Ernst Jünger | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Jünger in 1920 | |
| Born | (1895-03-29)29 March 1895 |
| Died | 17 February 1998(1998-02-17) (aged 102) |
| Genre | Diaries and novels |
| Subject | War |
| Notable works |
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| Notable awards |
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| Spouse | Gretha von Jeinsen [de] (m. 1925–1960) Liselotte Jünger [de] (m. 1962) |
| Children | 2 |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance | |
| Branch | |
| Years of service | 1913, 1914–1923, 1939–1944 |
| Rank | Hauptmann |
| Battles / wars | |
Ernst Jünger (German:[ɛʁnstˈjʏŋɐ]ⓘ; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, soldier, philosopher, andentomologist who became publicly known for hisWorld War I memoirStorm of Steel. A prolific writer ofover forty books, Jünger wrote particularly in the furtherance ofconservatism and against what he perceived as the spiritual oppression of man.
The son of a successful businessman and chemist, Jünger rebelled against an affluent upbringing and sought adventure in theWandervogel German youth movement, before running away to briefly serve in theFrench Foreign Legion, which was an illegal act in Germany. However, he escaped prosecution due to his father's efforts and was able to enlist in theImperial German Army on the outbreak of World War I in 1914. During an ill-fated offensive in 1918 Jünger was badly wounded and was awarded thePour le Mérite, a rare decoration for one of his rank. Since new awards of the military class ceased with the end of the Prussian monarchy in November 1918, Jünger, who died in 1998, was the last living recipient of the military class award.[1]
He wrote against liberal values, democracy, and theWeimar Republic, but rejected the advances of theNazis who were rising to power. DuringWorld War II Jünger served as an army captain inoccupied Paris, but by 1943, he had turned decisively against Nazi totalitarianism, a change manifested in his work "Der Friede" (The Peace). Jünger was dismissed from the army in 1944 after he was indirectly implicated with fellow officers who hadplotted to assassinate Hitler. A few months later, his son died in combat inItaly after having been sentenced to apenal battalion for political reasons.[2]
After the war, Jünger was treated with some suspicion as a possiblefellow traveller of the Nazis. By the later stages of the Cold War, his unorthodox writings about the impact ofmaterialism in modern society were widely seen as conservative rather than radical nationalist, and his philosophical works came to be highly regarded in mainstream German circles. Jünger died an honoured literary figure, although critics continued to charge him with the glorification of war as a transcendental experience in some of his early works. He was an ardentmilitarist and one of the most complex and contradictory figures in 20th-centuryGerman literature.[2]
Ernst Jünger was born inHeidelberg as the eldest of six children of the chemical engineerErnst Georg Jünger [de] and of Karoline Lampl (1873–1950). Two of his siblings died as infants. His father acquired some wealth inpotash mining. He went to school inHannover from 1901 to 1905, and during 1905 to 1907 to boarding schools in Hanover and Brunswick. He rejoined his family in 1907, inRehburg, and went to school inWunstorf with his siblings from 1907 to 1912. During this time, he developed his passion foradventure novels and forentomology.
He spent some time as an exchange student inBuironfosse,Saint-Quentin, France, in September 1909.With his younger brotherFriedrich Georg Jünger (1898–1977) he joined theWandervogel movement in 1911. His first poem was published with theGaublatt für Hannoverland in November 1911.[3] By this time, Jünger had a reputation as a buddingbohemian poet.[4]
In 1913, Jünger was a student at theHamelin gymnasium. In November, he travelled toVerdun and enlisted in theFrench Foreign Legion for a five-year term, but with the intention of getting to North Africa. Stationed in a training camp atSidi Bel Abbès, Algeria, he deserted and travelled to Morocco, but was captured and returned to camp. Six weeks later, he was dismissed from the Legion due to the intervention of the GermanForeign Office, and escaped prosecution. On the return journey he was told by his father that the cost of representations to the authorities had amounted to a vast sum. Jünger was sent to a boarding school in Hanover, where fellow pupils included future communist leaderWerner Scholem (1895–1940).[5]
On 1 August 1914, shortly after the start ofWorld War I, Jünger enlisted as aone year volunteer and joined the 73rd Hannoverian Fusilier Regiment of the19th Division, and, after training, was transported to theChampagne front in December. He was wounded for the first time in April 1915. While on convalescent leave he took up a position his father arranged for him to become an officer aspirant (Fahnenjunker). Jünger was commissioned a Leutnant (2nd Lieutenant) on 27 November 1915. As platoon leader, he gained a reputation for his combat exploits and initiative in offensive patrolling and reconnaissance.
