The archer and the arrow: Zen Buddhism and the politics of religion in Nazi Germany

Abstract

Abstract Zen may be most commonly associated with Japan, but the ‘art of Zen’ was made in Germany. This article reconstructs the reception of Zen Buddhism in Nazi Germany as an extension of the regime’s project to transform Christianity. Although Japanese reformers emphasized Zen’s universal qualities, in Nazi Germany it became associated instead with a combination of völkisch nationalism and spiritual mysticism mirroring Nazi aspirations for a ‘positive’ German form of Christianity. That project may have been discredited after 1945, but the image of Zen cultivated by Nazi ideologues transitioned more or less seamlessly into the post-war New Age movement. This phenomenon thus merits attention not only for what it reveals about the extent to which Germany remained engaged in global intellectual and cultural currents during the Nazi era but also in complicating our historical understanding of how Zen came to be part of the contemporary global vernacular.