Ernst Jünger

of Ernst Jünger (1895 - 1998) is a German writer .

As a contemporary and a witness of the European history of the 20th century, Jünger is known for its participation as soldier in both world wars, in the trenches for the first and as officer of occupation in Paris for the second. As a writer, it became celebrates rather young person after the publication in Orages of steel (1920) of its memories of the First World War. After this first book, and until the end of its life to more than one hundred years, it published many accounts and Essai S as well as a newspaper of the years 1939 - 1948 then 1965 - 1996. Among its accounts, On marble cliffs (1939), is one of its most known books. Francophile and French-speaking, Ernst Jünger saw its work completely translated into French and “it forms part, with Günther Grass and Heinrich Böll, of the German authors most translated into France”.

Biography

Youth & First World War under the “steel Storms”

After an agitated youth, at sixteen years, Ernst Jünger joined the group of youth “ the migratory birds ” Wandervogel then running away at the seventeen years age to engage in the French Foreign legion. It reconsiders this adventure twenty years afterwards in the autobiographical novel African Jeux published in 1936.

It goes voluntary as soon as the emperor Guillaume II orders the mobilization in August 1914. It takes part with heat and enthusiasm in the First World War, is wounded fourteen times and receives, a few weeks before the end of the Guerre, highest German decoration, the cross For the Merit .

He tells after war his experiment of the war of the trenches, like private initially, then as chief of the shock troops, in the book Orages of steel published on account of author in 1920 on the councils of his father. It in particular described there the lived horrors but as fascination as the experiment of this type of combat inspired to him. This book was a great success near the public and is today still its book more read. Andre Gide written: “The book of Ernst Jünger on the war of 14, Orages of steel , is incontestably more the beautiful book of war which I read, of a bona fide, a honesty, a veracity perfect”.

In 1922, he writes the war like interior experiment ( of Der Kampf als inneres Erlebnis ), at the same time a novel and a test where appear, in addition to its memories of the Great War and the effect on the heart of the soldiers of living conditions extrèmes in the trenches, its first reflections philosophical and political on bravery and the Pacifisme.

Inter-war period: nationalism and revolution

After the defeat and its demobilization he works a time for the ministry for the Reichswehr with Hanover. He collaborates in the drafting of handbooks intended for the troops of infantry. August 31st 1923, it leaves the army and starts studies of Natural science and Entomologie to Leipzig. It also follows courses of philosophy near Hans Driesch and Felix Krüger, and reads abundantly, in particular Spengler and Nietzsche. It accomplishes several study trips of the Zoologie to Naples of which one from February in April 1925. It leaves the University on May 26th, 1926. It settles on its account as writer and political journalist. He then writes in various nationalist publications “a good hundred articles in a gloss”, those of the leagues of war veterans in particular, and attends the revolutionary national circles, constitutive of a movement of thought called the preserving Révolution under the Weimar Republic. He attends Otto Strasser as well as Erich Mühsam and becomes close to Ernst Niekisch, German ideologist principal of the National-Bolchevism. He becomes a figure in the nationalist intellectual medium. He publishes in 1930 the historico-political test entitled the total Mobilization , and, in 1932, the Worker , “crowning of the political reflections of the author” according to Louis Dupeux. In these two publications the néo-nationalism of Jünger is largely expressed, in a celebration of the State, technique, motivating factor, and Vitalisme.

Advent of Third Reich and Second world war

Approached by the party Nazi because of his past of War veteran and its patriotic writings, he refuses any participation and resigns even of his club the old ones of the regiment by learning exclusion from the Jewish members. As of April 1933 the Gestapo searches its house and it is supervised permanently by the mode. He refuses on November 18th of the same year to sit at the German Academy of literature where he was elected on June 9th. He leaves Berlin for Goslar. In 1936, it is withdrawn in the countryside, Überlingen first of all, then with Kirchhorst. He undertakes in the years which follow more or less remote voyages (Norway, Brésil, France, Rhodos).

In 1939 appears what many criticisms regard as its masterpiece, On marble cliffs , an allegorical novel often interpreted like denouncing cruelty Nazi. This allegory exceeds the simple dispute of authoritarianism triumphing then in Germany. It is about a subtle illustration of the forces to work in the establishment of a dictatorial mode. The world described, timeless, exceeds the factual framework of its time and makes feel the enfermement interior one under the weight of the outside world.

See also: On marble cliffs

Its life is then threatened by this publication, the Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler intervenes in person with Hitler, but Jünger miraculeusement escapes any sanction because of sympathy which Führer for the hero of the First World War tests (titular of the cross For the merit ) and its accounts of war.

Jünger is mobilized on August 30th 1939 in the Wehrmacht with the rank of captain. It takes part in the countryside of France then, after the victory of the Germans, Hans Speidel the fact of integrating the Parisian staff. It has one office with the hotel “Majestic”. “This station the met in the middle of the intrigues and the tensions which oppose the military command to the various units of the party. ” It can devote its spare time to write its Journal of war as its test entitled the Peace which it starts to write as of the autumn 1940 and which anticipates with the necessary reconciliation of the nations and essential European construction.

Its newspaper, whose first volume Gardens and roads leaves as of 1942 French and German, is a mixture of observations of nature with its flowers and its insects, of reports of its literary frequentations in the Parisian living rooms, of which that of Florence Gould, and finally of remarks of a disillusioned clearness which underline its withdrawal in an interior world:

Paris, July 30th, 1944

An heavy shower makes me spend a few moments to the Rodin museum, that usually I hardly like. (…) Perhaps the archeologists of future ages will find these statues right under the layer of the tanks and the aerial torpedos. One will wonder how such objects can be if brought closer, and one will erect scaffolding of the assumptions subtiles.

