The Formation and Principles of Count Dürckheim’s Nazi …

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The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus

Volume 11 | Issue 48 | Number 3 | Dec 2013

The Formation and Principles of Count Dürckheim’s Nazi Worldview
and his interpretation of Japanese Spirit and Zen デュルクハイム伯爵
のナチス的世界観および日本的精神と禅の解釈　その形成と理念

Karl Baier

Preface by Brian Victoria

In Part I of this series on D.T. Suzuki’s
relationship with the Nazis, (Brian Daizen
Victoria, D.T. Suzuki, Zen and the Nazis readers
were promised a second part focusing primarily
on Suzuki’s relationship with one of wartime
Japan’s most influential Nazis, Count Karlfried
Dürckheim (1896 –1988).

However, in the course of writing Part II, I
quickly realized that the reader would benefit
greatly were it possible to present more than
simply Dürckheim’s story in wartime Japan. That
is to say, I recognized the importance, actually
the necessity, of introducing Dürckheim’s earlier
history in Germany and the events that led to his
arrival in Japan, not once but twice.

At this point that I had the truly good fortune to
come in contact with Professor Karl Baier of the
University of Vienna, a specialist in the history of
modern Asian-influenced spirituality in Europe
and the United States. Prof. Baier graciously
agreed to collaborate with me in presenting a
picture of Dürckheim within a wartime German
political, cultural, and, most importantly,
religious context. Although now deceased,
Dürckheim continues to command a loyal
following among both his disciples and many
others whose lives were touched by his
voluminous postwar writings. In this respect, his
legacy parallels that of D.T. Suzuki.

The final result is that what was originally

1

planned as a two-part article has now become a
three-part series. Part II of this series, written by
Prof. Baier, focuses on Dürckheim in Germany,
including his writings about Japan and Zen. An
added bonus is that the reader will also be
introduced to an important dimension of Nazi
“spirituality.” Part Three will continue the story
at the point Dürckheim arrives in Japan for the
first time in mid-1938. It features Dürckheim’s
relationship with D.T. Suzuki but examines his
relationship with other Zen-related figures like
Yasutani Haku’un and Eugen Herrigel as well.

Note that the purpose of this series is not to
dismiss or denigrate either the postwar activities
or writings of any of the Zen-related figures.
Nevertheless, at a time when hagiographies of all
of these men abound, the authors believe readers
deserve to have an accurate picture of their
wartime activities and thought based on what is
now known. I am deeply grateful to Prof. Baier
for having joined me in this effort. BDV

Introduction

Japan, the “yellow fist”, as he called the nation in
“ M e i n K a m p f ” , c a u s e d A d o l f H i t l e r a
considerable headache. In his racist foreign
policy he distrusted the Asians in general and
would have preferred to increase European
world supremacy by collaborating with the
English Nordic race. On the other hand, he had
been impressed as a youth by Japan’s military
power when he observed Japan beat the Slavic
empire in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. He
also admired Japan for never having been
infiltrated by the Jews. In “Mein Kampf” his

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11 | 48 | 3

ambiguous attitude let him place Japan as a
culture-supporting nation somewhere halfway
between the culture-creating Aryans and the
culture-destroying Jews.1 He hoped that in the
near future Japan and the whole of East Asia
would be aryanised by Western culture and
science and sooner or later the political
domination of the Aryans in Asia would follow.

the family’s country estate in the Bavarian village
of Steingaden, at the Basenheim Castle near
Koblenz and in Weimar, where his family owned
a villa built by the famous architect Henry van de
Velde.

Fig. 1 Dürckheim country estate Steingaden
as seen today

As the brotherhood in arms with England turned
out to be a pipe-dream, Hitler had to make a pact
with the Far Eastern country. This allowed a
group of japanophile Nazis to raise their voices
and disseminate a more detailed and positive
view of Japan. They were interested in Japanese
religion and especially sympathized with Zen
Buddhism.

The following article can be seen as a case study.
Taking the intellectual and religious biography of
Count Dürckheim as an example, the author
investigates the question of how dedicated Nazis
could connect their worldview to a kind of
mystical spirituality and develop a positive
attitude towards Zen.

