Hostname: page-component-669899f699-g7b4s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-26T01:35:36.130Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Zen and War: A Commentary on Brian Victoria and Karl Baier's Analysis of Daisetz Suzuki and Count Dürckheim

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Hans-Joachim Bieber
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In three articles published in 2013/14 in this journal, Brian Victoria and Karl Baier shed light on the relationship of Japanese Buddhists, in particular of Daisetz Suzuki, to German National Socialism, and, in turn, of German National Socialism to Buddhism, in particular to Japanese Zen Buddhism and to the history of the Japanese samurai. All three articles are highly commendable because these relations were hitherto nearly unknown and provide interesting insight into the cultural ties between Germany and Japan in the years of the “axis”. I would like to reexamine some of the assertions made in these articles, to present additional details and introduce certain sources, which neither Victoria nor Baier, nor other authors quoted by them, had utilized. I discovered these sources while conducting research for a comprehensive study on German-Japanese cultural relations between 1933 and 1945 which was published recently.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 20 , May 2015 , e2
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2015

References

Notes

1 Brian Daizen Victoria: D.T. Suzuki, Zen and the Nazis, in: The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 11, Issue 42, No. 4 (October 28, 2013); Karl Baier: The Formation and Principles of Count Dürckheim's Nazi Worldview and his Interpretation of Japanese Spirit and Zen, ibid., Vol. 11, Issue 48, No. 3 (December 2, 2013); Brian Daizen Victoria: A Zen Nazi in Wartime Japan: Count Dürckheim and his Sources – D.T. Suzuki, Yasutani Haku'un and Eugen Herrigel, ibid., Vol. 12, Issue 3, No. 2 (January 20, 2014).

2 Hans-Joachim Bieber: SS und Samurai. Deutsch-Japanische Kulturbeziehungen 1933-1945, Munich: iudicium 2014. In the following I will refer to this book only; exact information on my sources can be found on the indicated pages.

3 Cf. Victoria 2013, p. 2 ff.

4 Quoted ibid.

5 Quoted ibid.

6 Taisetzu Suzuki: Entstehung und Entwicklung des japanischen Buddhismus, in: Ostasien-Jahrbuch 10 (1931), pp. 54-61; Daisetsu Teitarō Suzuki: Japanische Kultur und Zen, in: Nippon, vol. 1935, p. 74-78.

7 Cf. Bieber 2014, p. 188 f. and 272.

8 Hans F.K. Günther: Die Nordische Rasse bei den Indogermanen Asiens, Munich 1934, p. 52 and 57.

9 Jakob Wilhelm Hauer: Das religiöse Artbild der Indogermanen und die Grundtypen der indo-arischen Religion, Stuttgart 1937, p. 239 f. and 269 ff.

10 Werner Bichler: Japanisches Heldentum, in: Die Junge Front 7 (1936), p. 357, with reference to Erwin Bälz: Über die Todesverachtung der Japaner, ed. by Toku Bälz, Stuttgart 1936; cf. Bieber 2014, p. 395 ff. – Reinhard Höhn, responsible for cultural affairs [Kulturreferent] in the SS Security Service (SD), dedicated a collection of Buddhism lectures to his superior, Heinrich Himmler, for Christmas in 1935, saying that they were “an expression of Aryan thinking” and a part of “the dictates of our order (Weistum unseres Ordens)”. (Höhn to Himmler, Dec. 31, 1935, quoted in Helmut Heiber: Walter Frank und sein Reichsinstitut für die Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands, Stuttgart 1966, p. 887 f.). Indeed, among religious writings, the lectures of Buddha were said to have been the ones that Himmler most esteemed. (cf. Felix Kersten: Totenkopf und Treue, Hamburg 1953, p. 185).

11 Cf. Bieber 2014, p. 640 ff. und 810 ff.

12 Die Samurai. Eine alte Kampfgemeinschaft erneuert den Staat, in: Das Schwarze Korps, March 5, 1936, p. 12, and March 12, p. 12.

13 Heinz Corazza: Japans Wunder des Schwertes, Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann 1935.

14 Victoria 2014, p. 16.

15 Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler, Munich 2008, p. 291.

16 Ibid.

17 Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki: Die groβe Befreiung. Einführung in den Zen-Buddhismus. Geleitwort von C. G. Jung, Leipzig: Curt Weller & Co. 1939; Zen und die Kultur Japans, Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1941.

18 ”Zen und der Samurai“, in: Völkischer Beobachter, South German edition, January 11, 1942. Victoria does not know that the Völkische Beobachter was published in different editions and ascribes the quotation from Suzuki's book wrongly to the main edition which appeared in Berlin; cf. Victoria 2014, p. 15.

