 After Hitler's invasion and annexation of Austria, many of his teachers in ethnology, among them Father Wilhelm Schmidt, the world-famous linguist and anthropologist were forced into exile, and with the outbreak of World War II he himself was repatriated on the last available ship for Japanese nationals sailing from Bordeaux, the "Kagoshima-maru".His expertise in ethnography was quickly turned to profitable uses on his return, and he finally received employment as member of a government organization interested in research on folk minorities in East Asia.In 1941, he surveyed the tribes of southern Sakhalin/Karafuto, such as the Gilyak (Nivkhs), the Ainu and the Oroks.