Karl Friedrich Alfred Heinrich Ferdinand Maria
Graf Eckbrecht von Dürckheim-Montmartin
(1896-1988), today widely known as Karlfried
Graf (Count) Dürckheim, was born in Munich,
Bavaria as the eldest son of an old aristocratic
family. Baptized Catholic, he was religiously
educated by his Protestant mother, grew up at

Fig. 2 Villa Dürckheim in Weimar

In 1914, immediately after receiving his high
school diploma, the 18-year-old Karlfried
volunteered in the Royal Bavarian Infantry
Lifeguard Regiment to serve on the frontlines for
a r o u n d 4 7 m o n t h s a s o f f i c e r , c o m p a n y
commander and adjutant.2 He never forgot the
enthusiastic community spirit that filled his heart
and the hearts of his fellow Germans at the
beginning of the war. “I heard the Emperor
saying, ‘I do not know parties any more, I only
know Germans’. It remains in all our memories,
these words of the Emperor, in those days at the
beginning of the war.”3 Later he would say that
during this period the meaning of his life had
been the “unquestionable,
ready-to-die-
commitment to the fatherland.”4

Regularly exposed to deadly threats, the young
frontline officer was intensively confronted with
his fear but also experienced moments of
transcendence.

T h e r e e x i s t s a ‘ p l e a s u r e ’ o f
deliberately thrusting oneself into
deadly danger. This I experienced
when embarking upon a nightly

2

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assault on a wooded hill, when
running through a barrage at the
storming of Mount Kemmel in
Flanders, when jumping through a
defile under machine gun fire. It is
as if at the moment of the possible
and in advance accepted destruction
one would feel the indestructible. In
all of these experiences another
dimension emerges while one
transcends the limits of ordinary life
– not as a doctrine, but as liberating
experience.5

T h i s k i n d o f “ w a r r i o r m y s t i c i s m ” – a
combination of military drill and blind
obedience, fight to the very end, a devotion to
and melding with the greater whole of the
fatherland that culminate in the experience of
“ a n o t h e r d i m e n s i o n ” f a r b e y o n d t h e
transitoriness of ordinary life – informed his
attitude towards life and was conducive to his
later appreciation of militaristic Bushidō-Zen and
his admiration of the kamikaze pilots which he
expressed even after World War II.6

Fig. 3 Bavarian infantry (postcard 1915)

The Square

Immediately after World War I Dürckheim
supported one of the far-right nationalistic Free
Corps fighting against the Munich Republic. He
also published nationalistic brochures and
pamphlets as well as articles that warned against
the Bolshevist world revolution.7

In 1919 he left the army and began to study
philosophy and psychology in search of a new
meaning of life. He and Enja von Hattingberg, his
partner and later spouse, befriended the Austrian
psychologist and philosopher Ferdinand
Weinhandl (1896-1973), who at the time was
working at the Psychological Institute at the
University of Munich, and his wife, the teacher

and writer Margarete Weinhandl (1880-1975).
The four, who called themselves “The Square,”
were not just two couples on friendly terms.
Their joint activities were aimed at a religious
transformation of their own lives and the lives of
others.

Dürckheim shared not only philosophical,
psychological and religious interests with the
Weinhandls but also the experience of World
War I as well as the ensuing nationalistic attitude
nourished by it. Ferdinand, like Dürckheim, had
voluntarily joined the army and became a
frontline lieutenant, but a serious injury soon
made him unfit for battle. Margarete had
supported soldiers from the province of Styria in
southeast Austria with simple verses and poems
written in Styrian dialect, that were published in
Heimatgrüße. Kriegsflugblätter des Vereins für
Heimatschutz in Steiermark (“Greetings from
Home. War pamphlets of the Association for
Homeland Security in Styria”), a journal that was
distributed free among Styrian soldiers.8

Fig. 4: Thrusting oneself into deadly danger in
World War I

The Weinhandls dominated the Square both
intellectually and religiously. They were prolific
writers well versed in the history and theology of
Christian mysticism. Moreover, Ferdinand was
interested in comparative religion. He referred to
Friedrich Heiler’s comparative studies on prayer
and on Pali-based, Buddhist meditation, and

