If you get the chance, you should definitely read this account of the German expeditions to the Himalayas.

Written by a loyal NS mountaineer, you get a really strong sense of the German spirit of those times, now sadly non-existant. I don't know what the original German title is.

Some passages that struck me from the introduction and first chapter:

When Germany emerged from the War I saw all that had meant my world---and that of hundreds of thousands of my comrades---lying in ruins. In November 1919, in a station building on the Rhine guarded by coloured French soldiers, I was summarily commanded to remove the uniform which I had worn for five years, and in incredibly shabby ''civies'' issued by the Government, a skull-cap on my head and carrying my entire possessions in a sack on my back, I made my way home- an experience the bitterness of which is only now slowly evaportating.

We fought in the volunteer corps and were prepared to march at any time for a national revolution, but we were strangers, outcasts in our own country. Public life went its way, but in the spiritual life other influences were at work.

It was during this time of desolation that I began to go into the mountains and found that they had the power to restore that which town environment threatened to steal. They helped to convince us that the forces of good must ultimately assert themselves and triumph. They proved to us that courage, perseverance and endurance bring their eternal rewards. In those joyless days we needed some means of proving that he was dauntless and undeterred, he who was prepared to make the greatest sacrifices, and he alone, could aspire to the highest attainments. Defiantly resisting the spirit of that time, we had to show again and again what these virtues could achieve in spite of the heaviest odds.

Out of this was born the German Himalaya idea, and it was in this spirit that the first German Himalaya team set out in 1929. It was entirely independent and had no other support than that offered by a few individuals and one or two climbing clubs. But the team was determined that, as successful pioneers, or, if it had to be, as a lost company, they would strike a blow for their life's ideal and with it for the true Germany.

I recalled the gigantic conflict in which we have so recently been engaged, in which one thing alone was sacred to us--- the ideal for which we fought with all our might, sparing neither ourselves nor our enemies, hated and shunned by a so-called respectable society which purported to be the mainstay of that Germany for which, during the past ten years, her best sons have given their blood. True, we lost much that to some people would seem to make life worth while, personal ties had to be severed. involving sacrifices which even to the strongest imparted a sense of irreparable loss ; selfish considerations had to be ignored ; we had to stake all. Our conscience is clear ; we carry the proud conviction that we acted rightly.

2nd August, 1936. We arranged to go to the mole this morning and catch crabs, as Adi wanted some specimens to take back with him for the Zoological Institue n Munich. With the help of a nail driven into a small bamboo cane we managed to spear one the ugly but nimble brutes, a performance which greatly delighted the two natves who rowed us out. At eleven o'clock the car of the German Consul, Herr Harden, called for us and we drove away from the town to a country district where there are only a few isolated bungalows. Herr Harden has a fine place there, lavishly set out with all sorts or rare luxuries. He was eight years in Afghanistan with Amanullah. We had a pleasant time there, drinking a most refreshing mixture of ginger and German beer and talking about politics, India and England. The German colony is not large--- only about sixteen people---but they keep together very well. I soon made friends with little six-year-old Erika, a friendship which in that heat was most exhausting ; what with pick-a-backs, ring-o'-roses, story books, dolls and Teddy Bears, I was soon streaming with perspiration. This genuine hospitality, which was neither dependednt upon personal contacts nor built up on humbug, but sprang spontaneously from the knowledge that we were all German, gave me really deep pleasure and satisfaction

The crew of the Ehrenfels asked me to play football with them against a crew of English sailors, but as the English side hadn't enough men to make a team I played for them, and in spite of the excessive heat it was a really good game. An English officer from the Africa boat refereed, and the Ehrenfels team won, 3-1. The teams were in earnest and it was a fast game, well and fairly played. Most of these seamen are splendid fellows, a sturdy, fair-haired type; they're decent chaps and they know how to stand by their word ; they're proud to be Germans, too, and to sail under the Swastika.