19 Cf. Bieber 2014, p. 948 ff.

20 Albrecht Fürst von Urach: Das Geheimnis japanischer Kraft, Berlin: Eher 1942. The author had been correspondent of the Völkischer Beobachter in Tokyo between 1934 and 1938.

21 Cf. Victoria 2014, p. 19.

22 Security Service report, Aug. 6, 1942, in: Heinz Boberach (ed.): Meldungen aus dem Reich 1938–1945, Herrsching 1984, vol. 11, pp. 4042-4044..

23 Himmler on June 21, 1944; in: Heinrich Himmler: Geheimreden 1933-1945 und andere Ansprachen, ed. by Bradley F. Smith, Frankfurt 1974, p. 193.

24 Cf. Bieber 2014, p. 1005.

25 Cf. Dürckheim's self-portrayal in: Ludwig J. Pongratz (ed.): Psychologie in Selbstdarstellungen, Bern: Huber 1973, p. 159, and Karlfried Graf Dürckheim: Der Weg ist das Ziel, Göttingen 1992, p. 41.

26 Edith and Rolf Zundel: Leitfiguren der Psychotherapie, Munich1987, p. 162.

27 For the following paragraph cf. Bieber 2014, p. 604 ff., with an exact indication of sources.

28 Cf. Victoria 2014, p. 6 f.

29 Cf. Bieber 2014, p. 656.

30 Cf. ibid., p. 509 ff.

31 Cf. Dürckheim 1992, p. 40, and Victoria 2014, p. 6.

32 Cf. Bieber 2014, p. 738 ff. – The fact that Dürckheim travelled to Japan this time via the Transsiberian Railway cannot be explained by the 1939 Pact between Hitler and Stalin, as Victoria 2014, p. 5, assumes. Since its opening in 1916 the Trans-Siberian Railway had offered an alternative to sea travel to Japan. Moreover, after the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, it was the only connection between Europe and Japan that remained open to Germans. German shipping lines closed down their routes to East Asia; and sailing on vessels belonging to non-German lines proved dangerous for Germans, as British war ships often stopped and inspected these vessels at sea to arrest German passengers if any were found.

33 Cf. Victoria 2014, p. 6.

34 Dürckheim to Schmidt, November 11, 1940; quoted by Bieber 2014, p. 740; the middle part of the quotation is taken from a letter written by Dürckheim quoted in Gerhard Wehr: Karlfried Graf Dürckheim. Leben im Zeichen der Wandlung, Freiburg: Herder 1996, p. 115.

35 Bernd Eversmeyer in Franziska Ehmcke / Peter Pantzer (eds.): Gelebte Zeitgeschichte. Alltag von Deutschen in Japan 1923-47, München: iudicium 2000, p. 15.

36 Dietrich Seckel ibid. p. 51. For more details of Dürckheim's lectures and publications in Japan cf. Bieber 2014, p. 738 ff., 821 ff., 935 ff., and 1026 ff. – One of Dürckheim's lectures was published by the OAG in 1943 (Graf K. von Dürckheim-Monmartin: Erkenntnis und Werk als Ausdruck des europäischen Geistes, in: Nachrichten der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, Tokyo (NOAG) 63, March 1943, pp. 13-33).

37 Cf. Bieber 2014, p. 1094. – Alfred Rosenberg was the leading ideologist of National Socialism and editor of the party organ Völkischer Beobachter.

38 Cf. Victoria 2014, p. 20, and Karlfried Graf Dürckheim: Mein Weg zur Mitte, Freiburg 1991, p. 122.

39 Cf. Karlfried Graf von Durckheim: The Japanese Cult of Tranquillity, London: Rider & Co. 1960.

40 Cf. Bieber 2014, p. 1150 ff.

41 Eugen Herrigel: Zen in der Kunst des Bogenschieβens, in: Ostasiatische Rundschau 17 (1936), pp. 355-357 and 377-381, and Nippon, vol. 1936, pp. 193-212.

42 Cf. Bieber 2014, p. 275 and 1055.

43 Cf. ibid. p. 1084 and 1108.

44 Herrigel to Gundert, Sept. 26, 1950; quoted ibid. p. 1117.

45 Cf. Bieber 2014, p. 1139 ff.

46 In Mein Kampf Hitler stated that the Japanese were merely “bearers of culture” (kulturtragend) in contrast to the Aryans, whom he saw as being “culture creating” (kulturschöpferisch). Hitler however did have some respect for Japan's military and was impressed that the country had remained untouched by “international Jewry” (das internationale Judentum). See Bieber 2014, p. 153 ff.; for racial disdain of the Japanese during the war ibid. p. 767 f., 781 fn. 99, and 862.

47 Brian Victoria: Zen at War, New York: Weatherhill 1997.