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00:00Hollywood loves an iconic villain and there are none better than Hitler's
00:09Nazis but did Indiana Jones's old enemy really plunder the world for ancient
00:15relics as depicted in the famous films the answer is yes spearheaded by Heinrich
00:26Himmler and the SS epic expeditions were mounted by Nazi scientists they called
00:33themselves the Ananurba their weapons lies theft and murder they are
00:46Hitler's treasure hunters
00:50an exotic adventure to the end of the earth sets the scene for Nazi atrocities
00:59there's a puzzle that connects an expedition to Lhasa in Tibet to the
01:05Auschwitz concentration camp if you're going to justify genocide you'd better
01:10have a pretty solid you know kind of argument as a band of rogue researchers
01:14undertake a priceless quest to deliver Hitler a treasure worth all the gold in
01:20Europe if you needed to prove racial superiority because once he took that
01:26away the whole Nazi ideology collapsed fake news that could justify the master race
01:34and inspire Hitler's final solution I think there's one lesson that has a lot of
01:43contemporary resonance
01:46pseudoscience can be lethal
01:59Germany late 1930s Adolf Hitler is entrenched in power his racist ideology of a
02:07pure Aryan state is at the core of Nazi nationalism in lockstep is Heinrich Himmler
02:15leader of the SS and their treasure hunting troop the Ananurba he has a
02:22fascination with mythology ancient legends and fringe science and a burning desire to
02:29prove Hitler's Nazi ideologies of the so-called master race
02:40Himmler was immensely ambitious for this think tank which he called the Ananurba he would recruit academics of various kinds
02:50and they would investigate the German past and inculcate SS members with knowledge about history they were the vanguard of a kind of racial warfare that would eventually overwhelm Europe
03:11but the Nazis had a problem how could they prove they were a master race when
03:18everyone knew that mighty civilizations like the Greeks and Romans had come before
03:24them their plan rewrite the very histories of racial structure to do so they had to
03:32begin with a new theory then set out to prove it there were five European races and at the top
03:41what Aryans or Nordic people who were directly connected to Germans this Aryan
03:48race this Nordic race had once spread out from northern Europe and had entered the Himalayas and founded an ancient Empire
03:59according to the theory these ancient Aryans used their superior genetics
04:04advanced technology and highly developed culture to seed noble societies throughout history
04:14whenever they went into an area whatever they saw as the best of that would not
04:20surprisingly be linked up with Nordic or Aryan traits
04:24so the nobles of any given area the Brahmins in India or the Japanese samurai or the nobles in Tibet
04:33they would often not surprisingly be found to have had somewhat Nordic characteristics
04:41These unproven ideas captured the imagination of senior Nazis
04:46and laid the groundwork for a new German creation myth
04:51Himmler even seems to think that you know in some sort of almost like Viking-esque Valhalla that you know the ancient Aryans came down from the heavens somehow
05:01but there is this idea that there are these ancient Aryans and that they slowly but surely spread across the Tibetan plateau going ultimately to China and Japan as well
05:12I think he believed it and remember he was surrounded by people who wouldn't dare ever tell him that he was wrong
05:19and once you set up an organization sending people off to Tibet archaeological expeditions
05:28it's got a momentum of its own
05:30To unearth evidence of ancient ancestors
05:35Himmler turned to the Ananurba
05:38commissioning the most complex and costly expedition
05:42in Nazi scientific history
05:45Not only was Tibet a mythical place
05:48but its high altitudes and extreme cold
05:51also made it inaccessible to all but the hardiest of explorers
05:56The Nazis wanted to prove that survival in such an unforgiving landscape
06:02could have only one explanation
06:05Superior genes
06:07brought to Tibet by Aryan ancestors
06:10who bred with the Asian inhabitants
06:16What fascinated Heinrich Himmler
06:18was the possible connection
06:20between the aristocratic elite in Tibet
06:24and Germans
06:26and this almost fantastic connection
06:29would prove to him
06:31that once upon a time
06:33there had been this vast Aryan Empire
06:36that brought these Tibetans and Germans together
06:43through their ancestry
06:45This was heady stuff
06:52worthy of an SS backed expedition of discovery
06:56and if successful
06:58would be one of the most significant treasure hunts
07:01the Ananurba ever embarked on
07:06There was no specific object involved
07:09but it would prove a theory that in their minds
07:12could justify their expansion across the world
07:16that their Aryan ancestors
07:18were the forebearers of civilization
07:20to every nation on earth
07:22and their German descendants