During theBattle of the Somme near the obliterated remains of the village of Guillemont his platoon took up a front line position in a defile that had been shelled until it consisted of little more than a dip strewn with the rotting corpses of predecessors. He wrote:
As the storm raged around us, I walked up and down my sector. The men had fixed bayonets. They stood stony and motionless, rifle in hand, on the front edge of the dip, gazing into the field. Now and then, by the light of a flare, I saw steel helmet by steel helmet, blade by glinting blade, and I was overcome by a feeling of invulnerability. We might be crushed, but surely we could not be conquered.[6]
The platoon was relieved but Jünger was wounded by shrapnel in the rest area ofCombles and hospitalized; his platoon reoccupied the position on the eve of theBattle of Guillemont and was obliterated in a British offensive.[7] He was wounded for the third time in November 1916, and awarded theIron Cross First Class in January 1917.[8]
Throughout the rest of the war, Jünger was frequently assigned as a company commander, most often with the 7th Company. Transferred toLangemarck in July 1917, Jünger's actions against the advancing British included forcing retreating soldiers to join his resistance line at gunpoint. He arranged the evacuation of his brotherFriedrich Georg, who had been wounded. In theBattle of Cambrai (1917) Jünger sustained two wounds, by a bullet passing through his helmet at the back of the head, and another by a shell fragment on the forehead.
He was awarded theHouse Order of Hohenzollern. While advancing to take up positions just before Ludendorff'sOperation Michael on 19 March 1918, Jünger was forced to call a halt after the guides lost their way, and while bunched together half of his company were lost to a direct hit from artillery. Jünger himself survived, and led the survivors as part of a successful advance but was wounded twice towards the end of the action, being shot in the chest and less seriously across the head. After convalescing, he returned to his regiment in June, sharing a widespread feeling that the tide had now turned against Germany and victory was impossible.
On 25 August, he was wounded for the seventh and final time nearFavreuil, being shot through the lung while leading his company in an advance that was quickly overwhelmed by a British counter-attack. Becoming aware the position where he was lying wounded was about to fall to advancing British forces, Jünger rose and as he did his lung drained of fluids through the wound in his chest, allowing him to recover enough to escape. He made his way to a machine-gun post that was holding out, where a doctor told him to lie down immediately. Carried to the rear in a tarpaulin, he and the bearers came under fire and the doctor was killed. A soldier who tried to carry Jünger on his shoulders was killed after only making it a few yards, but another soldier was able to do so.
Jünger received theWound Badge 1st Class. While he was treated in a Hannover hospital, on 22 September he received notice of being awarded thePour le Mérite on the recommendation of division commanderJohannes von Busse.Pour le Mérite, the highest military decoration of the German Empire, was awarded some 700 times during the war, but almost exclusively to high-ranking officers (and seventy times to combat pilots). Jünger was one of only eleven infantry company leaders who received the order.[9]
Throughout the war, Jünger kept a diary, which became the basis of his 1920Storm of Steel. He spent his free time reading the works ofNietzsche,Schopenhauer,Ariosto andKubin, besides entomological journals he was sent from home. During 1917, he was collecting beetles in the trenches and while on patrol, 149 specimens between 2 January and 27 July, which he listed under the title ofFauna coleopterologica douchyensis ("Coleopterological fauna of theDouchy region").[9]
Jünger served as a lieutenant in thearmy of theWeimar Republic until hisdemobilisation in 1923. He studiedmarine biology,zoology,botany, andphilosophy, and became a well-knownentomologist. In Germany, an important entomological prize is named after him: theErnst-Jünger-Preis für Entomologie.[10] His war experiences described inStorm of Steel (German title:In Stahlgewittern), which Jünger self-published in 1920, gradually made him famous. He marriedGretha von Jeinsen [de] in 1925. They had two children, Ernst Jr. (1926–44) and Alexander (1934–93).