One also finds in his newspapers his horror of what seized Germany, his hatred of Hitler (which it indicates only under the name of Kniebolo ) and of its partisans (that it indicates of the name of lémures ) and his shame in front of yellow stars that it crosses in the streets: “I am then taken of dislike to the sight of the uniforms, the shoulder pads, decorations, of the weapons, things of which I liked the glare so much. ”

It belongs to the entourage of Rommel which is one of the first readers of Peace . It does not take part in the plot against Hitler of 1944 but is suspected rightly of having been with the current of the attack. “I will never comfort myself to have burned after July 20th the newspaper that I held at this time” writes it on May 25th, 1988. It is transferred in the territorial troops in Germany. At the time of the final battles it is restricted to prohibit its men from resisting when it notes the arrival of the American tanks.

November 29th, 1944, his/her 18 years old son dies of a ball in the head in central Italy in the mountains of Carrare. “Since childhood, it endeavoured to follow his father. And here that first blow, it does better than him, exceeds it infinitely. ”

Post-war period: “anarque” the centenary

After the capitulation, it is interdict of publication during four years because of its refusal to subject to the procedures Dénazification allies. Of 1950 until its death in 1998, it lives in a small village of Souabe, Wilflingen, and it travels throughout the world to appease its passion of the Entomologie (passion which was the subject of the book subtle Chasses ). Some beetles and butterflies bear its name.

He which had been until 1930 a figure of the nationalist right defends after 1945 an individualism anarchizing, radically hostile in the State Léviathan, with its tests Passage on the line (1950) and Traité of the rebel (1951), then his novel Eumeswill (1977).

In 1982 the attribution of the price Goethe starts protests in Germany on behalf of the liberals who do not accept his militarist past but his hundredth birthday, in 1995, is the occasion of several official celebrations and it is invited to lunch in the Elysium by François Mitterrand which tests a great admiration for him. Some consider that Ernst Jünger, with Thomas Mann, is one of the great writers of German language of the 20th century. It also bound after war with one of the great writers of French language, Julien Gracq, which often mentioned admiration that it tests for the work of Jünger and in particular for On marble cliffs .

The work of Jünger seems to have to be considered under the lighting of the experiments lived by the man in his intimate life. It is in particular one of the rare writers to have devoted a work to intoxication in the broad sense, that given by the most various drugs (Ether, Haschich, Opium, Cocaïne, LSD…) and traditional drinks (Beer, Wine, The). It is necessary to hear the word intoxication within the meaning of modification of the perception of the directions and the report/ratio at time. Its personal experience of these substances is reported in this astonishing test that is Approches, drugs and intoxications (1970), and who is not without pointing out wine and hashish of Charles Baudelaire.

Lastly, Héliopolis is a work impressed of a naive humanity, alive and attracted by chemical vacation out of ego intolerable (cf A. Huxley).

In Germany of the post-war period it became a discussed figure. The polemic relates to primarily its position of essay writer and publicity agent in many nationalist reviews of the Twenties and Thirties, and the influence which it could have exerted on the executives of the Nazi party and their accession with the capacity in 1933 with in particular the publication in 1932 of its test the Worker .

September 26th 1996, it converts with the Catholicisme.

Work

Of alive sound two general editions of its works were published successively. The first in ten volumes of 1960 with 1965 at Ernst Klett (original title: Gesammelte Werke ). The second in eighteen volumes of 1978 with 1983 at Klett-Cotta (original title: Sämtliche Werke ). It is not a question of “complete” works truly insofar as none of its many political articles published in newspapers between 1920 and 1932 appear in it. A publication of work in the Pleiad is awaited for spring 2008.

Accounts and novels

Storms of steel ( In Stahlgewittern - 1920)
the war like interior experiment ( Der Kampf als inneres Erlebnis - 1922)
the Lieutenant Sturm ( Sturm - 1923)
Fire and blood - Short episode of a great battle ( Feuer und Blut. Ein kleiner Ausshmitt aus einer grossen Schlacht - 1925)
the adventurous Heart ( Das abenteuerliche Herzv - 1929)

African Plays ( Afrikanische Spiele - 1936)

On marble cliffs ( Auf den Marmorklippen - 1939)

Héliopolis ( Heliopolis - 1949)

Visit in Godenholm ( Besuch auf Godenholm - 1952)

Bees of glass ( Gläserne Bienen - 1957 )

the Catapults ( Die Zwille - 1973)

Eumeswil ( Eumeswil - 1977)

the Problem of Aladdin ( Aladins Problem - 1983)

Three ways of schoolboy - Late revenge ( Sp. R. - Drei Schulwege - 2003) - posthumous

Tests

the Worker ( Der Arbeiter - 1931)
Peace ( Der Friede - 1946)
the treaty of the Rebel or the recourse to the forests ( Der Waldgänger - 1951)
the Wall of time ( Year der Zeitmauer - 1959)
the universal State ( Der Weltstaat - 1960)
subtle Huntings ( Subtle Jagden - 1967)
Approaches, drugs and intoxication ( Annäherungen, Drogen und Rausch - 1970)
the Author and the Writing ( Autor und Autorschaft - 1982)
the scissors ( Die Schere - 1990)

Newspapers

Journal of war ( Strahlungen - 1949)
Seventy is erased ( Siebzig verweht - 1977)

Posterity

a vegetable Taxon and a score of let us tax animal were dedicated to Jünger.
the Ernst-Jünger price decreed by the Land of Bade-Wurtemberg reward of the research tasks in Entomology.
the grant Ernst-Jünger intended for the researchers in social sciences is granted by the Land of Bade-Wurtemberg.

See too

Random links: