CG Jung aka Agent 488 – the analytical spy

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), physician and psychiatrist, is considered the father of psychoanalysis and was one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. Schweizer’s theories continue to influence numerous concepts in psychology and psychiatry. Less well known is Jung’s strong connection to the war events of the last century and especially his influence on American foreign policy in the 1950s.

The scientist admired National Socialism since the 1930s. During the Second World War, however, the Swiss changed his mind drastically. Military and political events thus played an important role in Jung’s career. During the First World War, the boy learned what war really means. Between 1916 and 1917, as a captain in the medical corps of the Swiss army, he ran an internment camp for wounded soldiers from the warring states.

When the Nazis came to power, CG Jung was 55 years old. As a distinguished psychiatrist, university professor at the ETH and an officer with direct World War I experience, he could have guessed what would happen in Germany. But the Nazi doctrine fascinated him. The scientist was chairman of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy and co-editor of Central Journal of Psychotherapy.

The other co-editor was Matthias Heinrich Göring, nephew of Hermann Göring, commander-in-chief of the German air force. The direct connection was convenient for the Nazis in many ways. As a foreigner, neutral Swiss and credible figurehead, he was the perfect mouthpiece for the National Socialist interpretation of psychology.

Perhaps Carl Gustav Jung was blindsided by Nazi Germany. But perhaps he also tried in a very naive way to protect European psychoanalysis from the influence of fascist ideas. The proximity to Göring and a series of public statements about the “psychology of races and nationalities” led to recurring accusations of sympathy for the Nazi movement.

However, from 1940 onwards, CG Jung radically changed his attitude towards the Third Reich. Only then could he distance himself and cut all ties with Germany. His closeness to National Socialism even turned out to be an advantage for the Allies in the subsequent phases of the war. The psychoanalyst maintained close ties with them from 1942 onwards.

Jung’s most intensive contact was with Allen W. Dulles, the representative of the US Secret Service Office for Strategic Services (OSS) in Switzerland. Of the OSS later the current one was created C.I.A. From November 1942, Dulles operated from 23 Herrengasse in Bern, in the immediate vicinity of the Bundespaleis. As “special representative of the US government in Bern”, the American was tasked with developing and coordinating US intelligence services.

In doing so, Allen Dulles effectively shaped the entirety of Allied intelligence activities in Europe. This was only possible because he was officially considered a diplomat. The American established contacts with various resistance movements throughout Europe and coordinated several combat operations against the Third Reich.

In Switzerland, Allen Dulles laid the foundations for his later career with the CIA, which he not only founded but also led between 1953 and 1961. As far as we know now, however, Dulles’ successes were rather modest. He could not really help the partisan republic around Domodossola in 1944, nor was the meeting secret “Operation Sunrise” with SS General Karl Wolff in Ascona in 1945 at the end of the war.

Despite this, the Secret Service agent became a powerful figure in American politics after World War II. And he owes this not least to countless ideas from Carl Gustav Jung.

Dulles and Jung had “coupled” the American Mary Bancroft. The writer had lived in Switzerland since 1934 and was married to the Swiss banker Jean G. Rufenacht. Bancroft worked as a translator and was considered by Dulles OSSagent has been hired.

Dulles and Jung maintained a close relationship, including meeting in Ascona during the Eranos Meetings, but also by regular correspondence or through the mediation of Mary Bancroft. The two men were intrigued by the idea of ​​creating a unique synergy between politics, espionage and psychology. This fascination inspired the now 68-year-old Jung and led to various reflections on Allied propaganda and to a series of psychiatric analyzes of key figures in the Nazi leadership.

Allen Dulles was so impressed by Jung’s innovative psychopolitical insights – theses dealing with the unconscious parts of the human psyche – that he gave the Swiss a OSSnumber: Carl Gustav Jung became Agent 488.

Dulles’s reports to Washington, and in particular to General Eisenhower, were full of Jung’s insights into the Nazi leadership and the German people. CG Jung correctly predicted that an increasingly desperate Hitler was likely to commit suicide. Dulles is even quoted by CG Jung biographer Deirdre Bair as saying, “No one will probably ever know how much Professor Jung contributed to the Allied cause during the war.”

Dulles declined to give further details, as most of that information was classified. But the fact remains that at the end of the war, even General Eisenhower – Supreme Commander of the Allies – personally thanked Jung for his contribution.

Even after 1945, Jung’s analyzes and theories probably remained part of American strategy. Especially in foreign policy, where attempts were made to contain communism by aggressively promoting capitalism and democracy. Allen Dulles, whose brother John Foster was Secretary of State in President Dwight Eisenhower’s administration, became the first director of the 1953 C.I.A appointed.

Dulles remained the eminence grise of U.S. foreign policy until his release following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. Under his leadership, the espionage activities of the C.I.A also explosive.

Under Dulles’ leadership, the US conducted numerous covert operations and illegal interventions, often overthrowing legally elected governments and contributing to the rise of autocrats and military dictatorships. Of course, always under the guise of promoting the “free market economy” and with the progressive goal of global democratization.

A good example of this is the overthrow of the government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954. The son of a Swiss émigré from Andelfingen in Zurich was officially elected and a thorn in the side of the US because of his planned agrarian reform. This reform allowed for a more equitable distribution of land, which would have been possible only with the expropriation of numerous US companies operating in Guatemala. A “no-go” for the US, forcing Guzmán to give way. For this, Dulles also used psychopolitical methods that had already proven their worth during the Second World War, under the great influence of Jung.

Nearly 80 years later, American records show that CG Jung had collaborated with the Allies. The psychoanalyst eventually made a U-turn: from presumed National Socialist to adviser to the Allies.

Jung’s connection to Dulles continued after the war, even privately. His wife Clover Dulles temporarily lived in Zurich and was treated by Jung several times. The daughter of the first C.I.Aboss, Joan Dulles, grew into a leading psychoanalyst with Jung’s methods and is a symbol of the connection between spy Dulles and psychoanalyst Jung.