07:24were simply reclaiming what belonged to them
07:28The amount of funding that went into Tibet
07:31was far and away more than what was actually spent
07:34on prehistoric archaeological research in Germany
07:36and part of it was that there was still this feeling
07:39that these are the areas of the world
07:41where civilizations emerge
07:43and so we need to find a way
07:44to directly connect ourselves to that legacy
07:47They had to sort of create these rationales
07:51in ancient history
07:52that ultimately it was really always
07:54somehow the ancient Aryans
07:56who had gone there and created these things
07:59and so of course
08:00it was simply the Nazis going
08:02and sort of reclaiming
08:03what had originally been theirs
08:05As the Ananurba ponder plans
08:10to prove their racial theories
08:12Himmler finds a scientist
08:14who reflects his elite vision for Germany
08:17and can lead an expedition to Tibet
08:21At just 28, Ernst Scheffer
08:24is charismatic and handsome
08:27an experienced explorer
08:29who's already charted Asian frontiers
08:32in the Himalayas
08:37Ernst Scheffer had already travelled
08:39in the Himalayas
08:41and in parts of China
08:43and he was a kind of German Indiana Jones
08:49if you like
08:50He had written popular books
08:53about his expeditions
08:55and these books had drawn the attention of Himmler
08:59Scheffer jumps at the chance for fortune and glory
09:03He's primarily interested in exploring and mapping Tibet
09:08along with studying the region's unusual flora and fauna
09:12but he'll make a deal with the devil
09:15if it gets him the funding
09:17The SS, which he joined quite early on in the 1930s
09:22would give him access to funding
09:25would give him access to power really
09:29But now he's in debt
09:33to Heinrich Himmler
09:35You do have to kind of look at the way in which people used the party affiliation
09:40to further their own particular career goals
09:42and there's no question that there's a lot of opportunism and careerism
09:46People played the game to the extent that they needed to
09:50If the Ananerba were going to prove Aryan ancestry in a far-off land like Tibet
09:58it helped that a man like Scheffer fit the Aryan ideal to a T
10:04Himmler saw him as this magnificent specimen of a German
10:09who had gone to places no German had ever been before
10:13He was a heroic figure for Himmler
10:16and Scheffer definitely played that up
10:22In the 1930s, Tibet is a land of myth and legend to outsiders
10:28Foreigners are mostly forbidden
10:31and its secrets lie undiscovered to all but the hardiest of explorers
10:37And so Scheffer sets off with four Ananerba colleagues
10:42To find Nirvana
10:46Traveling from Europe all the way to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa
10:55Remember to the average person at this time in Germany
10:59This is some very far away exotic land where these German explorers are going
11:06And again, being the first Germans allowed into Lhasa
11:10It's literally this fascination that German scientists have been able to go
11:15to this far away land and bring this information back
11:22Scheffer might have been the perfect man to lead the expedition
11:26But Himmler cared little for his dabbling with flora and fauna
11:30His hopes and prayers secretly rest with another SS scientist
11:35Bruno Berger
11:37Himmler has charged Berger with the monumental task
11:41to rewrite history itself
11:44Bruno Berger
11:47Bruno Berger was the expedition anthropologist
11:50His fascination with this racial theory fitted perfectly with Himmler's world view
11:58He was the perfect SS anthropologist
12:02He was fascinated by the idea of Aryan ancestors
12:07And he went to Tibet to try and prove this connection
12:11Between elite Europeans and elite Tibetans
12:22Captivated by the idea of Nordic ancestors
12:25The mythical treasures Berger seeks
12:28Are remnants of a long lost race in this mystical part of the world
12:33Already gaining experience in the Nazi pseudoscience of racial identification
12:40Berger had worked in an SS unit
12:42Whose job was to ensure the racial purity of SS members
12:48A quest that would utilize these skills to prove Aryan dominance in Tibet
12:53Was too good a chance to turn down
12:56He was going to make intricate measurements of Tibetans
13:03And he would use those measurements in a kind of mathematics of race
13:08In his view, that would connect Tibetans to the people of Europe
13:14And this would suggest an ancient origin in this Aryan empire of the past
13:20While Sheffer didn't fully subscribe to Berger's extreme ideas
13:27The two men are bound by the opportunity for advancement and adventure
13:33Himmler has another racial crusade underway
13:37He sends out all these border scientists and folklorists
13:42Some of whom just made stuff up
13:45Or claimed they had found ancient books that never actually existed
13:49Were forgeries
13:50And he sends them to Finland
13:52And the Canary Islands
13:53And Bolivia
13:54And Libya
13:55And Tibet
13:56To find the origins of all great civilizations
13:59Which?
