Gerhard Nebel (1903–1974) was a German writer and conservativecultural critic.
Nebel studied philosophy and classical philology in Freiburg, Marburg and Heidelberg from 1923 to 1927, underMartin Heidegger andKarl Jaspers. He worked as a teacher in theRuhr for a short time but was suspended for "socialist agitation", being a member of theSocialist Workers' Party of Germany. He resumed teaching in 1933, and was again suspended within a year.He then travelled to Egypt, where he worked as a private tutor, intermittently working in Germany in 1937 before travelling in East Africa during 1938/9.
Nebel was drafted into theLuftwaffe and worked as a translator in Paris in 1941, where he metErnst Jünger. After comparing fighter airplanes with insects in an essay, he was demoted and transferred as aconstruction soldier toAlderney. After the war, he worked again as a teacher. He published his diaries, and the essay collectionsVon den Elementen andTyrannis und Freiheit.He retired in 1955, working as an independent author, his last bookHamann appearing in 1973.
Nebel switched his ideological alignment several times during his life; he identified as aSocial Democrat, aMarxist, aNihilist, anAtheist, aReactionary and after World War 2 he developed his own idiosyncratic form ofconservativism. His temper was choleric, and his style often polemic and zealous.[1]
^Rolf Vollmann: "Bei den Käfern beginnt die Metaphysik. Ernst Jünger wieder gelesen – zum Briefwechsel mit Gerhard Nebel". In:DIE ZEIT vom 27. November 2003
Franz Lennartz:Gerhard Nebel. In:Deutsche Schriftsteller des 20. Jahrhunderts im Spiegel der Kritik. Band 2. Kröner, Stuttgart 1984,ISBN3-520-82101-X, S. 1273–1276.
Lutz Hagestedt:Januskopf, Bezauberer und Epigone. Der Essayist Gerhard Nebel in einer Auswahl seiner Essays. In:literaturkritik.de. Nr. 1., Januar 2001.
Hans Dieter Haller:Gerhard Nebel (1903 bis 1974) in:Pegasus auf dem Land - Schriftsteller in Hohenlohe, Baier, Crailsheim 2006, S. 94–99,ISBN978-3-929233-62-9.
François Poncet (ed.):Gerhard Nebel. „Ein gewaltiger Verhöhner des Zeitgeistes“. Fink, München 2013.ISBN978-3-7705-5287-0.