The mind and driving force behind "Seven Years in Tibet." It is one of the great epics of modern times: the adventure of two Austrian mountaineers who escape from a prisoner camp in northern India in 1944, traverse the vast expanses of the Tibetan highlands in winter, and finally reach the forbidden city of Lhasa in rags, where they witness the traditional Tibetan society in the last years of its flourishing. While one of the refugees, Heinrich Harrer, became world-famous with the bestseller "Seven Years in Tibet," which was eventually adapted into a film starring Brad Pitt, Peter Aufschnaiter (1899-1973) remained largely unknown. Yet he was the mind and driving force behind the sensational adventure: he knew Tibet from years of study, drew maps, spoke fluent Tibetan, and it was he who...