3

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praised his subtle understanding of the inner
relations between various religions.9 Interpreting
the similarities between religious practices within
different religious traditions outlined by Heiler,
Ferdinand stated that the different stages of
Hindu-Yoga, Buddhist meditation and Christian
prayer are all based on the same psychological
structure.10

In 1921, The Square moved to Kiel where they
lived as a sort of commune, sharing a flat until
1924. During that time, Margarete published and
interpreted the mystical writings of German
medieval nuns. 1 1 Ferdinand completed his
habilitation thesis in 1922 at the University of
Kiel and later got a professorship for philosophy
there.12 He translated and edited the Spiritual
Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and published a
small book on Meister Eckhart.13 In fact, it was he
who introduced Eckhart to Dürckheim.14 “Every
evening we would read Meister Eckhart,”
Margarete noted in her diary. 15 Dürckheim
remembered: “I recognized in Master Eckhart my
master, the master.”16 Meister Eckhart had great
appeal for the German Youth Movement and the
cultic milieu of the interwar-period in general. As
a “German mystic” he also blended very well
into the völkisch understanding of religion that
was en vogue in Dürckheim’s circles.17 Like so
many others Ferdinand Weinhandl saw in
Eckhart an early manifestation of the deepest
essence of the German spirit, its dynamism and
“Faustian” activism.18

Fig. 5 Ferdinand Weinhandl

During the Nazi era the völkisch interpretation of
Eckhart continued. In his Myth of the 20th
Century the NSDAP ideologist Alfred Rosenberg
extensively cited Eckhart as the pioneer of
Germanic faith. In 1936 Eugen Herrigel drew
parallels between Eckhart and Zen in his article
on The Knightly Art of Archery that became a
major source for Dürckheim.19 Herrigel looks at
Eckhart and Zen from the typical perspective of
the protagonists of völkisch mysticism:

It is often said that mysticism and
especially Buddhism lead to a
passive, escapist attitude, one that is
hostile to the world. […] Terrified
one turns away from this path to
salvation through laziness and in
return praises one´s own Faustian
character. One does not even
remember that there was a great
mystic in German intellectual
history, who apart from detachment
preached the indispensable value of

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daily life: Meister Eckhart. And
whoever has the impression this
‚ d o c t r i n e ’
b e s e l f –
m i g h t
contradictory, should reflect on the
Japanese Volk, whose spiritual
c u l t u r e a n d w a y o f l i f e a r e
significantly influenced by Zen
Buddhism and yet cannot be blamed
for passivity and an irresponsible
sluggish escapism. The Japanese are
so astonishingly active not because
they are bad, lukewarm Buddhists
but because the vital Buddhism of
their country encourages their
activity.20

During the war Dürckheim was to call Eckhart
“the man whom the Germans notice as their most
original proclaimer of God” 2 1 and he, like
Herrigel, outlined the proximity between Eckhart
and Zen on the basis of völkisch thought.

Fig. 6 Alfred Rosenberg and his “Der Mythus
des 20. Jahrhunderts”

Before his first encounter with Eckhart,
Dürckheim had already been deeply impressed
by Laozi. The new popularity of Asian religions
in Germany (after the Romantics at the beginning
of the 19th century) began around 1900 under the
influence of the Theosophists and the emergence
of a neo-romantic “new mysticism.” It grew
rapidly after the war with several translations of

5

the Daodejing becoming available, the most
widespread of which was by Alexander Ular.22
This book, together with translations of Laozi
and Zhuangzi published by Martin Buber and
Richard Wilhelm, unleashed a kind of Dao craze
among intellectuals and artists of the Weimar
Republic. Dürckheim describes his first contact
with Laozi as a kind of ecstatic experience of
enlightenment, prompted when his wife read the
eleventh verse from Ular’s version out loud.23

Ferdinand not only undertook a theoretical study
of religious exercises, but also introduced their
practice to The Square.24 They experimented with
different forms of meditation (sitting silently
without an object or meditating on specific
topics, probably influenced by Ignatius of Loyola,
Coué´s autosuggestion and New Thought forms
of meditation); spent certain days in silence and
practised the daily examination of conscience.25
Outwardly they offered counselling sessions to
people who contacted them, after having heard
about the group because they were interested in
their spirituality. One could say that The Square
was a kind of model for Dürckheim’s work after
World War II, and further foundations were laid
here for his later interest in Japanese practices
a n d t h e s y n t h e s i s o f s p i r i t u a l i t y a n d
psychotherapy. During this period, Dürckheim
also read a book on Buddhism by Georg Grimm
that he held in great esteem.26

