alpinism department at France's National School of Alpinism and Ski.
He thinks it is "very important" that more women follow in Juliana García's footsteps.
A pair of boots in the campImage copyrightROBERTO ESPINOSA F.
Image captionJuliana García hopes others will follow in her footsteps
"Women bring new attitudes to the job such as communication, client care and risk management," he says.
Mr Marsigny wants to drive up the percentage of female guides in France from its current 2% to at least 10% over the next five years.
That is a figure which in Ecuador still seems far off but Juliana García's passion for making mountaineering accessible to everyone regardless of gender is overriding.
"It's not about what's possible or not. The mountains are for everyone," she says