14:00What's the punchline?
14:01Must be Aryans
14:04These ideas of some mythical heroic past
14:09Where there were these warrior-like heroes
14:14That lived
14:15And that Himmler in many ways saw as his ancestors
14:19I do think that many of the scientists involved in the Ahnen Erbe
14:24Or Himmler himself
14:26Certainly did think
14:28That if they searched long and hard enough
14:30They were going to find that magical information
14:34That fundamentally showed at the end of the day that they were right
14:39Berger sets to work
14:43Analyzing every Tibetan he can find
14:46With his calipers and rulers
14:48So you have the classic example is the measurement of skulls
14:55And using these measurements to identify the race of an individual
15:00Now that form of anthropology had been practiced for half a century
15:07But by that time it was already considered to be rather pointless
15:14Now we know that stuff is just a waste of time
15:17But Berger was still operating within that paradigm
15:21That this could be useful anthropology
15:23Once underway, Bruno Berger makes casts of the heads of test subjects
15:32So that a precise representation of their racial physiology
15:36Can be brought home to Germany
15:38As more masks are made
15:42The team gradually assembles a haunting collection of Tibetan faces
15:47The making of the face mask was actually very frightening
15:56For Berger's subjects
15:58You had all this plaster of Paris put over your face
16:02And many of them, as far as we can tell, thought they were suffocating
16:06So that was really terrifying
16:13Berger realizes locals are friendlier towards eye and skull measurements
16:18If he also offers medical assistance
16:21So makeshift surgeries are set up
16:24And Berger's team pull painful teeth
16:27And dispense medication
16:29Over 16 months
16:31The team gather head casts and measurements
16:34From almost 400 Tibetans
16:37Who are blissfully unaware of the Nazis' true intentions
16:42So I think that many of the Tibetans went into this with very good intentions
16:48In fact, you know, at a certain point they even talk about
16:51You know, the similarity of the swastika
16:54Because the team brings a bunch of these swastika pins
16:57Which, of course, to them
16:58Talk about the peaceful and fortuitous mingling of the swastika
17:04In the east and in the west now coming together
17:07So I think, you know, very much both sides went into this
17:10With very, very different understandings of what was happening
17:17The swastika-like symbols seen throughout Tibet
17:20Are, of course, enormously important to the expedition
17:24They are further proof of the influence of ancient Aryan culture
17:29Conversely, Tibetans believe the swastika represents the footprint of the Buddha
17:36To these peaceful people
17:38It's the antithesis of the ultra-nationalist symbol
17:42Of Hitler's warped racial fantasies
17:45And they have no idea that the harvesting of their biological data
17:51Will soon be used as a framework to commit mass murder
17:58Tibetans had never seen someone doing this before
18:01So it must have been quite remarkable for them
18:04What on earth was this person doing measuring them with calipers
18:08And all sorts of other instruments
18:10Of course, he would not explain to ordinary people what he was doing
18:16It was an expression of European power
18:19He was able to do all that work
18:22Because he had power as a white man in the Himalayas
18:25The group of scientists are also enthralled by local religious practices
18:32Gathering information about Tibetan spirituality
18:36With 60,000 photographs and 50 hours of film
18:41For Himmler, the material will fuel his fascination with mysticism
18:46The occult, astrology, and fringe science
18:51But Ernst Schaeffer has his sights set on another famous part
18:56Of Tibet's mythical heritage
18:59Schaeffer was certainly aware of the stories about there being a Yeti
19:11In Nazi Germany, belief in the Yeti is still strong in the 1930s
19:17And yes, he was keen to find out if this was true
19:22He probably believed there was one
19:24I mean, there were at that stage in the 1930s
19:27There were undiscovered things in the world
19:30And that would have been front page news if he'd found that
19:34So yes, he took that one seriously
19:40Despite being a skilled hunter
19:42Scheffer fails to track down the legendary beast
19:47Instead, it's even rumored that Nazis later fake the results of his hunt
19:53Placing canine teeth inside the skull of a Tibetan brown bear
19:59While the Yeti evades capture
20:01The faith in mythology and legends
20:04Perfectly captures the mood of the time
20:07It's hard to imagine places more different than Germany
20:14Under the Third Reich
20:16And Tibet
20:17And yet, here were these German anthropologists
20:21These German naturalists on this expedition
20:23To a place that was fundamentally different
20:26With the bizarre Tibetan expedition over
20:33The Brut returns to Germany in August 1939
20:37Sadly, they can't offer the Führer an authentic Yeti
20:42But they come bearing valuable gifts for Hitler
20:46A gold coin
20:47A Tibetan Mastiff
20:49And the valuable robe of a llama
20:52Newspaper headlines across Germany boldly announce
20:56Hitler's delegation in Tibet
20:59And the first Germans in Lhasa
21:02But coins and robes were trinkets
21:05The real treasure for Hitler
21:07Was Berger's pseudoscientific skull measuring
21:11Which could prove once and for all
21:13Aryan racial superiority
21:16By linking the Tibetan people
21:18To a Nordic master race
21:20That had colonized the world
21:23The Nazis sweated on a result
21:31From the point of view of the people who sponsored it
21:35The expedition was a triumph
21:37Himmler made sure that he met their aircraft
21:40When it arrived back in Germany
21:42And they were all given decorations
21:45And promoted within the SS
21:47So there is an entertainment value
21:49And a prestige value
21:51Just from the general public
21:53Being able to see what are proposed at the time
21:56As German scientific expedition successes
22:00Beger came back with enormous amounts of this data
22:05His notebooks are full of these measurements
22:08Meticulously recorded
22:11And it's on the basis of that
22:13That he wrote this paper
22:15Which suggested this link between
22:18Aristocratic Tibetans and Europeans
22:22Berger had delivered on the expedition's promise
22:28His skewed science delivers Himmler
22:31The perfect present for his Fuhrer
22:33A scientific backing of Hitler's dark fantasy
22:38Of racial superiority
22:40The Nazi final solution of the Jewish problem
22:44Was based on the idea of
22:46A racial hierarchy that proposed
22:48That Nordic Aryans were at the top
22:50Jews and others were at the bottom
22:52And they were not life worthy of life
22:57Hitler appeared at the front to watch his military might in action
23:04The Fuhrer wanted a ringside seat at Poland's wake
23:06Hitler appeared at the front to watch his military might in action
23:08The Fuhrer wanted a ringside seat at Poland's wake
23:10When Hitler invades Poland on September 1, 1939
23:19War begins
23:21And the science used by Bruno Berger and the Anna Nerva
23:25To categorize race
23:27Will be put to use in shocking circumstances
23:31As in any war
23:48Germany needs to define and isolate its enemies
23:52And according to Nazi theories on race
23:55Now confirmed by Berger's bizarre skull measuring
23:59The biggest enemy was the Jews
24:04It was vital for Nazi Germany in the war
24:08To identify the enemies of the Aryan Nordic race
24:14Identifying Jews was of paramount importance
24:18Because Jews were seen as an enormous life-threatening entity
24:24That would undermine the Reich
24:27Jews are specifically targeted according to Hitler's theory of racial hierarchy
24:36Which labels them a degenerate species
24:40The idea was people constituted a stock or blood or nation
24:48And they were defined biologically
24:51And the problem coming from degeneration theory was
24:56We've got these others
24:58Now who are the others?