The Worldview of the Rightist Cultic Milieu

As strange as it may seem nowadays, the
combination of new religiosity, interest in Asian
religions, nationalist thought and an often
antidemocratic attitude that had been formative
for the young Dürckheim and also for the
Weinhandls, was not exceptional at that time.
They more or less shared popular views of the
Weimarian rightist cultic milieu, 2 7 which
c o n s i s t e d o f a l a r g e n u m b e r o f s m a l l
organizations, reading circles, paramilitary
groups and the so-called Bünde (leagues) with
links to the German Youth Movement and the

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In a letter published in the commemorative
volume on the occasion of Dürckheim’s 70th
birthday, Ferdinand Weinhandl remembers the
talks they had at the beginning of their friendship
as “revolving around a magical centre.” It was
“the question of transformation, that we
examined again and again in our thoughts and
talks, in our efforts and aspirations.”32 What
Weinhandl does not tell the readers of the
commemorative volume is the fact that in the
1920s the search for in-depth transformation of
mankind and the millenarianism of the new man
had a socio-political dimension. Leftist socialists
merged them with their vision of a future society,
and the right-wing counterculture we are talking
about usually combined the dawn of the new
man with the epiphany of the Volk and the
longing for new leaders.

Socio-political Völkisch Thought

The adjective “völkisch“ (cognate with the
English “folk”) means “related to the Volk,
belonging to the Volk.“ In keeping with its
meaning in present-day German, “Volk” is
frequently translated into English as “people” or
“nation.” Since the 1890s, “völkisch” had been
used as self-designation of an influential German
nationalistic and racist (anti-Semitic but also anti-
Slavic and anti-romantic) protest movement,
consisting of different organizations, groups and
individuals in Germany and Austria. Building
upon ideas that emerged within German
Romanticism, for these individuals and groups
“völkisch” and “Volk” took on a special meaning
significantly different from “people” and
“nation” – a meaning that made the word
untranslatable into English and other languages.
Therefore the original German terms are used.

movement of life reform (Lebensreform). “The
Bünde were uniquely German. What made them
so during the years between 1919 and 1933 was
the fact that neither the onlooker nor the
participant could decide what they were. Were
they religious, philosophical, or political? The
answer is: all three.”28 Although The Square
strongly sympathized with the Bünde, they
deliberately decided not to organize themselves
in that manner, but to continue to live as a small
c o m m u n i t y f o c u s i n g o n p e r s o n a l
transformation. 2 9

The rightist cultic milieu was informed by several
widespread ideas that also deeply influenced
Dürckheim and his Square. Here only the most
important ones can be mentioned.

Fig. 7 Ludwig Fahrenkrog: Die heilige Stunde
(1918)

The New Man

Many expected the breakdown of traditional
European culture through World War I, and
especially the post-war crisis of German society,
to lead to a transformation of mankind, the
arrival of a “new man.”30 Dürckheim described
his post-war social environment: “[They were] all
people in which, because of the breakdown of
1918, something new arose that also within me
soon brought to consciousness something that in
the years after the war everyone was concerned
with: the question of the new man.”31

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milieu saw the Weimar democracy as a
dysfunctional political system imposed by
Germany’s enemies after the shameful defeat in
World War I. They could see no sense in the
discussions and quarrels between the political
parties that for them only manifested the
egocentrism of modern man. Additionally, they
were afraid of Bolshevism and of social
disintegration caused by class struggles. A
politically crucial dimension of the hope for the
coming of the “new man” was the chiliastic
political vision of a Third Reich that would be
able to overcome the inner turmoil of modern
society.34 The only alternative to the degeneration
of contemporary society and politics would be a
völkisch reform of life, a spiritual, social and
political renewal of Germany which would
transform the country into a class-free holistic
community of the Volk (Volksgemeinschaft)
rooted in the homeland (Heimat) as well as in
ancestral kinship (Ahnen) and ruled by
charismatic leaders (Führer).