He criticized the fragile and unstable democracy of theWeimar Republic, stating that he "hated democracy like the plague."[11] More explicitly than inStorm of Steel, he portrayed war as a mystical experience that revealed the nature of existence.[12] According to Jünger, the essence of the modern was found in total mobilisation for military effectiveness, which tested the capacity of the human senses.[13] In 1932, he publishedThe Worker (German title:Der Arbeiter), which called for the creation of an activist society run by warrior-worker-scholars.[14] In the essayOn Pain,[15] written and published in 1934, Jünger rejects the liberal values of liberty, security, ease, and comfort, and seeks instead the measure of man in the capacity to withstand pain and sacrifice. Around this time his writing included the aphorism "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger; and what kills me makes me incredibly strong."[16]
As a famous war hero and prominent nationalist critic of the Weimar Republic, the ascendantNazi Party (NSDAP) courted Jünger as a natural ally, but Jünger rejected such advances. When Jünger moved to Berlin in 1927, he rejected an offer of a seat in theReichstag for the NSDAP. In 1930, he openly denounced Hitler's suppression of theRural People's Movement.[17] In the 22 October 1932 edition ofVölkischer Beobachter (the official Nazi newspaper), the article "Das endlose dialektische Gespräch" ("the never-ending dialectical debate") attacked Jünger for his rejection of the "blood and soil" doctrine, accusing him of being an "intellectualist" and a liberal.[18] Jünger again refused a seat offered to him in theReichstag following theNazi Party'sascension to power in January 1933, and he refused the invitation to head theReichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Chamber of Literature).[19]
On 14 June 1934, Jünger wrote a "letter of rejection" to theVölkischer Beobachter, in which he requested that none of his writings be published in it.[18] Jünger also refused to speak onJoseph Goebbels's radio. He was one of the few "nationalist" authors whose names were never found on the frequent declarations of loyalty to Hitler. He and his brother Friedrich Georg quit the "Traditionsverein der 73er" (veteran's organization of the Hanoverian regiment they had served during World War I) when its Jewish members were expelled.[18]
When Jünger leftBerlin in 1933, his house was searched several times by theGestapo.[20]On the Marble Cliffs (1939, German title:Auf den Marmorklippen), a short novel in the form of a parable, usesmetaphor to describe Jünger's negative perceptions of the situation in Hitler's Germany.[21]
He served inWorld War II as anarmycaptain. On the Western Front in 1939, he rescued a wounded soldier and was again awarded theIron Cross Second Class.[22] Assigned to an administrative position as intelligence officer and mail censor in Paris, he socialized (often at theGeorges V hotel or atMaxim's) with prominent artists of the day such asPicasso andJean Cocteau.[23] He also went to the salons ofMarie-Louise Bousquet andFlorence Gould. There he metJean Paulhan,Henry de Montherlant,Marcel Jouhandeau andLouis-Ferdinand Céline.[24] Jünger also met the latter at the German Institute on 7 December 1941. He noted in his Parisian diary (Strahlungen [de]) that Céline on that occasion "spoke of his consternation, his astonishment, at the fact that we soldiers were not shooting, hanging, and exterminating the Jews".[25] He passed on information about upcoming transports "at an acceptable level of risk" which saved Jewish lives. His office was in the Hotel Majestic and he was billeted at the Hotel Raphael.[26]
The character of Werner von Ebrennac inJean Bruller's wartime novelLe Silence de la mer is modelled on Jünger.[27]
Jünger found his countrymen's discriminatory treatment ofFrench Jews unacceptable. In his Parisian diaries, the writer wrote on 7 June 1942 that he had encountered for the first time theyellow star carried by three little girls who were passing by in theRue Royale, and that he considered that day as fundamental in his personal history, because he said he was ashamed at that moment of wearing a German officer's uniform.[25]
His early time in France is described in his aforementioned diaryStrahlungen (Radiations), which includes"Gärten und Straßen" [de] (Gardens and Streets) and "Das erste Pariser Tagebuch" (The First Parisian Diary). He was also given the task of executing a German deserter who had beaten the women sheltering him and been turned in. Jünger considered avoiding the assignment but eventually attended to oversee the execution in, as he claimed in his journal, "the spirit of higher curiosity".[28]