24:59Well they're Jews for a start
25:01And these people will breed like rabbits
25:05And they have the potential to infect our blood stock
25:09In other words, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals
25:14Were disposable under Hitler's warped world view
25:19And as the war ramps up
25:21We see certain members of the Anna Nerva
25:24Take on entirely new horrific roles
25:28Horrific roles
25:38While the researchers and archaeologists start plundering the conquered territories for new treasures
25:44The men of the Anna Nerva Institute for scientific research
25:49Are now tasked with an entirely different problem
25:53For the fast expanding Nazi super state
25:57By 1942, before the famed Battle of Stalingrad
26:06The Nazis had advanced swiftly across Eastern Europe
26:10But the people they encountered confounded them
26:13Nazi racial pseudoscience was completely unprepared
26:18For the huge diversity of ethnic groups in the region
26:23Making it nearly impossible to tell Aryans apart from Jews
26:28Murder squads encountered villages of supposed Jewish-looking inhabitants
26:33Practicing Christian religion
26:36Meanwhile, their blond-haired, blue-eyed neighbors
26:39Had Jewish names
26:42According to the Nazi point of view
26:47If we have this project of eliminating the threat of world Jewry
26:54This was what the Nazis called the final solution
26:59You had to be able to identify them
27:02And there were some Jewish populations that resisted this identification
27:07They needed to use all these pseudo-scientific methods
27:11To find a way of identifying Jews
27:14Making sure that they could be identified when the German army entered the region
27:21To solve the problem, the Anna Nerva turned to Bruno Berger
27:27Could the techniques used in Tibet for establishing a system of racial classification
27:33Be used to conclusively identify Jews?
27:37Berger's solution is as simple as it is grotesque
27:44If he can access a large collection of Jewish people's skulls and skeletons
27:49He can search for defining characteristics
27:52He claims he would be able to scientifically prove Jewishness
27:56As a defined physical trait
28:03This led Beger to go to Auschwitz
28:08He assembled in the most cruel and macabre way
28:14A collection of individuals
28:16More than a hundred people were gathered together
28:20And he began studying them in the camp
28:31To facilitate a collection
28:32Berger approaches Dr. August Hart
28:35A notorious Nazi doctor who has already made a name for himself
28:40Conducting medical experiments on human subjects in concentration camps
28:46These doctors had taken in almost with their medical mother's milk
28:53The idea of racial exclusivity, degeneration theory and eugenics
29:00Now once they get taken up by the party
29:03They are their willing handmaidens to carry out these things
29:09Just like his work, Hurt was the stuff of nightmares
29:16And it was really Hurt who seemed to be managing the process of collecting these skeletons
29:25He was rather a frightening individual
29:28Because he'd been scarred during the First World War
29:34So he looked rather sinister
29:37And what he was doing was even more sinister
29:46As an anatomist and SS member
29:48Hurt abandons his medical ethics
29:51And enthusiastically accepts the task
29:54Berger's initial plan is to obtain specimens from the bodies of Jews
30:00Captured in fighting on the Eastern Front
30:03But Hurt suggests sourcing individuals from the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland
30:11He selects inmates who look stereotypically Jewish
30:15To make their data as convincing as possible
30:18First, they are kept for two weeks in a special block of their camp
30:23And allowed to eat well
30:25But what seems like compassion
30:27Is simply a way to improve their gaunt appearance
30:31So face casts can be taken more easily
30:34Victims then have their skulls measured
30:38Anthropological and biological measurements are taken
30:42And their known racial history recorded
30:45Eventually these people were sent to another concentration camp near Strasbourg
30:57Called Natsweiler
30:59Where they were all murdered
31:03This shows us the way in which Nazi science became perverted
31:08And really was driven by doing anything that they possibly could
31:12To prove a point that they wished to be true
31:15Going from what might be taking measurements of people
31:19Without fully informing them what you're doing
