Bruno Beger

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Bruno Beger (27 April 1911 - 2004) was a German Rassenkunde expert who worked for the Ahnenerbe. In that role he participated in Ernst Schäfer's 1938 journey to Tibet, helped the Race and Settlement Office of the SS identify Jews and helped locate subjects needed for a skeleton collection to help educate on the identification of Jewish peoples.

[edit] Early life

Beger was born in 1911 to an old Heidelberg family that soon after came upon hard times when Beger's father was killed in World War I, but a family friend paid for him to attend the University of Jena where he was first exposed to Hans F.K. Günther during a lecture, a man who would encourage him through his early academic career in anthropology and ethnology.

[edit] Service in the SS

In 1934, Beger began working a part-time job in the Race and Settlement Office of the SS where he eventually became a section head. Beger was asked to be part of a journey to Hawaii, but while this expedition was waiting for final approval, he was invited on a trip to Tibet led by Ernst Schäfer which he accepted instead. His study of the Tibetan peoples convinced him that they were of a superior variety of humanity, occupying a position between the Nordic and Mongol.

[edit] References

• Hale, Christopher. Himmler's Crusade: the True Story of the 1938 Nazi Expedition into Tibet Bantam, 2004. ISBN 978-0553814453
• Pringle, Heather. The Master Plan : Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. Hyperion, 2006. ISBN 0-7868-6886-4