Jünger appears on the fringes of theStauffenberg bomb plot. He was clearly an inspiration to anti-Nazi conservatives in the German Army,[29] and while in Paris he was close to the old, mostlyPrussian, officers who carried out the assassination attempt against Hitler. On 6 June 1944 Jünger went toRommel's headquarters atLa Roche-Guyon, arriving late at about 9 PM as the bridge at Mantes was down. Present were Rommel's chief-of-staffHans Speidel, GeneralWagener, ColonelLinstow, Embassy CounsellorPeter Pfeiffer [de], reporter MajorWilhelm von Schramm [de] and Speidel's brother-in-law Max Horst (Rommel was in Germany). At 9.30 PM they went to Speidel's quarters to discuss"Der Friede" (The Peace), Jünger's 30-page peace proposal (written in 1943), to be given to the Allies after Hitler's demise or removal from power; also proposed is a united Europe. He returned about midnight. The next day at the Paris HQ Jünger was stunned by the news of theNormandy landings.[30][31]
Jünger was only peripherally involved in the events, however, and in the aftermath suffered only dismissal from the army in August 1944 rather than execution. He was saved by the chaos of the last months of the war, and by always being "inordinately careful", burning writings on sensitive matters from 1933. One source (Friedrich Hielscher) claimed that Hitler said "Nothing happens to Jünger".[32]
His elder son Ernst Jr., then an eighteen-year-old naval (Kriegsmarine) cadet, was imprisoned that year for engaging in "subversive discussions" in hisWilhelmshaven Naval Academy (a capital offence). Transferred toPenal Unit999 asFrontbewährung, i.e. probation through frontline service, after his parents had spoken to the presiding judge AdmiralErnst Scheurlen, he was killed nearCarrara inoccupied Italy on 29 November 1944 (though Jünger was never sure whether he had been shot by the enemy or by theSS).[33][34]
After the war, Jünger was initially under some suspicion for his nationalist past, and he was banned from publishing in Germany for four years by the British occupying forces because he refused to submit to thedenazification procedures.[14] His workThe Peace (German title:Der Friede), written in 1943 and published abroad in 1948, marked the end of his involvement in politics. WhenGerman Communists threatened his safety in 1945,Bertolt Brecht instructed them to "Leave Jünger alone."[35]
West German publisher Klett put out a ten-volume collected works (Werke) in 1965, extended to 18 volumes 1978–1983.This made Jünger one of just four German authors to see two subsequent editions of their collected works published during their lifetime, alongsideGoethe,Klopstock andWieland.[36]
His diaries from 1939 to 1949 were published under the titleStrahlungen [de] (1948,Radiations). In the 1950s and 1960s, Jünger travelled extensively. His first wife, Gretha, died in 1960, and in 1962 he marriedLiselotte Lohrer [de]. He continued writing prodigiously for his entire life, publishing more than 50 books.
Martin Heidegger was heavily influenced by Jünger'sThe Worker although he did not regard Jünger as a philosopher.[37] Heidegger's interpretation of Jünger's work is compiled in volume 90 of his complete edition, titled "Zu Ernst Jünger".[38]
Jünger was among the forerunners ofmagical realism. His vision inThe Glass Bees (1957, German title:Gläserne Bienen), of a future in which an automated machine-driven world threatensindividualism, could be seen as a story within the science fiction genre. A sensitive poet with training inbotany andzoology, as well as a soldier, his works in general are infused with tremendous details of the natural world.
Throughout his life he had experimented withdrugs such asether,cocaine, andhashish; and later in life he usedmescaline andLSD. These experiments were recorded comprehensively inAnnäherungen (1970,Approaches). The novelBesuch auf Godenholm (1952,Visit to Godenholm) is clearly influenced by his early experiments with mescaline and LSD. He met with LSD discovererAlbert Hofmann and they took LSD together several times. Hofmann's memoirLSD, My Problem Child describes some of these meetings.[39]
One of the most important contributions of Jünger's later literary production is the metahistoric figure of theAnarch, an ideal figure of asovereign individual, conceived in his novelEumeswil (1977),[40] which evolved from his earlier conception of theWaldgänger, or "Forest Fleer"by influence ofMax Stirner's conception of the Unique (der Einzige).[41][42][43][page needed]
In 1981, Jünger was awarded thePrix mondial Cino Del Duca.Jünger was immensely popular in France, where at one time 48 of his translated books were in print.[44] In 1984, he spoke at the Verdun memorial, alongside his admirers, French presidentFrançois Mitterrand and the German chancellor, where he called the "ideology of war" in Germany before and after World War I "a calamitous mistake".[45][46] In France he remains a near idol of the identitarian and Europeanist far-right (in the works of philosopherAlain de Benoist).