31:22In expeditions like the Tibet expedition
31:25To ultimately murdering people
31:29By August of 1944
31:32The Jewish skeleton collection claims 87 inmates' lives
31:37As corpses slowly become skeletons
31:41Berger and Hurt prepare to study the remains
31:44But they face a new problem
31:47The tide of the war has turned against the Nazis
31:56As the Allies advance
31:58Hurt abandons his gruesome project and flees
32:02In 87 souls
32:05Their lives desecrated by inhumane racial ideals
32:08And monstrous pseudoscience
32:11Never become the skeleton collection
32:13Berger and Hurt had hoped for
32:17Instead, they are found by advancing allied soldiers
32:21Preserved in formaldehyde
32:25There are a variety of ways
32:27In which the misuse of science
32:30Underpinned human suffering
32:32Whether it be in more specific examples
32:35Such as human experiments
32:38That were intended to figure out
32:40How long someone could stay in the freezing ocean
32:44Before expiring
32:46And then various ways of perhaps resuscitating them
32:49With artificial heat or other means
32:51What started out as a glorious German expedition to Tibet
32:54What started out as a glorious German expedition to Tibet
32:56What started out as a glorious German expedition to Tibet
32:57What started out as a glorious German expedition to Tibet
32:58By Ananerba researchers
33:01Led directly to the extermination of hundreds of Jewish lives
33:05In the name of junk scientific theories
33:08Like phrenology
33:10Nazi scientists tried to find a system where they could
33:14Objectively differentiate between the races
33:19But they had hoped that there were some sort of magic set of measurements
33:24Some sort of magic set of numbers
33:26That could tell the ratio between the length of the face
33:30And the width of the face
33:32The height of the nose
33:33The difference between the distance of the eyes
33:36So that they could distinguish between those who were Nordic or Aryan
33:41And those who were of other allegedly inferior races
33:45Of course the reality is they were never able to do that
33:48Because it was all based on faulty science
33:52The skull measuring of the Ananerba
33:55Was just one of many twisted programs
33:58Heinrich Himmler oversaw
34:00In pursuit of his Aryan master race
34:03Another program whose seeds were sown in Germany in 1935
34:09Continued into Norway in the 1940s
34:13A pet project of Himmler's beyond the scope of the Ananerba
34:18It would run at the same time as their skull measuring program
34:23But their eventual goals were as different as life and death
34:29Liebensborn
34:36Or the spring of life
34:38Was a eugenics experiment coordinated by Himmler
34:42In conjunction with his Ananerba treasure hunts
34:45The Liebensborn program was essentially a program that was focusing on the birth
34:52The increased births among those seen as racially desirable
34:57Its goal was to boost German population numbers
35:01With babies born of parents strictly selected for their Aryan traits
35:06We have to understand that throughout Europe
35:09There is a preoccupation by scientists
35:12With race, eugenics, improving the race
35:16Improving the health of individuals and racial groups collectively
35:21Liebensborn was both a numbers game and blood purity exercise
35:26You only have to look at Himmler's own words
35:29In setting out his philosophy for the program
35:32Should we succeed in establishing this Nordic race again from and around Germany
35:38And from this seedbed producing a race of 200 million
35:42Then the world will belong to us
35:45So here you have another aspect of the Nazi's attempt to fundamentally recreate what society looked like
35:56While the Liebensborn program originally started as a way to encourage Aryan German women
36:06To procreate by providing single mothers with housing and maternal support
36:11As the Nazis pushed into conquered territories
36:15It took on a much darker tone
36:18Nazi baby snatchers would target blue-eyed, blond-haired infants in occupied territories
36:25And kidnap them
36:27Placing them with SS-friendly families
36:30Thousands of lives were stolen
36:33Liebensborn, as it continued on, also tried to find those with racially desirable traits
36:42Even among peoples outside of Germany in various areas that it was conquering
36:48And ultimately what would happen is in many cases those children would be taken
