Карл Дюркхайм: Жизнь между войной, нацизмом и дзен-буддизмом

German psychologist and philosopher

Karl Friedrich Alfred Heinrich Ferdinand Maria Graf Eckbrecht von Dürckheim Montmartin (24 October 1896 – 28 December 1988) was a German diplomat, psychotherapist and Zen master. A veteran of World War I, he was introduced to Zen early in life. After obtaining a doctorate in psychology, he became an avid supporter of the Nazi Party. Following World War II he was imprisoned in Japan which transformed him spiritually. Upon returning to Germany he became a leading proponent of Western esotericism, synthesizing teachings from Christian mysticism, depth psychology and Buddhism.

Dürckheim was born in Munich, the son of Friedrich Georg Michael Maria Eckbrecht von Dürckheim Montmartin (1858 1939) and Sophie Evalina Ottilie Charlotte von Kusserow (1869 1959). His maternal grandfather was the Prussian diplomat and politician Heinrich von Kusserow (1836 1900). His uncle was General Alfred Karl Nikolaus Alexander Eckbrecht von Dürckheim Montmartin (1850 1912), aide de camp to King Ludwig II of Bavaria and later commander of the Royal Bavarian Infantry Lifeguards Regiment. A descendant of old Bavarian nobility whose parents' fortune was lost during bad economic times, he grew up at Steingaden and at the Bassenheim Castle near Koblenz.

In 1914 he volunteered for the Royal Bavarian Infantry Lifeguards Regiment and was given a commission. He served on the front lines for 46 months and fought in France, Serbia, Slovenia, Italy and Romania. He saw action at the Battle of Verdun, the Battle of Caporetto, the Battle of the Somme, and the Lys Offensive. By his own account he never fired a shot and was never wounded, "though bullets went through my shirt and coat." Dürckheim considered his war experience fundamental: "I discovered that it was in facing death that we step forward toward true life. That experience was later a part of my teaching: by accepting death, we discover and receive life which is beyond life and death." In recognition of his military service, Dürckheim was awarded the Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918 and the War Merit Cross First Class with swords.

In 1933 Dürckheim joined the Sturmabteilung. In 1934 he spent 6 months in South Africa on behalf of the Reich Minister of Education to contact Germans living there and to urge them not to abandon Nazism. By 1935 he had become chief assistant to Joachim von Ribbentrop, head of the Büro Ribbentrop and later Nazi Germany's Minister for Foreign Affairs. In that year Dürckheim brokered a meeting between Lord Beaverbrook and Hitler. In October 1936, Dürckheim accompanied newly appointed Ambassador Ribbentrop to England, where he was assigned "to find out what the English think of the new Germany." He was introduced to King Edward VIII and Winston Churchill. Dürckheim was at this time a fervent supporter of Nazism, writing in the Journal of the Nazi Teachers Association:
"The basic gift of the Nazi revolution is for all occupations and levels across the experience of our common nature, a common destiny, the common hope of the common leader which is the living foundation of all movements and aspirations."

In June 1938 he was sent to Japan, residing there until 1947. Professor Fumio Hashimoto, who was sent to Dürckheim as a translator, wrote: "Dürckheim was surrounded by Shinto and Buddhist scholars, as well as military and thinkers of the right, each of which tried to convince him of their importance." These included such leading figures as the Abbot Hakuun Yasutani and the Imperial Japanese Army General Sadao Araki. He became an avid student of Kyūdō (traditional Japanese archery) under the master Awa Kenzô (1880 1939), who had also taught Eugen Herrigel. He wrote in 1941: "Archery is a great exercise that provides a profound silent concentration. In Zen the body is not considered an obstacle to spiritual life, as it is too often regarded in the West. On the contrary, [in Zen] the body is considered instrumental to spiritual advancement." Under Ribbentrop's guidance, he coordinated the dissemination of Nazi propaganda in Japan, likening German military ideals to Japanese bushido and encouraging the idea that Japan and Germany would share the world. The “Zen Samurai Bushido debate” had evolved in pre war Germany over the relationship between Nazi ideals and those of the traditional Japanese warrior culture. On 15 July 1939 Dürckheim published an article in the third issue of the journal Berlin Rome Tokio in which he refers to the Japanese state cult, the glorified “Samurai spirit” and its relationship with Nazi ideology and antisemitism in Japan. He wrote:
“Who travels today through Japan experiences at every step the friendship with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to the Japanese people, especially those forces that affect the future more than political power. It is the spirit which connects Japan with us, that spirit which is related to Japan’s iron will to win the war In farm houses and businesses hang signs with the words: Everyone must behave as if they were on the field of battle.”