At the beginning of the 1920s, Ferdinand
Weinhandl was still aiming at individual self-
development and a mystical transformation free
of political and social intentions. According to
Tilitzki, Dürckheim and Wilhelm Ahlmann
brought him into closer contact with Hans
Freyer. This probably gave his concept of life-
reform a völkisch twist.35 He also started to reflect
on the necessity of new leaders (Führer) to imbue
the spirit of the Volk with higher values. In a text
from the middle of the 1920s he conceived the
leader as an exceptional person who alone is
capable of uniting the whole and thereby
establishes true community: “So, our path leads
us from the person to the people [Volk] and
beyond that back to the person, to the exemplary
individual, to the hero, to the idea of leadership
[Führertum].”36 His völkisch leanings initially did
not assume a radical right-wing form, and he
continued teaching at social-democratic
institutions and cultivated good relationships
with colleagues who supported the republic.

Fig. 8 Cover of a journal of the völkisch
Bewegung

The völkisch movement imagined the Volk as a
mythical social unity based on blood and soil as
well as on divine will, underlying the nation state
and being capable of bridging the class divisions
within society. Furthermore, the Volk had a
certain spirit or soul (“Volksgeist,” “Volkseele”)
which comprised special virtues and certain
ways of thinking and feeling. The traditional
aristocratic way of legitimizing social and
political rule through birth and descent was
transferred from the noble dynasties to all
members of the German Volk or Aryan race.33
The central aim of the völkisch movement was
the purification of the Germanic race from alien
influences and the restoration of the native Volk
and its noble spirit.

Politically, the members of the rightist cultic

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Christian.43 Both were highly syncretistic in their
anti-Semitic attempts to develop a racially
specific, Aryan religion. The neo-pagan groups, a
small minority, rejected Christian faith and either
tried to revitalise ancient Nordic religions or
searched for new forms of a Germanic faith. The
völkisch Christians tried to extract the Aryan
e l e m e n t s i n t h e t e a c h i n g s o f J e s u s a n d
constructed a history of German Christian faith
from the German medieval mystics up to the
present day.

For many members of the völkisch movement it
was only a small step to become Nazis because
National Socialism absorbed many elements of
their worldview and presented itself as the
political successful fulfilment of völkisch
thought. In his Mein Kampf Hitler claimed that
his party, the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, National Socialist
German Workers Party) had been established to
enable the völkisch ideas to prevail. The NS
movement would therefore have the right and
the duty to see itself “as the pioneer and
representative of these ideas.”37 No wonder then
that detailed biographical studies “show […] that
the völkisch phenomenon and the Bünde phase
were the place of transition to National
Socialism.” 3 8
After 1933 “völkisch” and
“nationalsozialistisch” soon became synonymous
whereas before then the Nazis were only one
völkisch group among many.39

t h e

j o i n e d

Like Dürckheim, Weinhandl and his wife joined
the NSDAP in 1933. Dürckheim also became a
member of the SA (Sturmabteilung, in English
often called Stormtroopers or Brownshirts, a
paramilitary group of the NSDAP) and
F e r d i n a n d
N S L B
(Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund, National
Socialist Teachers Association), the KfdK
(Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur, Battle League
for German Culture) and the NS Kulturgemeinde
(NS Cultural Community).40 Margarete headed a
d e p a r t m e n t
f o r w o r l d v i e w e d u c a t i o n
(“weltanschauliche Schulung”) within the NS
Frauenschaft, the women´s organisation of the
NSDAP, and became a member of the NSDAP
office for racial politics.41

Völkisch Religiosity

The religious concepts of the völkisch milieu
have been researched intensively over the last
decades. 4 2 The multitude of mostly small
communities and movements, which rarely
existed for more than a few years, can be divided
into two basic types: neo-pagan and völkisch

Fig. 9 Pamphlet to promote the Deutsche
Glaubensgemeinschaft (German Faith
Community) (1921)

Within Dürckheim´s Square we find the völkisch
Christian attitude most clearly articulated by
Margarete Weinhandl. Ferdinand´s interpretation
of Eckhart points in the same direction. The
available sources contain no information about

8