Many historians have often asked the question of whether or not World War II could have been avoided. Some scholars of military history point to the British led policy of appeasement that existed just before the war and culminated with the Munich Agreement on September 29, 1938, as one way in which the allies failed to realize the threat of Hitler’s regime.
Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 and immediately set about reversing all the conditions of the Versailles Treaty. Neighboring nations complained but did not take military action against Hitler when he began to build the new German, remilitarize the Rhineland or even annex Austria (Anschluss) in March of 1938.
On September 29, 1938, Hitler met with British leader Neville Chamberlain and French leader Edouard Daladier. The meeting was mediated by Italian leader Benito Mussolini and ended in an agreement which Hitler drafted and the other leaders simply agreed to. The treaty stated that the German people of Czechoslovakia in an area known as the Sudetenland would be annexed to Germany in stages during October of the same year. This was in line with Hitler’s policy of Lebensraum and uniting all German peoples every where.
The Search for Shambhala
In 880 BC, the Buddha is reputed to have relayed the Kalachakra Tantra – a complex system of philosophy and meditation for attaining enlightenment - to sect of followers in Andhra, India. This document, later adopted by Tibetan Buddhists and elaborated upon in a series of subsequent manuscripts, speaks in depth of a kingdom called Shambhala – an paradise where only most spiritually resplendent of beings can reside.
Though the texts depict Shambhala as physical city-state – one with a lotus-shaped perimeter divided into 96 districts and ruled over by a specific chronology of kings – they also maintain that it is separated from the tangible world by a spiritual boundary. As the Dalai Lama stated in 1981, “[If] you lay out a map and search for Shambhala, it is not findable; rather it seems to be a pure land which, except for those whose karma and merit have ripened, cannot be immediately seen or visited.”
It is the goal of all Tibetan lamas to one day, after years of intense study and reflection, to perceive the awesome grandness of this ethereal oasis through the achievement of enlightenment and the cycle of rebirth.
Nonetheless, that did stop rumors of Shambhala’s supposed material riches from slowly seeping into Western Europe, due to increased academic interest in Buddhism in the mid-18th Century. Much like the Spanish conquistadors led astray legends of the golden city of El Dorado or the Fountain of Youth, embellished tales of Shambhalah as a lost city populated by god-kings, oracles and an endless caches of jewels quickly spread through less discerning circles.
Would-be treasure hunters, however, were quickly felled by contradictory accounts of the holy city’s location. Various sources-including some from within Tibet itself-placed Shambhalah at different points throughout Central Asia. Nepal, the Gobi Sea, India and Siberia were, at one time, all considered likely prospects.
Such gossip only served to deepen the legend’s mystique to fringe groups of esoteric devotees and occultists, who fixated on the idea of Shambhalah as the last refuge of a lost civilization or intelligences from beyond the plane of human existence. In Germany, some proto-Nazi organizations, such as the Ariosophists, speculated that Shambhalah was the birthplace of Aryan race and viewed it as an analog to the Asgard of Norse mythology.
Drawing from these conclusions, Heinrich Himmler deployed as an SS unit to Tibet in May 1938 to not only collect data and artifacts that supported those views on Aryan lineage, but also substantiate rumors of Shambhalah’s existence. Within six months, the squad completed the arduous task of reaching the Tibetan capital of Lhasa - but would eventually fail to locate their mythical conquest before returning to Germany.
Luckily, the Tibetan manuscripts themselves do provide some insights - in the form of prophecy - as to when Shambhalah will be revealed once and for all time. In an interesting counterpoint to the Bible’s Book of Revelation, the Kalachakra Tantrathat states that the world of man will eventually degenerate through war, greed and moral corruption. At that point, a tyrannical ruler will ascertain the kingdom’s true location and invade, only to be fought off and defeated by the 32nd King of Shambhlah, Rudra Cakrin, and his army of the pure hearted. In doing so, the world will be ushered into an age of enlightenment and unprecedented global unity.
Not so luckily for us, however, is the fact that the Tibetan calendar places the date of this transformation in the year 2425.
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Tags: 1938, 880 BC, Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, Andhra, Ariosophists, Asgard of Norse mythology, Buddha, Buddha blessing pose statue, Buddha Tapestry, Buddha-Shakti statue, Buddhism, Chagpo Ri, Dalai Lama, El Dorado, ethereal oasis, Heinrich Himmler, Hindu Replicas, India, Kalachakra Tantra, Kalachakra Tantrathat, kingdom of Shambhala, Lhasa, lost civilization, Nepal, Potala palace, prophecy, proto-Nazis, search for Shambhala, Seated Buddha statue, Siberia, the Gobi Sea, Tibet, Tibetan Buddhists, Tibetan calendar, Tibetan lamas, world war 2, World War II, WW2
America during the red scare was a very different place. The main fears of the day were not the goings on of the Middle East or the walls between countries; rather, people feared the loyalties of their own neighbors. As the Cold War with Russia emerged at the end of World War II, the lure of communistic thought sent shivers down the spines of patriotic Americans. Everywhere one looked someone was being accused of socialist ties, communist sentiments and worst of all, spying for the Russians. One of the most highlighted cases from the post war period was that of Alger Hiss.
As Chambers affirmed his commitment to the Communist ideology, Hiss held a number of important offices in the United States government. Work with the department of Agriculture and State Department led Hiss to serve as Roosevelt’s assistant during the Yalta Conference in 1945 and Secretary General of the newly formed United Nations. In 1949, Hiss left public office to work towards international peace as the president of the Carnegie Endowment. A rich and diverse career would have been Hiss legacy if Chambers and his associates hadn’t made him the target of an FBI espionage investigation.
After two grand jury trials, the first resulting in a hung jury, Hiss was sentence to five years in prison after being found guilty of spying for the Russians. Documents from the Yalta conference in 1945 indicated a Russian American spy was with FDR at the conference.
History isn’t always a pleasant thing or a nostalgic look at times past. Sometimes it’s a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man. On August 4, 1944, Anne Frank and her companions were discovered in the hiding place that had kept them free from the Nazis for 24 months. It was an anonymous tip that led to Frank’s eventual death of Typhoid in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp mere weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops.
It was a normal day for the hidden, the day the secret police banged on the front door of the building. An anonymous tip had told them of how workers brought supplies into the building and that there may be people, who should have left on train cars long ago, hiding inside. Early morning, while the workers were busy at their desks, the police arrived and forced Victor Kugler to show them the Secret Annex. Four days of interrogation followed.
An Illustrated History of Women in World War II: Sixty-five years ago, in a time of oil shortages, rising food prices and war, American women found the strength and skill to meet tremendous challenges. Their resourceful and energetic response to crisis, pictorially portrayed for the first time in the book When Our Mothers Went to War: An Illustrated History of Women in World War II, is an inspiring example for the nation today.
