Karl Friedrich Alfred Heinrich Ferdinand Maria Graf Eckbrecht von Dürckheim-Montmartin, or, more succinctly, Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, is a German scholar and mystic from the 20th century. You have almost certainly never heard of him. He is a historical obscurity.
Despite his limited renown today a small group of scholars, psychologists and spiritual practitioners remain dedicated to Dürckheim’s ideas. Certain followers of Western Buddhist thought say Dürckheim is ‘outstanding among the spiritual masters or guides’ of the 20th century.1 An original thinker, Dürckheim gained notoriety by producing a new vision of humanity’s spiritual condition. He fused elements of C. G. Jung’s depth psychology, Meister Eckhart’s Christian mysticism and Japanese Zen Buddhism in a bid to heal people by reorienting them towards the highest level of human consciousness – unity with what he called ‘Divine Being.’ In doing so he became an idol for a small but committed band of followers around the world.
In 1998 some of his devotees published an essay collection that enthusiastically celebrated Dürckheim’s work. In the preface to this book, Becoming Real: Essays on the Teachings of a Master, author and Christian pastor Theodore J. Nottingham showers effusive praise upon Dürckheim. ‘There have been many teachers of life-giving wisdom down through the ages,’ he writes. ‘Like rare gems, they have each reflected aspects of cosmic truth whose glow has changed forever our understanding of ourselves and of the universe. From this blessed line of teachers has come forth in our time yet another master.’ This new master is Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, a ‘beacon for humanity whose influence has only begun to be felt.’ Bringing together the ‘summits of Eastern and Western’ thought, Dürckheim dispenses wisdom that is neither philosophy nor religion nor psychology but ‘genuine, all-consuming transformation, encompassing each moment of our lives.’
Becoming Real is a panegyric book that hopes to promote Dürckheim’s transformative non-philosophy. But we quickly notice a devastating lacuna within. Mr Nottingham neglects to mention an important fact – Dürckheim was not just a great synthesiser of religions Occidental and Oriental. Before he became a spiritual leader, Dürckheim was a Nazi propagandist stationed in Japan from 1938 to 1945 who tirelessly promoted German and Japanese völkisch ideology and received the Nazi War Merit Cross, 2nd class for his efforts.2 Neither Mr Nottingham nor the other contributors to this book of essays discuss these facts in any depth. A troubling omission for a book celebrating Dürckheim’s ‘life-giving wisdom.’
An Aside
Some sources say Dürckheim was actually awarded a War Merit Cross, 1st Class with Swords, an honour that would place him in the esteemed company of men like Adolf Eichmann, mastermind of the Holocaust, and Dr Josef Mengele, Auschwitz’s ‘Angel of Death,’ a man who displayed a great talent for refined brutality through his experiments on Jewish prisoners and who applied his medical insight and discretion in deciding which innocents would be sent to die in the gas chambers.
Despite this, the sole reference in the book about Dürckheim’s wartime activities from Mr Gerhard Wehr, who briefly acknowledges that Dürckheim was ‘active in diplomacy throughout the war.’ He alludes briefly to Dürckheim’s ‘nationalism’ and ‘loyalty to the National-socialist state’ and concedes that ‘it was not hard for him to obey the orders of his superiors.’
This silence may have a simple explanation. Dürckheim’s followers may simply agree with their master, who believed he was ‘apolitical,’ ‘neither Nazi’ nor ‘anti-Nazi,’ whose post-war thought was unconnected to his Nazi ideology.3 At some point towards the end of his stay in Japan—probably when he was imprisoned for sixteen-months4 in Tokyo during the American occupation—Dürckheim experienced a ‘spiritual breakthrough toward ultimate reality.’5 This breakthrough inaugurated a ‘very fertile period’ both intellectually and spiritually. During the first weeks of his imprisonment he had vivid dreams most nights, some of which foreshadowed his future work. He also practised zazen meditation each day, remaining immobile for hours, and began work on a novel. Imprisonment for suspected war crimes blessed Dürckheim with a profound fecundity. His mature thought was born between cell walls, and when he emerged from prison he was ready to promote his new ideas which sought to express something ‘universally human which comes from our origins’ and which can give us ‘great joy and a sense of freedom:’ the encounter with Divine Being.6
When the Allies defeated the Axis, Dürckheim denazified his thought. As Germany fell, Dürckheim abandoned his racist, nationalistic ideology and embraced the whole of humanity. And in the manner of many ex-Nazis Dürckheim neither acknowledged nor expressed regret for his moral blindness in promoting the interests of ‘two aggressive, totalitarian states’ and contributing to the ‘greatest war and accompanying loss of life in human history.’7 ‘Life-giving wisdom’ indeed.
The silence of Dürckheim and his followers suggests his denazification was so comprehensive it was not worthy of acknowledgement. Ostensibly he moved into a post-fascist position where he promoted ideas of human universality and liberty. Yet as we have seen, liberalism and fascism are intimately linked. A land called ante-fascism joins these disparate territories. Moving away from fascism, Dürckheim resembles David Bowie, who retreated from his Hitler worship after an encounter with death. He is also a mirror image of our other ante-fascist, Jordan B. Peterson.
Whatever he or his followers believe, then, I think Dürckheim failed to escape his fascist past. Its presence is subtle, but Nazi ideology haunts his liberal universalist philosophy. Their content differs substantially. Yet his two systems of belief have vital, formal similarities. If we trace the movement from his Nazi ideology to his mature liberal thought then we can add to our picture of ante-fascism.
Footnotes
See Collier-Bendelow, M. (1997) “I recognise in Meister Eckhart my Master, the Master”: Karlfried Graf Dürckheim (1896–1988). Eckhart Review, 7(1), pp.14–29.
Victoria, B. (2013) A Zen Nazi in Wartime Japan: Count Dürckheim and his Sources: D.T. Suzuki, Yasutani Haku’un and Eugen Herrigel. The Asia-Pacific Journal, 12(3), p.24.
Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, pp.78-79. Author translation of the French, ‘Je n'étais pas un nazi, mais je n'étais pas non plus un antinazi.’
Contributors Jean and Gisele Marchal, authors who fail to mention his Nazi affiliations, say he was ‘mistakenly imprisoned by the Americans’ at the end of the war. A rather generous interpretation, given that he was a decorated promoter of Nazi ideology. Gerhard Wehr’s biography also doesn’t clearly state when Dürckheim’s spiritual experience happened. He says it took place ‘near the end of his stay in Japan,’ but immediately writes afterwards: ‘In the following stages of his life, Dürckheim experienced an imprisonment of a year and a half in the prison of Sugamo in Tokyo.’ The wording suggests that the spiritual experience happened before the imprisonment – but this would mean the spiritual experience did not occur towards the end of his stay in Japan.
Becoming Real, p.14.
The Way of Transformation, p.33.
Victoria, B. (2013) A Zen Nazi in Wartime Japan: Count Dürckheim and his Sources: D.T. Suzuki, Yasutani Haku’un and Eugen Herrigel. The Asia-Pacific Journal, 12(3), pp.1-52.