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
1933 British Mount Everest expedition Weir, the British political agent in Sikkim. There was an urgency to their work owing to a British fear that the Germans, who had recently mounted expeditions to Kangchenjunga and Nanga Parbat, might next be targeting Mount Everest. It fell to the Mount Everest Committee, the body that funded all pre-war attempts on Mount Everest, to appoint a leader for the expedition. The most obvious choice, General C. G. Bruce, was unavailable; two other suitable men, both of whom – like Bruce – had been on earlier expeditions to Mount Everest, were approached but declined the offer: Brigadier E. F.