A Historiographical Examination on Ernst Junger's Ideas - Essay Example

 A Historiographical Essay on Ernst Junger Ernest Junger, a German veteran and one of its most controversial as well as important writers, is a person whose life and literature has influenced German literature and the modern studies of WWI. Born in 1895 in Heidelberg Germany to a wealthy chemist, he ran away at the age of 17 years to join a foreign legion. His father brought him back after some time only for him to conscript for the German army at the start of the World War I. He served with distinction from his western front of the German army culminating in his being honored with the Iron Cross First Class in 1917 and the Blue Max; the highest military decoration that could have been awarded by the then Prussia in 1918. During and after the war, he wrote and edited many books and right wing journals. These included Storm of Steel (1920), Die totale Mobilmachung-1930 (The Total Mobilization), Der arbeiter-1932 (The Worker), On Marble Cliffs-1947, On Pain, Der Vormarsch amongst others. Through his real life and writing, he has influenced German literature and modern studies of WWII. The backbone of his writings, ideas and ideologies are greatly influenced by his military career and experiences in WWII. His writings give a peek into his thoughts and ideologies, and these have been reviewed by many writers and critics who in the end judge him variously as a militarist, a nationalist, or as a fascist. And others say he is among the greatest writers of modern Germany and a personification of the conservative revolutionary movement. Nevin asserts that Junger is one of the most controversial 21st Century writers in Europe with a remarkable writing career spanning five periods of the history of modern Germany1. In his book, Ernest Junger and Germany: into the Abyss, Nevin avers that Ernst Junger was ‘politically incorrect writer par- excellence’. He treats him not as the ‘national institution’ the public and press viewed him, but as a contradictory figure whose actions include his parable attacking despotism in 1939 and refusing to join the Nazi party when he was assumed to be a fascist. These confirm Junger’s contradictory and controversial nature2. Though a brilliant writer, Ernst Junger is dismissed as militarist and nationalist, a trait clearly witnessed in his Die totale Mobilmachung-1930 (The Total Mobilization) and Der arbeiter-1932 (The Worker). In the two books, Junger paints a dictatorial state coordinated along military lines embodied by the star worker3. Junger’s writings during the war portray modern warfare as an industrial adventure and are a model for the new excellent society where the shortcomings of a society in times of peace are addressed by a total mobilization and organization of the society along military lines. In this case, the new Germany is dominated by the worker soldier. The use of military expressions, comparison of a society to a military structure, and Junger’s vision of a fully mobilized society as a cure for the ills seen at peacetime and as a vehicle for progress of the German nation clearly portrays him as being militaristic. His desire to join a foreign legion and later seizing the opportunity to join the German Army at the onset of World War I demonstrates his love for things military. In addition, his writings of a new social order based on military structures show his militaristic ideologies. Junger glorifies war in Storm of Steel. He portrays it as an internal event that elevates the life of a soldier into a mystical experience that made him so famous. Junger embodied the quandary that was Germany’s 20th century militarism4. According to him, the life of a soldier is a life that is separated from normal humanity. He also claims that modern military techniques on their extremities have tested the capacity of senses of man5. Although Junger brings out such examples as the terrible killing or wounding of his friends, they are brief and nonchalant6. Benjamin describes Junger as a fascist from his writing The Worker. This highlights the where out of the depths of war; the worker abhors the earlier bourgeois life of self preservation and is the trooper of fascist total mobilization. Junger is proposing a new social order with a military structure. Benjamin describes such a worker as akin to a natural force whose face bears the features of death7. Junger is a proponent of the ‘anesthetization’ of politics who agrees with some of Nazi and Hitler’s principles. Later on, he disagreed with some of Hitler’s violent methods. His graphic description of the events in the trenches confirm that Junger acknowledges most things in the human condition but would always get evidence to contradict the view point of human optimism8. Nationalism and militarism is also evidenced in Junger’s life through his work The Adventurous Heart, a book that was published in 1929, and The Worker published in 1932. In work The Adventurous Heart, he describes the Jews as a threat to unity among the Germans. On the other hand, in the worker, he called for the