Ernst Jünger. Die Biographie (review)

The dust-jacket of Helmuth Kiesel's biography of Ernst Jünger (1895–1998) depicts the subject seated on a lawn chair. His legs are crossed left over right. His hands are crossed right over left and rest comfortably in his lap. The upper torso is crowned by the head, eyes gazing directly at the viewer with a pleasantly serious expression. This white-haired man of seventy or so is at peace with himself, is self-possessed. The portrait photograph invites the reader to explore the subject in Die Biographie, a designation suggesting that this very long book is the authoritative last word on Jünger's very long life.

The first section is entitled "Geborgenheit und Abenteuerlust" (19–73) and is fronted by a photo of Jünger in the uniform of the French Foreign Legion (dated 1913). The gaze of the stiffly-posed young man of 18 does not engage the viewer; it seeks a future beyond the settled gentility of the villa in Rehburg on the Steinhuder Meer. His schooling was defined by dreams of adventure and by the voracious reading of the "Schulklassiker" of Germany's imperial era as an antidote to what Walter Benjamin termed the "Elend des öden Schulbetriebs." This "Leben in der Literatur" (43) was accompanied by his participation in the activities of the "Wandervogel" (46–47), rites so typical of the times, as well as by first attempts at writing ("Die Kunst ist auch bei uns vertreten / Durch Jünger oder den Poeten" 48), by poetry linking African adventures of the legionnaire to the homeland: "Jetzt steh ich hier in der blauen Montur, / Der verklärte Blick grüßt die deutsche Flur" (52). Later in life the adventures of his youth informed his lesser-known writings, works Kiesel treats with close attention to textual and contextual issues (56–73).

The second and third sections, "Im 'Großen Krieg'" (75–133) and "'De bello maximo': der Kriegsschriftsteller" (136–261), are a must read for anyone in German Studies. Kiesel's highly readable presentation of Jünger's battlefield experiences and his exposition of the author's Verarbeitung of the horrors of World War I define a significant tradition in 20^th-century literary war narrative. In Stahlgewittern, Aus dem Tagebuch eines Stoßtruppführers (1920 and revisions: 1922, 1924, 1934, 1961, 1978) was, to be sure, suffused by the ideology of heroic Kriegertum, so much so that the text was co-opted by National Socialism (Günter Grass's recent memoir tells of his having to read it in school). Kiesel knows full well that Jünger is hardly Remarque, whose Im Westen nichts Neues (1929) was banned by the Nazis, yet he treats Jünger with understanding (as does Grass in the 1914–1918 chapters of Mein Jahrhundert). The sections are not framed as an apologia, rather as a thoroughly researched scholarly exposition and evaluation of Jünger's intellectual and stylistic achievement. Kiesel points to the influence of Dante, Grimmelshausen, Nietzsche, Hamann, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Goethe, Spengler, Thomas Mann, and others (to include Rimbaud), enabling him to conclude: "Jünger wurde nach seiner Abwendung vom Expressionismus zu einem Vertreter dieser reflektierten Moderne, die bei ihm betont klassizistischen Zug annahm" (162). The novel is based on wartime journals, the wording and exposition of which were polished over the years (212–229). The novel may lack the Expressionistic immediacy of Trakl's "Grodek." It may present a vision of war at variance with that of Remarque (whose positive review of Jünger's novel is discussed [208–209]), yet Jünger (an officer who read Ariosto's Orlando Furioso when on leave from the trenches) also created a 'modern' classic. This assessment is objectively grounded and surely an extension of Kiesel's book Geschichte der literarischen Moderne (2004).

The fourth section "Studium und nationalistische Publizistik" (263–399) is fronted by two photographs, one of a rally for Hitler, the other of Thomas Mann at a podium in 1930 with the audience turned away...