[A] small delegation of the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) and an even smaller one, consisting of members of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Workers’ Front), were sent to [the Empire of] Japan in late 1940. They traveled by means of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the only remaining connection between [the Third Reich] and [the Empire of] Japan.
The six members of the Hitler Jugend delegation, led by Heinrich Jürgens, head of the Far East Department of the Reichsjugendführung (Head office of the national youth organization), began their tour by visiting the [Axis] puppet state of Manchukuo and Korea, which had been a Japanese colony since 1910.
They were impressed by “the idealism, sense of national identity, commitment, strong will, and courage“ [“dem Idealismus, dem Nationalbewußtsein, der Einsatzfreudigkeit, dem starken Willen und Mut”] of the young Japanese who were trained in Harbin to become farmers and settlers in Manchukuo and they were equally impressed by the achievements of the Japanese [Empire] in Korea.¹
The members of the delegation apparently had no misgivings regarding the legitimacy of [Imperial] Japan’s policy of expansion and settlement in East Asia, an attitude which might be explained by the fact that, on the occasion of their departure for Japan, the periodical of the Hitler Youth published an illustrated report in which Japan’s alleged lack of “living space” (Lebensraum) was used to justify its expansion in East Asia without reservation.²
(Emphasis added. Admittedly, most of the article is actually about spirituality. Click here for more.)
According to the same report, the officials at Eiheiji were primarily interested in religious issues, and they seemed pleased by what they heard from the delegates. In his response to the welcoming speech by Eiheiji’s chief administrative officer, Jürgens expressed the delegation’s gratitude for the invitation, “noting that up until [the visit] they had only been able to read about Zen in books. Now, however, they had a wonderful opportunity to directly experience the spirit of Zen by staying overnight at this training center.”
Later, Jürgens spoke about the religious orientation of the Hitler Jugend and informed the monks that “the people of Germany [were] no longer satisfied with the religion [that] they’ve had up to now”, but then added that “a new religion that could fully satisfy the German people had yet to be born”. Germans who decided to abandon their former religion, however, didn’t have to become atheists “or turn their backs on God”; instead, they continued “to have a very strong religious spirit, identifying themselves as ‘people who believe in God’” while “eagerly awaiting the emergence of a mighty religion with great religious leaders”.
[…]
Other statements made by the delegates may also need to be understood or interpreted in a context different from the one used by the [Imperial] hosts. One example would be the delegates’ gratitude for the “wonderful opportunity to directly experience the spirit of Zen” after they had “only been able to read about Zen in books”.
This statement may have been meant as nothing more than a polite phrase. Zen Buddhism was still little known in Germany in 1940; only one book, written by Daisetz Suzuki, the most influential contemporary Japanese interpreter of Zen Buddhism in the West, had been translated into German at that time.⁷
Although it is possible that the members of the delegation had glanced at the book in preparation for their trip, there is no indication that the delegates in particular or even the Hitler Youth organization in general were particularly interested in Zen Buddhism or Buddhism as such.
[…]
Jürgen’s mention of the visit to Eiheiji consisted of only four short sentences: “We spent two days in the Buddhist temple in Eiheiji. An enormous complex on a hillslope under very old trees with innumerable stairs, hallways, courts, floors. At night we observed meditation exercises and participated in a holy ceremony lasting several hours. Solemn meal together with the abbot and priests”. (“Zwei Tage verbringen wir in dem buddhistischen Tempel in Eiheiji. Gewaltige Anlage am Berghang unter uralten Bäumen mit unzähligen Treppen, Gängen, Höfen, Stockwerken. Wir erleben nachts Meditationsübungen und nehmen an einer mehrstündigen heiligen Zeremonie teil. Gemeinsames feierliches Essen mit Abt und Priestern.”⁹)
The leader of the delegation seems to have been impressed by the buildings of the monastery and the solemnity of the ceremonies he witnessed. Nevertheless, he did not devote one word to having experienced any kind of spirituality, nor did he refer to Buddhism in general or to Zen Buddhism and Dōgen’s teachings in particular. For him, the visit to Eiheiji appears to have been nothing more than one of many visits to [Imperial] institutions where the delegation of the Hitler Youth represented [the Third Reich] and, beyond that, simply observed what was going on.