By 1944, Dürckheim had become a well known author and lecturer in Japan on Zen meditation, archery, and metaphysics, and was awarded the War Merit Cross, Second Class on Hitler's birthday, 20 April 1944. The impending surrender of Germany did not prevent him from reasserting his values. "The immeasurable suffering of Germany will bring the German people to a higher level and help give birth to a better, less materialistic nation," he wrote to a friend in the last days of the war. He was imprisoned for 16 months in Sugamo Prison:
"In spite of everything, it was a very fertile period for me. During the first weeks, I had a dream almost every night, some of which anticipated my future work. In my cell I was surrounded by a profound silence. I could work on myself and that is when I began to write a novel. My neighbors simply waited for each day to pass. That time of captivity was precious to me because I could exercise zazen meditation and remain in immobility for hours."

Dürckheim interpreted his imprisonment as an initiation event that was preparing him for a spiritual rebirth. Influenced partly by the work of Julius Evola, the "conversion experience" later became an essential element of Dürckheim's psychotherapy: "There is real change whenever the individual experiences the supernatural, which alters the meaning of life 180 degrees and moves the axis from the middle of the natural human existence to a supernatural center."

Dürckheim was repatriated to Germany in 1947 and began a period of training analysis with Leonhard Seif. Along with his second wife, psychologist Maria Theresia Hippius (1909 2003), Dürckheim founded the Existential Psychology Training and Conference Center in the early 1950s, located in the Black Forest village of Todtmoos Rutte. His books were based on his conferences. <blockquote>"What I am doing is not the transmission of Zen Buddhism; on the contrary, that which I seek after is something universally human which comes from our origins and happens to be more emphasized in eastern practices than in the western." Dürckheim is identified by Albert Stunkard as the person who suggested that Stunkard should visit D. T. Suzuki in Kita Kamakura, not far from the Sugamo prison. Stunkard later became Suzuki's psychiatrist. In 1972 Dürckheim received the Humboldt plaque from the Humboldt Society of Science, Art and Culture, and in 1977 he was awarded the Officer's Merit Cross, 1st Class. Dürckheim died in Todtmoos on 28 December 1988 at the age of 92.

Dürckheim did not practice psychotherapy in the traditional sense, rather, he tried to teach his clients a process by which they could move towards spiritual self understanding. He viewed the therapist as a spiritual guide: "A therapy which does not take into account the spirituality of man is doomed to failure The therapist is not the one who heals, that is, who intervenes with his own skills; he is a therapist in the original meaning of the word: a companion on the way." "Man evolves through three kinds of "self": first, the "little self" who only sees power, security, prestige, knowledge. Then the "existential self" which goes much further: it wants to give itself to a cause, to a task, to a community, to a person. It can go beyond egocentrism and that is where it becomes, in my opinion, a human being. Finally what I call the "essential self," the true "I" of the individual and of humanity."

An integral concept in this self understanding is referred to as "The Wheel of Metamorphosis." Dürckheim viewed transformation not as the sudden achievement of enlightenment, but rather as a continuous and cyclical evolution, akin to the motion of a wheel. He posited three stages and five steps in each cycle: