In 1939 Harrer was a member of the Nanga Parbat Expedition that was interned in India by the British at the outbreak of World War II. He escaped by way of Tibet, and during his seven years there, he was unofficial tutor to the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, whom he taught geography, arithmetic, and English. Harrer is an Austrian, and during his years at the College and University of Graz, he climbed hundreds of walls and ridges in the Alps, some for the first time.