Ernst Schäfer Ernst Schäfer ( 14 March 1910 , Cologne – 21 July 1992 ) was a famous German hunter and zoologist in the 1930s , specializing in ornithology . Biography . Schäfer is most famous for his three expeditions to Tibet in 1931 , in 1934 – 1935 , and in 1938 – 1939 . The first two expeditions were led by the American Brooke Dolan II . The third expedition was led by himself under the patronage of Heinrich Himmler , the SS , and various sponsors . As many as 3300 bird specimens were collected in these expeditions . In July 1934 , during his second expedition in Asia , he met the then exiled Panchen Lama , Thubten Chökyi Nyima , in Hangzhou , China . Schäfer joined the " Schutzstaffel " in 1933 , but , after World War II , he claimed to have been an unwilling recruit into the organization and that joining the SS was a step necessary to advance his career . The SS Ahnenerbe Expedition to Tibet during the 1930s was also successful for the German naturalists " “ Meanwhile , [ Dr . Ernst Schäfer ] and Dr . Bruno Beger , Edmund Geer and Krause carefully packed up the voluminous natural history collection - animal and bird skins ; butterflies , bees , ants , wasps and other insect specimens ; fragile dried plants for the herbarium ; packets of seeds containing one thousand and six hundred varieties of barley , seven hundred varieties of wheat , and seven hundred varieties of oats ; not to mention hundreds of seeds from other potentially useful plants . ” These seeds collected during the Tibetan expeditions were important , as Heinrich Himmler also planned to develop hardy new varieties of crops in order to boost the agricultural yields of colonies across the Eastern territories of the Ukraine and Crimeria . He ordered the Ahnenerbe to found a teaching and research institute in plant genetics , assigning the task to Dr . Ernst Schäfer , the headstrong young German zoologist who had led the Tibet Expedition . Schäfer set to work with characteristic vigor . He obtained a staff of seven research scientists , including a British prisoner of war , and set up an experimental research station in Lannach , near the city of Graz in Austria . There the new institute went to work , experimenting with samples of grains the Schäfer had acquired from the granaries of the Tibetan nobility . Schäfer wrote several books , including " Berge , Buddhas und Bären " ( " Mountains , Buddhas and Bears " ) , and helped produce the film " Geheimnis Tibet " ( " Secret Tibet " ) . It has been speculated that Ernst Schafer discovered an ancient Buddhist statue in Tibet in 1938 called the " Iron Man " . Himmler was said to believe the Aryan race originated in Tibet and would as such have been eager to recover artefacts from the area . In Germany , the statue became part of a private collection and disappeared from view until 2007 . Further analysis showed that it was an ataxite class , an extremely rare type of meteorite . It was determined that it was carved from a piece of the Chinga meteorite . The statue is believed to portray the god Vaisravana . Speculation that it belongs to the pre - Buddhist Bon culture that existed in Asia about 1 , 000 years ago has been brought into question due to certain incoherent features of clothing and style . Postwar career . Schäfer was interned in 1945 by the Allied Military Government . In 1949 , he became a professor in Venezuela , but returned to Europe in 1954 and was an advisor to the Belgian King Leopold III . Schäfer served as the curator of the Department of Natural History at the Lower Saxony State Museum from 1960 until 1970 .