Although he had been cleared of the accusation of Nazi collaboration since the 1950s, Jünger'snational conservatism and his ongoing role as conservative philosopher and icon made him a controversial figure, andHuyssen (1993) argued that nevertheless "his conservative literature made Nazism highly attractive",[47] and that "the ontology of war depicted inStorm of Steel could be interpreted as a model for a new, hierarchically ordered society beyond democracy, beyond the security of bourgeois society and ennui".[48]Walter Benjamin wrote "Theories of German Fascism" (1930) as a review ofWar and Warrior, a collection of essays edited by Jünger.[49]
Despite the ongoing political criticism of his work, Jünger said he never regretted anything he wrote, nor would he ever take it back.[44]
His younger son Alexander, a physician, committed suicide in 1993.[50] Jünger's 100th birthday on 29 March 1995 was met with praise from many quarters, including the socialist French presidentFrançois Mitterrand.
Jünger came from a mixed Christian Protestant, agnostic family and did not profess any particular denominational belief, but shortly before he died he converted to Roman Catholicism.[51][52][53] A year before his death, Jünger was received into theCatholic Church and began to receive theSacraments.[54][55] Jünger died on 17 February 1998 inRiedlingen,Upper Swabia, aged 102. He was the last living bearer of the military version of the orderPour le Mérite.[56] Jünger's last home in Wilflingen,Jünger-Haus Wilflingen, is now a museum.
Ernst Jünger's photobooks are visual accompaniments to his writings on technology andmodernity. The seven books of photography Jünger published between 1928 and 1934 are representative of the most militaristic and radically right wing period in his writing. Jünger's first photobooks,Die Unvergessenen (The Unforgotten, 1929) andDer Kampf um das Reich (The Battle for the Reich, 1929) are collections of photographs of fallenWorld War I soldiers and the World War front, many that he took himself. He also contributed six essays on the relationship between war and photography in a photobook of war images calledDas Antlitz des Weltkrieges: Fronterlebnisse deutscher Soldaten (The Face of the World War: Front Experiences of German Soldiers, 1930) and edited a volume of photographs dealing with the first world war,Hier spricht der Feind: Kriegserlebnisse unserer Gegner (The Voice of the Enemy: War Experiences of our Adversaries, 1931). Jünger also edited a collection of essays,Krieg und Krieger (War and Warriors, 1930, 1933) and wrote the foreword for a photo anthology of airplanes and flying calledLuftfahrt ist Not! (Flying is imperative! [i.e., a necessity], 1928).[57]
In 1985, to mark Jünger's 90th birthday, the German state of Baden-Württemberg established Ernst Jünger Prize in Entomology. It is given every three years for outstanding work in the field of entomology.
Ernst Jünger was the last living recipient of the military class of the 'Pour le Mérite'.
Jünger's works were edited in ten volumes in 1960–1965 by Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart,[58] and again in 18 volumes by Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart in 1978–1983, with four supplement volumes added posthumously, 1999–2003.[59] TheSämtliche Werke edition is now partially out of print (out of print as of December 2015[update]: vols. 6, 7, 10, 15–18), and was re-issued in 2015 in paperback (ISBN 978-3-608-96105-8) andepub (ISBN epub: 978-3-608-10923-8) formats.A selection from the full collected works in five volumes was published in 1995 (4th ed. 2012,ISBN 978-3-608-93235-5).
The following is a list of Jünger's original publications in book form (not including journal articles or correspondence).
Klett-Cotta edited Jünger's correspondence withRudolf Schlichter,Carl Schmitt,Gerhard Nebel,Friedrich Hielscher,Gottfried Benn,Stefan Andres andMartin Heidegger in seven separate volumes during 1997–2008.
Four of his World War II diaries have been translated and published in English as:
The bulk of Jünger's publications remains untranslated, but some of his major novels have appeared in English translation.
Le domicile d'Ernst Jünger fut fouillé plusieurs fois par la Gestapo.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).
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