Seven Years in Tibet (1997 film) still a boy, and becomes one of his tutors. During their time together, Heinrich becomes a close friend to the young spiritual leader. Harrer and Aufschnaiter stay in the country until the Chinese military campaign in 1950. In 1938, Austrian mountaineers Heinrich Harrer (Pitt) leaves behind his pregnant wife to join Peter Aufschnaiter (Thewlis) in a team attempting to summit Nanga Parbat in British India (present-day part of Pakistan). When World War II begins in 1939, they are arrested by British Indian authorities and imprisoned in a POW camp in Dehradun in the Himalayan foothills, in the present-day Indian state
Günther Messner Günther Messner Günther Messner (18 May 1946 – 29 June 1970) was an Italian mountaineer from South Tyrol and the younger brother of Reinhold Messner. Günther climbed some of the most difficult routes in the Alps during the 1960s, and joined the Nanga Parbat-Expedition in 1970 just before the beginning of the expedition due to an opening within the team. Günther was a member of a 1970 expedition to Nanga Parbat led by . Herrligkoffer had already organized six expeditions to Nanga Parbat and was said to be obsessed with the mountain after his half-brother, climber Willy Merkl, along with