When reviewing the corpus of twentieth-century German literature, one of the most widely respected (and controversial) figures is Ernst Jünger. A gifted diarist, novelist, entomologist, soldier, and political thinker, his life spanned nearly the entirety of the century, being born in 1895 and departing life in 1998. He first came to prominence during World War One as the youngest winner of the Pour le Mérite (Imperial Germany’s equivalent to the Medal of Honor), and his resulting memoir Storm of Steel made a name for him among the disaffected war veterans of the Conservative Revolution. He also met or corresponded with Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Carl Schmitt, Pablo Picasso, Adolf Hitler, Bertolt Brecht, Jean Cocteau, and nearly every other political or cultural figure of note during the interwar years. During World War Two, he was stationed in occupied Paris and maintained a beautifully written diary (Professor Neaman wrote a lucid introduction for the recent translation by Columbia University Press) that expressed a growing disillusionment with the Nazi regime and reflections on what would necessary in the postwar years to build a lasting peace.
However, after the war Jünger was not perceived as sufficiently penitent for his earlier martial writings, and it is his post-war reception and literary creations which are the primary focus of this illuminating study. Professor Neaman devotes the early chapters of his book to a brief biography of Jünger’s early years. Jünger is still a comparatively neglected figure in English translation, but Professor Neaman has the valuable asset of solid German and was willing to do the heavy work of researching archives for primary sources. After recounting young Jünger’s war years, Professor Neaman elaborates on his work during the 1930s when Jünger was building his reputation. Although Storm of Steel is his most famous work, the volume that attracted more scholarly attention was Der Arbeiter (trans. The Worker), which envisioned a warrior-worker caste that would mobilize all of society on a potentially planetary scale. I am hesitant to use the word utopian in describing its scheme, but like so much of Jünger’s life, it bore influences from both the far left and far right. As with his later thought, people of many different persuasions could find something to enjoy in Jünger’s writings.
Shortly before World War Two began, Jünger published a fascinating, short novel titled On the Marble Cliffs. Anticipating magical realism, the story revolves around a young man who lives on an island with his brother, infant son, the son’s maternal grandmother, and a garden of snakes. Their home rests beneath a towering cliff of marble, but the actual threat that looms over them is the Chief Ranger. A possible stand-in for Hitler or Goering, the Chief Ranger seeks to dominate the island and set everything they know ablaze. Jünger in one scene was eerily prescient in depicting an abattoir that resembles the slaughter of Dachau. Eventually, the brothers flee into exile, which mirrored the internal migration Jünger pursued as Hitler solidified his hold on power. Although the book was officially banned within weeks, copies were still widely available and even read by soldiers on the Eastern Front, many of whom viewed the novel as a parable about Soviet totalitarianism.
After World War Two, Jünger refused to participate in the denazification process. As Professor Neaman notes, this was technically a criminal offense. However, the Allied authorities did not want to arrest one of Germany’s famous writers, so Jünger’s only punishment was a ban on publication. Even this, however, was lifted within a few years. Still, Jünger was somewhat of a pariah in polite company for a decade. In the 1960s, however, he saw a renewal of his reputation as a younger generation became interested in his drug-influenced writings (Visit to Godenholm being chief among them). Another significant philosophical idea was the figure of the anarch. This was not the bomb-chucking, mohawk-wearing anarchist of popular perception, but rather a philosophical, cultured man who elected to retreat into his study and reflect on the chaos of the outside world. These ideas best came to the fore in his book Eumeswil. Neaman notes that by 1973 Jünger’s reputation was sufficiently rehabilitated to be shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
It is in the final years of Jünger’s life that Neaman’s writing becomes most interesting. He notes that Jünger always remained more controversial within German circles than abroad. The German Democratic Republic cited him as proof that fascism was alive and well in the Federal Republic, while Bonn always remained uneasy at his continued dismissal of liberalism and modern parliamentary democracy. His former enemies, the French, had a greater appreciation for his works. In 1982, Frankfurt – the city of the world’s oldest book festival – awarded him the Goethe Prize, named after a similar iconoclast lambasted in his time. The award generated significant controversy in the feuilletons, but Jünger nonetheless accepted. Jünger carried on until 1998, dying at 102 – a record unmatched among the literati of Europe.
As I noted previously, Professor Neaman performed a thorough job reviewing the secondary literature in English, German, and French. He also was willing to go over the various editions of Jünger’s works with a fine-tooth comb. Unlike many other authors whose various editions carry essentially the same text, Jünger was a persistent reviser and many of his works, such as the diaries, carry significant differences in meaning depending on which edition is being read. From an aesthetic perspective, the book itself is also finely stitched with a tight binding that deters wrinkles. The University of California Press produced a volume that was physically a pleasure to handle.
Jünger can appear contradictory, but he argued he was a seismograph measuring the times. Even in the most turbulent of eras, there was a single line pushing forward. This may have been a convenient shield against criticism, but it also reflected Jünger’s conscious attempt to measure the full scope of human experience. Neaman appreciates and understands this about Jünger. Even twenty years after the publication of Neaman’s book, it remains the best English language study of this brilliant author.
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