Ernst Jünger (born March 29, 1895,Heidelberg, Ger.—died Feb. 16, 1998, Wilflingen) was a German novelist and essayist, anardent militarist who was one of the most complex and contradictory figures in 20th-centuryGerman literature.

Jünger joined theFrench Foreign Legion in 1913, but his father had him brought back toGermany. In 1914 he volunteered for the German Army at the outbreak ofWorld War I and served as an officer on theWestern Front throughout the conflict. As a soldier Jünger wasconspicuous for his bravery: he was wounded at least seven times, and in 1918 he was awarded thePour le Mérite medal, Germany’s highest military decoration. After the war he publishedIn Stahlgewittern (1920;The Storm of Steel), anovel in the form of a diary; it contains vivid recollections of his life in the trenches and his experiences in combat as a company commander. In a dispassionate, matter-of-fact voice, Jünger describes the heroism and suffering displayed by himself and his fellow soldiers in the brutal fighting on the Western Front.The Storm of Steel was a success with critics and public alike in Germany and other countries. Two years later he publishedDer Kampf als inneres Erlebnis (“Combat as an Internal Experience”).

After being discharged from the army in 1923, Jünger studiedzoology andbotany at the Universities of Leipzig and Naples. He published further recollections and reflections on his war experiences inDas Wäldchen (1925; “The Grove”) andFeuer und Blut (1925; “Fire and Blood”). Despite his militarism, his preference forauthoritarian government, and his radical nationalist ideals, Jünger resistedAdolf Hitler’s offers of friendship in the late 1920s and declined to join the Nazi movement even after it came to power in Germany in 1933. Indeed, during Hitler’s chancellorship, he wrote a daringallegory on the barbarian devastation of a peaceful land in the novelAuf den Marmorklippen (1939;On the Marble Cliffs), which, surprisingly, passed the censors and was published in Germany. Jünger served as an army staff officer in Paris duringWorld War II, but by 1943 he had turned decisively against Nazi totalitarianism and its goal of world conquest, a changemanifested inDer Friede (written 1943, pub. 1948; “The Peace”). Jünger was dismissed from the army in 1944 after he was indirectly implicated with fellow officers who had plotted to kill Hitler. A few months later, his son died in combat inItaly after having been sentenced to a penal battalion for political reasons.

Jünger’s postwar novels includeHeliopolis (1949) andGläserne Bienen (1957;The Glass Bees), a disturbing story of a jobless former soldier in an overmechanized world symbolized by artificial bees and marionettes. After 1950 Jünger lived in self-imposed isolation inWest Germany while continuing to publishbrooding, introspective novels and essays on various topics. In such later books asAladins Problem (1983), he tended to condemn the militaristic attitudes that had led to Germany’s disastrous participation in the World Wars. Jünger’sSämtliche Werke (“Complete Works”) were published in 18 volumes from 1978 to 1983.