36:53And then they would be adopted by those within Germany who were again seen to be good German families
36:59The Fuhrer was delirious about Liebensborn
37:03In 1941 Hitler stated
37:06I do not doubt for a moment
37:08That within a hundred years or so from now
37:11All the German elite will be a product of the SS
37:15For only the SS practices racial selection
37:21Norway would become a crucible of Liebensborn
37:25Some 10,000 babies were born there
37:28Mostly fathered by SS officers and other German soldiers to Norwegian mothers
37:35But there was a post-war backlash for these mothers and babies
37:39German-bred children in Scandinavia grew up shunned and persecuted
37:45Hundreds ended up being taken in by Sweden
37:48Like one very famous example
37:51Ani Fried Lindstad
37:53Or Frida
37:55From the pop band ABBA
37:57Lindstad
37:59Lindstad
38:00Was the result of a liaison between her Norwegian mother and a German soldier
38:05Like most of Himmler's crack theories and wild treasure hunts
38:10The Liebensborn program was ultimately not that successful
38:14We know in reality that all of these programs to promote eugenics births
38:21Births of people who are seen to have good genes
38:24Never really moved the needle in any significant way
38:33May 1945 and Germany surrenders
38:37People who'd been involved in the expeditions and the skeleton collection
38:43Their fates were very different
38:45Schaefer for example
38:47Schaefer for example
38:48He ended up working in Belgium
38:49For some reason Beger was not linked to the skeleton collection
38:53Hert
38:55Beger's collaborator ended up killing himself
38:58And what of Heinrich Himmler
39:03Architect of the Ahnenerbe
39:05Liebensborn
39:07And the final solution
39:09Responsible for the death of millions
39:12He does not live to face justice
39:15He is captured days after the war ends
39:19And commits suicide shortly after
39:24The case of Himmler and the Ahnenerbe
39:26Show that we need to be very cautious in how we proceed
39:31That ideas can be very dangerous
39:34It tells us that we need to be very careful to distinguish between things we want to be true
39:40And things we can prove are true
39:48The past as a source of kind of an identity
39:52Is one that you need to have in order to have some sense of who you are and where you're headed
39:56It's using it to make claims of superiority for yourself
40:00That's the difficulty here and that's the problem with the program that Nazi Germany established
40:05The terrifying legacy the Ahnenerbe left behind
40:10Is one we can still learn from today
40:18Any time you find a group of people
40:21Especially a group of people who feel like they're on the down and outs
40:26And they need some way to a better future
40:29When they begin to look at facts as merely things that can be negotiable
40:35This is a dangerous trend
40:37Societies have gone down this road
40:39Where somehow the will for something to be truthful
40:43Is more important than the actual facts
40:47That's what's so frightening about the Nazis and the Third Reich
40:51Is many of them were well aware that they were straddling the line between science and spirituality
40:57Religion and material explanations of the world
41:01And they were doing it on purpose
41:03This misuse and abuse of history, mythology, race, science
41:09Hitler did that better than others
41:15And that's why this matters
41:17From Tibet to Bolivia
41:21The roof of the world to the bottom of the ocean
41:25The city of Troy to the lost city of Atlantis
41:29The scientists, researchers, archaeologists, occultists
41:35And fantasy novelists of the Ahnenerbe
41:38Would be empowered by Heinrich Himmler
41:41To loot the history and culture of the world
41:44For their own nefarious ends
41:47Seeking priceless trophies, exotic ideas, and lurid fantasies
41:53Hitler's treasure hunters had one ultimate goal in mind
41:59Enliven the Führer's darkest ambitions
42:02And deliver to him control, death, and destruction
42:07And destruction
42:37What's fallen on their church of the nation
42:39Temporary organisms
42:42Created by Leon
42:47Dreid 보니까
42:49While it's you know
42:50Can't eat trees
42:51narrative
42:51How it surviv arabomorphous
42:52Toots 44
42:53Catastrophic
42:54This trail ofCs
42:55movie
42:55We hope
42:56unter and
42:57It'sí’€ous
42:58is
42:59You.
43:00The
43:01e
43:02how it works
43:04It is
43:05This unworldly
43:06You
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