Happy 125th Birthday, Ernst Jünger!

This article celebrates the birthday of the German warrior-poet Ernst Jünger and relates some of his core ideas to our present day and age.

Today (29.03) is the 125th birthday of the great German writer Ernst Jünger. He died a Roman Catholic in 1998 in Riedlingen, at the age of 103.

Early Life

Jünger was born in Heidelberg in 1895 as the eldest of six children of a successful businessman and chemist. Already in his youth, Jünger displayed a rebellious and adventurous streak. At the age of 18, he ran away to join the French Foreign Legion and was sent to bootcamp in Algeria. He deserted shortly after and was brought back to camp, and ultimately dismissed thanks to the intervention of the German Foreign Office and his father.

World War I & II

When the “Great War” broke out a year later, Ernst Jünger soon volunteered for the front. After being wounded in 1915, he enlisted as an officer aspirant (Fahnenjunker) and soon rose through the ranks. In his role as platoon leader he quickly gained renown due to his skill in combat as well as recon and offensive patrolling.

In his world-famous war memorials “In Stahlgewittern” (Storm of Steel, 1920) he recounts taking up a frontline position during the Battle of the Somme in a shelled defile that had been obliterated so completely that it was essentially just crater with filled with the remains of dead comrades.

“As the storm raged around us, I walked up and down my sector. The men had fixed bayonets. They stood stony and motionless, rifle in hand, on the front edge of the dip, gazing into the field. Now and then, by the light of a flare, I saw steel helmet by steel helmet, blade by glinting blade, and I was overcome by a feeling of invulnerability. We might be crushed, but surely we could not be conquered.” (1)

He was wounded for the final time near Favreuil, France, in 1918. After being shot through the chest during a clash with British forces, he clawed his way to a machine-gun post while blood was spurting from a punctured lung, where a doctor there told him to lie down immediately. While being carried away on a stretcher, the team came under fire and the doctor was killed. A soldier picked up Jünger and was killed after only some metres, and even then another one took his place to carry his comrade to safety. 

Jünger was awarded the Verwundetenabzeichen (Wounded Cross) and Pour le Merité, the highest German military decoration, being one of 11 infantry company leaders receiving this honour (compared to almost 700 high-ranking officers).

During the second world war, he served as an army captain and was stationed in France, where he socialised with French intellectuals during the occupation. His eldest son, Ernst Jr., was a naval cadet who was killed in Italy. After the war, Jünger was forbidden to publish for 4 years by the British occupation force because of his ‘suspicious’ views and refusal to submit to the ‘denazification’ process. 

Writings and Philosophy

The central theme of Jünger’s worldview and writings is that of Freedom. Not the cheap and hollow freedom offered by modern liberal society, but the hard-earned and defended inner Freedom of the individual who withstands the pulls and temptations of the flow of time. Jünger was a fervent critic of the weak Weimar Republic, stating that he "hated democracy like the plague." In his essay “On Pain”, he rejects the liberal values of liberty, security, ease, and comfort, and seeks instead the measure of man in the capacity to withstand pain and sacrifice. While espousing strong conservative, nationalist and traditional views, Jünger was not a keen supporter of the Third Reich and its racialist policies. However, he was friends with Martin Heidegger, one of the important German philosophers and National Socialist, and despite his intellectual dissidence of the Reich, he was not persecuted as a subversive writer.

In Jünger’s writings, four figures appear consecutively which reflect his own personal development: the Front Soldier, the Worker, the Rebel, and the Anarch or Waldgänger (forest-walker). (2)

Especially this latter forest-walker is relevant to our Iron Age of failed ideologies, crumbling liberalism and social disintegration; this age of spiritual slavery, coupled with the desperate manufacturing of consent. The Free Spirit is not an anarchist, but rather a radical individualist who resists being herded through state propaganda and comforting lies. The Forest is the embodiment of the German natural order and state of being. The forest-walker is a man who can say “No” to the confusions and moral dead ends offered by modernity.

For Jünger, 1945 was not a turning point that brought more freedom with the victory of the allies. He instead sees a continuous tendency of the entire age to enslave the individual. He does not distinguish between parliamentary democracies or authoritarian states, ultimately concluding that both of these simply enforce their will on the population in similar fashions. Even obviously authoritarian states (like the DDR or North Korea) hold elections, but even then the approval is only 98%. The 2% of ‘dissidents’ is needed by the state because it lets people believe that such dissidents are out there somewhere (they might even know one or two), but that overall everyone is ‘content’. The controlled opposition is allowed to exist as either fact or fiction, and only further serves to shore up the ‘proper’ political parties and opinions. 

Liberal-capitalist democracy and socialist people's democracy are two faces of the same tendency with easily corruptible low-status middle-managers. 

Elections are not contests on the best methods of operating, but popularity contests on whose political ‘tribe’ will have dominance this season. These parties do appear to contradict each other but simply serve as mutual pressure valve that allows a changing of the guard every couple of years. 

Based on the election process, which appears to take place freely, Jünger describes the dependence of the individual on the expectations that are openly or indirectly brought to him. Therefore the numbers of election results, polls and statistics are meaningless, they do not reflect the truth. Discipline demands that the individual must prove himself outside of these benchmarks where other demands are made. (3)

“The resistance of the forest-walker is absolute, he knows no neutrality, no pardon, no fortress detention. He does not expect the enemy to accept arguments, let alone be chivalrous. He also knows that as far as he's concerned, the death penalty will not make an exception for him.” (4)

Especially in these times, it is important to embrace the position of the forest-walker. To be a master over oneself before on can desire mastery over others, and to live by the natural order.

While in lockdown due to the government mandate over the Corona-virus, we are exposed to ever-changing statistics on death rates, conflicting information on how to ‘protect’ ourselves from the virus, as well as soothing propaganda that the state is functioning, while in reality state officials are committing suicide over the hopeless situation. We all know the state has no idea what it is doing and how it will cope with the situation, and that politicians are more concerned with their own careers than the wellbeing of the people. The Free Spirit instead disregards the panic of the government and the masses - he looks at the crisis-situation, thinks for himself and takes the appropriate measures to isolate himself physically and mentally from the mania of the world.

Coming back to the earlier quote: while the forest-walker does not expect chivalry and pardon from his enemies, he cannot reserve it for the enemies of the natural order either – or himself.

Be more like Ernst Jünger. Embrace your own position, form your own opinions, and resist the pied piper’s tune of faceless globalism.

An interview documentary can be found here.

Sources:

(1) Storm of Steel translated by Michael Hoffman, Penguin p. 99

(2) http://www.4pt.su/en/content/soldier-worker-rebel-anarch-introduction-ernst-junger

(3) https://wiki.staatspolitik.de/index.php?title=Der_Waldgang

(4) Ernst Niekisch: Der Waldgang, in: Sezession (2008), Heft 22: Ernst Jünger.