Ernst junger biography

Ernst Jünger (29 March &#; 17 February ) was a German writer. In addition to his political essays, novels and diaries, he is well known for Storm of Steel, an account of his experience during World War I.

Jünger was born in Heidelberg, German Empire on 29 March He was raised in Hannover, German Empire. Jünger was married to Gretha Von Jeinsen from until her death in They had two children. Jünger died on 17 February in Riedlingen, Germany from natural causes, aged

References

Other websites

Media related to Ernst Jünger at Wikimedia Commons

By Richard Kühl

Summary

Early Life

Ernst Jünger () grew up in a middle-class German home. Just after finishing his secondary education in , he volunteered and was sent with an infantry regiment to the western front. He was promoted to lieutenant at the end of , and he participated in the Battle of the Somme in , the Battle of Cambrai in , and the Spring Offensive in The “Stoßtruppführer” (assault group leader) was awarded the Pour le mérite in

Storm of Steel and “New Nationalism”

After the war, Jünger served first in the new Reichswehr (German military defense forces), during which time he wrote In Stahlgewittern (, english translation: The Storm of Steel, ), Der Kampf als inneres Erlebnis (The Struggle as an Inner Experience, ), and the novel Sturm (). His initially self-published debut, based on his own wartime diaries, described the war from the point of view of a front-line officer. Because of the precise details of the depicted wartime experiences, including the horrors of war, the book was partly received positively by pacifists and among others, had an influence on Erich Maria Remarque (), author of All Quiet on the Western Front.

However, that was not Jünger’s intention. After leaving the Reichswehr in , he became a prominent character of the soldierly “new nationalism.” In , Storm of Steel was republished

German soldier and author (–)

Ernst Jünger (German pronunciation:[ɛʁnstˈjʏŋɐ]; 29 March – 17 February ) was a German author, highly decorated soldier, philosopher, and entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir Storm of Steel.

The son of a successful businessman and chemist, Jünger rebelled against an affluent upbringing and sought adventure in the Wandervogel German youth movement, before running away to briefly serve in the French Foreign Legion, which was an illegal act in Germany. However, he escaped prosecution due to his father's efforts and was able to enlist in the German Army on the outbreak of World War I in During an ill-fated offensive in Jünger was badly wounded and was awarded the Pour le Mérite, a rare decoration for one of his rank. Since new awards of the military class ceased with the end of the Prussian monarchy in November , Jünger, who died in , was the last living recipient of the military class award.

He wrote against liberal values, democracy, and the Weimar Republic, but rejected the advances of the Nazis who were rising to power. During World War II Jünger served as an army captain in occupied Paris, but by he had turned decisively against Nazi totalitarianism, a change manifested in his work "Der Friede" (The Peace). Jünger was dismissed from the army in after he was indirectly implicated with fellow officers who had plotted to assassinate Hitler. A few months later, his son died in combat in Italy after having been sentenced to a penal battalion for political reasons.

After the war, Jünger was treated with some suspicion as a possible fellow traveller of the Nazis. By the later stages of the Cold War, his unorthodox writings about the impact of materialism in modern society were widely seen as conservative rather than radical nationalist, and his philosophical works came to be highly regarded in mainstream German circles. Jünger ended life as an h

review

Ernst Jünger (), writer, fighter, beetle-sighter, was one of the most contradictory and controversial figures of the twentieth century. In the course of his long career he could count Borges and Celan among his admirers, alongside Hitler and Goebbels. He was a war hero and a dandy, a fervent nationalist and an equally fervent anarchist; he was accused of helping to pave the way for Nazism and upheld as an outspoken critic of the Nazi party. He wrote autobiography and fiction, essays and aphorisms: his eight decades of writing include works on his experience in the trenches, a book about beetles, another about drugs, 5 odd pages of diaries, and essays on everything from military theory to metaphysics.

Schwilk, a journalist who knew Jünger personally and has had unlimited access to the Ernst-Jünger-Archiv in Marbach, has written a well-researched and highly readable book. The young soldier’s passionate obsession with war and death is dwelt on at some length. But the author is also quick to point out the inconsistencies – and so Jünger’s bloodthirstiness is mitigated by his sporadic war weariness, and later put into perspective by his horror of automatised warfare. Jünger’s decisions to join the foreign legion and to volunteer to fight in the First World War, along with his experiments with drugs and his love of nature and literature are all interpreted as various forms of escapism, ways of seeking refuge from his lifelong sense of being an outsider. The biography begins and ends with Jünger’s funeral and with his conversion to Catholicism shortly before his death. It also includes some curious sidelights, such as its subject’s father’s views on women. What a man needed in a wife, opined Jünger père, was simply good teeth: beauty and intelligence were better avoided.

Although Jünger is by no means as well-known in the English-speaking world as in Germany, there is plenty here to interest English-language readers. Recent re-issues of TheGlass B