The diary suggests that the visit impressed him much less than his [Imperial] hosts assumed. Perhaps other members of the delegation were more impressed by the visit to Eiheiji, but none of them are known to have published different views. The [Imperial] assumption that the delegation was especially receptive to spirituality or to Buddhism thus seems to have been false and what Victoria calls the “Zen of Hitler Jugend” pure fantasy.
Click here for events that happened today (November 11).
1920: Walter Krupinski, Luftwaffe fighter ace, existed.
1923: The authorities arrested Adolf Schicklgruber in Munich for high treason for his rôle in the Beer Hall Putsch.
1926: Tōkyō named Captain Seishichi Yamaguchi as Tenryu’s commanding officer.
1932: Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary that the NSDAP’s debts were piling up, and the presses for its publications were in danger of being stopped.
1935: AG Weser laid down the U‐27’s keel in Bremen, Germany.
1937: As Chinese troops at Shanxi abandoned Xinkou city and fell back toward Taiyuan, the Imperial Japanese Army began to advance on Nanjing, China.
1938: Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy toured territory newly gained from Czechoslovakia and Berlin issued four gunboats’ construction @ 6,000,000 Reichsmarks each.
1939: The funeral of Czech student Jan Opletal, whom somebody killed earlier during the Czech independence celebrations, turned into a demonstration that the Wehrmacht crushed; the authorities closed Czech universities, sent 1,200 students to camps, and sentenced nine to death. (Coincidentally, Adolf Schicklgruber attended the funeral of those killed in the staged assassination attempt of November 8 in München, Germany.)
1940: The Royal Navy launched the first all‐aircraft ship‐to‐ship naval attack in history during the Battle of Taranto. Meanwhile, the Axis armed merchant cruiser Atlantis stopped Allied ship Automedon with gunfire in the Bay of Bengal, massacring seven crew and one gunner, then captured eighty‐seven of its survivors and their cargo, including top secret Royal Navy documents detailing military deployment in Asia and code schemes which Atlantis soon sent to the Empire of Japan.
1941: Around the same time that Kaga entered the drydocks at Sasebo Naval Shipyard, Japan, and Admiral Mitsumi Shimizu held a briefing at Yokosuka for the Axis Sixth Fleet officers aboard Katori on the Pearl Harbor raid, ten Axis submarines departed from Yokosuka Naval Base for Kwajalein of the Marshall Islands, where they would proceed for US Territory of Hawaii. I‐68 joined the Advance Expeditionary Force for the assault on Pearl Harbor; she departed Saeki, Japan for Kwajalein, Marshall Islands. Meanwhile, Axis submarine U‐580 collided with target ship Angelburg and sank thirty‐three miles west of Klaipeda, Lithuania by accident, killing twelve, but leaving thirty‐two alive. Hudson aircraft of № 53 Squadron RAF damaged Axis submarine U‐203 with four depth charges in the Bay of Biscay, but then Axis submarine U‐561 sank Panamanian ship Meridian, massacring all twenty‐six aboard. Within the Third Reich, report noted there were 700,000 Soviet prisoners of war employed as forced laborers.
1942: Axis forces in Case Anton occupied France’s zone libre, the Axis’s 13.Panzer Division managed to avoid encirclement near Ordshonikidse, and the Axis’s 6.Armee succeeded in reaching the Volga River in Stalingrad, with a 600-yard frontage near the Red October steel factory. Chancellor Adolf Schicklgruber announced during a Beer Hall Putsch celebration that Stalingrad was almost in German hands, but he teasingly said that he did not want to keep the city just because of its name.
1943: Liebehenschel became the new commandant of Auschwitz as his predecessor, Höss, became the chief inspector of concentration camps. A report noted that the total number of prisoners in Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camps and all subcamps was 54,673 men and 33,179 women, for the total of 87,852 prisoners. On the other hand, Theresienstadt commandant Anton Burger ordered the 40,000 prisoners of the camp to stand at attention outdoors in freezing weather; about 300 prisoners died from hypothermia.
1944: An Axis V-2 rocket hit Shooters Hill, London at 1830 hours, slaughtering two dozen folk.