English

Ernst Jünger - Interwar Articles

Ernst Jünger (b. 1895) came to prominence during the 1920s as the foremost chronicler of the “front experience” (“ Fronterlebnis ”) of World War I. His well-nigh lyrical descriptions of trench warfare and the great” battles of materiel” (“Materialschlachten”) – that is, of those aspects which made this war unique in human history – in works such as In the Storm of Steel (1920) and War as Inner Experience (1922) earned him the reputation of a type of “aesthetician of carnage.” In this way, Jünger, who was deeply influenced by Nietzsche’s critique of “European Nihilism,” viewed the energies unleashed by the Great War as a heroic countermovement to European world–weariness: as a proving ground for an entire series of masculinist warrior-virtues that seemed in danger of eclipse at the hands of an effete, decadent, and materialistic bourgeois Zivilisation . Yet, the war of 1914–1918 had proved that in the modern age warfare was more dependent on the amassing of technological capacities rather than acts of individual heroism, and this realization left a deep imprint on all of Jünger’s writing in the form of a profound amor fati . Thus, as the following passage from War as Inner Experienc

Sign in with your free account to read, download EPUBs or listen.