Published by: World Tibet Network News, Sunday, July 14, 1996

The Sunday Times - London

14 July 1996

by Nicholas Hellen

THEIR friendship has spanned decades, surviving exile, persecution and years of wandering the globe in search of peace. But it is only now - on the eve of the Dalai Lama's visit to Britain - that the full details of the continuing alliance between an eccentric Austrian adventurer and Tibet's spiritual leader are beginning to emerge.

In a rare interview from his mountain home in southeast Austria, Heinrich Harrer, 84, a former mountaineer and Olympic skier whose feats were harnessed by Hitler to serve the Nazi propaganda effort, spoke last week of his lifelong influence on the Tibetan god-king.

A Hollywood film, starring Brad Pitt as Harrer, is to be made of the friendship between the two men. But the film - to be shot in Argentina following strong opposition by the Chinese - will not mention the fact that the friendship has endured to the present day.

The two friends still meet regularly at the Dalai Lama's retreat in the remote hamlet of McLeod Ganj in India.

Harrer says he celebrated a recent birthday at a joint party with the Dalai Lama, who was born on the same day, at his home in Austria. The two men ate pretzels and shared a cake.

The unusual friendship was forged in Lhasa in the dying days of Tibetan independence. As the troops of Mao Tse-tung massed on the border of the Himalayan state in 1949, the teenage Tibetan leader befriended Harrer, who had fled to Tibet from British internment in India.

Harrer had formerly gained renown in 1938 for his conquest of the north face of the Eiger. His achievement was trumpeted as an Aryan triumph by the Nazi propaganda machine. With other climbers from his team, Harrer was presented to Hitler after a mass rally in Breslau in July 1938.

In a Nazi report of the encounter Harrer, then 26, appeared to be an ardent cheerleader. He was quoted as saying: "It is a priceless reward to be permitted to see and speak to the Fuhrer." Harrer has since denied that the words were his.

After his Eiger triumph Harrer was chosen to join an expedition to the Himalayan peak of Nanga Parbat. But war broke out as his climbing team was about to return to Germany. The team was interned by the British authorities. Harrer escaped to Tibet on his third attempt.

For nearly a year, Harrer and a companion evaded capture and the threat of bears and leopards. They survived snowstorms, near-starvation and ambush by a group of bandits before reaching Lhasa dressed in rags. Once there, Harrer was assisted by a group of Tibetan aristocrats. It was then that he was asked to help acquaint the Dalai Lama with the outside world.

As the Dalai Lama's unofficial tutor, Harrer taught him geography, literature and engineering. He even built a cinema for the teenage leader, powered by the engine of a Jeep.

The opportunity to see documentary films about world events fortuitously prepared the sheltered Tibetan leader, then only 15, for a life of exile.

Hugh Richardson, 90, who once commanded the British mission in Lhasa, said the friendship between the two men had caused problems. "The Dalai Lama's advisers didn't like him to meet Harrer and to have that sort of connection with a westerner," he said.

Harrer said: "It was natural that some of his advisers did not like my presence. But I was supported by his mother and two of his teachers so it was never seriously threatened." The passage of decades has removed the doubts and Harrer said he believed the relationship had survived because of the hardships the two had endured together in Tibet.

"Many of his so-called friends in entertainment are all grinding their own axes," he said. Over the years Harrer has donated the substantial profits of his international tours lecturing on his mountaineering exploits to Tibetan refugees.

"I came there as a refugee and now he, and the Tibetan people, are all refugees," he said, explaining why he had decided to devote the remainder of his life to repaying the Tibetans' generosity. "I am now 84 and helping them is the last task in my life."

Harrer has also lobbied hard behind the scenes to facilitate the Dalai Lama's campaign for Tibetan freedom in his travels around the world. Last year he organised the Tibetan leader's public appearances in Austria after the government rejected plans for an official visit.

"Mr Harrer is a close friend," said a British spokesman for the Dalai Lama, "and he has done much to relieve the plight of the Tibetan people."

In public Harrer treats the Dalai Lama - who will meet Malcolm Rifkind, the foreign secretary, this week - with the respect befitting the temporal and spiritual leader of Tibet. But in private he has been granted the privilege of familiarity denied the Dalai Lama's other western followers.

"When I saw him last, I noticed how his hair was receding," said Harrer. "To comfort him, I said, 'You can't have both hair and a brain.' "