creation of a society that was totally mobilised and is run by warrior-worker-soldiers. Authors who claim that Junger was a fascist argue that he never showed sympathy to the political style of the native Germans that was popular among the Nazis. One of the authors who described Junger as fascist is Walter Benjamin. Out of a collection of essays entitled War and Warrior that Junger edited, Benjamin wrote a review that was published in 1930; Theories of German Fascism. This review is in effect a judgment of Junger’s essays and assertion that he is a fascist. Benjamin is highly critical of what he observes as the aestheticization of politics; its vehicle being war and its fuel being technology9. Strathausen describes Junger as a man to whom war is a spellbinding spectacle to behold. When describing his book Total Mobilization, the WWII is the war of materiel or rather, Materialschlachten. Junger describes it as a spectacle, both grandiose and frightful and yet, it is a war on which the bloody triumph of the human talent of organization is celebrated10. However, an author like Benjamin expresses a lot of criticism of the style and level in which carnage has been glorified and anesthetized. From such criticism, it is clear that such authors have not observed that the material and new warfare technology as the highest revelation of existence as seen by others like Junger. The war and such technologies are signified by the marks of heroism that survived the world war and are there until today. Benjamin notes that technology with its depravity reduced nature to silence and gave it an apocalyptic face. He also ponders how a future war, facilitated by technology, would be5. Junger’s contributions during World War II heightened the perceptions some people had of him as a fascist; attracting a lot of hostility towards him by the left, while the right wing saw him as a monument for them; an embodiment of the true German nation. These conflicting perceptions about Junger led to a biased analysis of his work. In his essay titled The Pain, Junger out rightly expressed his rejection of the liberal values of comfort, ease, liberty, and security. Instead, he seeks the measure of human beings in their capacity to withstand pain and sacrifice. This gives a picture of Junger as being antidemocratic. This is supported by some of his other works like Le Coeur Aventireux, his literary works published in 1942. Barnouw asserts Jungers’ antidemocratic trait through his criticism against the unstable and fragile democracy of the Weimer republic. Junger stated that he hated democracy like the plague11. Conclusion Ernest Junger is one of German’s veteran and one of its leading controversial writers, and many authors have made critical analysis into his life and works. Though variously described as fascist, militaristic and even nationalist, Junger would befit more the description of a controversial writer whose beliefs oscillate between pure fantasy and idealism to a practical and dynamic ideologist. His experiences, pain and sense of triumph during war draws him to make comparisons between war and society, and use the lessons of war as a springboard to future prosperity. He hoped that after defeat in World War I, Germany would incorporate the painful lessons of a lost war to adopt a new collective ideology as a way to move forward as a world super power. However, the content of his thoughts may have portrayed him as a militarist and fascist in the views of Nevin and Benjamin. For example, Junger glorifies and exalts war in some of his famous works like the storm of steel. This contradicts other famous books about war, for instance, All Quiet on the Western Front by a fellow veteran Remarque. Notes 1. Baird, J. (1990). To Die for Germany: Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon. Bloomington. Indiana. University Press 2. Barnouw, D. (1988). Weimar Intellectuals and the Threat of Modernity. Bloomington. Indiana University Press. 3. Benjamin, W. (1994). "Theories of German Fascism." in The Weimar Republic Sourcebook. Kaes, Anton; Jay, Martin; Dimendberg, Edward (eds.) Berkeley. University of California Press. 4. Hoffmann, M. (2004). Junger Ernst. Storm of Steel. Translated with an Introduction. London. Penguin. 5. Huyssens, A. (1993). "Fortifying the Heart Totally: Ernst Jünger's Armored Texts." New German Critique. (59) pp 3- 23. 6. Nevin,T. (1996). Ernest Junger and Germany: into the Abyss, 1914-1945. Durham, NC, USA. Duke university press. 7. Strathausen, C. (2000). "The Return of the Gaze: Stereoscopic Vision in Junger and Benjamin." New German Critique (80) pp 125. 8. Peitsch, Helmut, Charles Burdett, and Claire Gorrara. European Memories of the Second World War. New york: Berghahn Books, 1999. 9. Roberts , David. The Total Work of Art in European Modernism. New York: Cornell University Press, 2011. 10. Tucker, Spencer, ed. World War I:A Political, Military and Social History. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005. s.v. "Junger, Ernst (1895-1998)." http://books.google.co.ke/books?id= (accessed November 30, 2011). Read More