Ernst Jünger (1895–1998)

A forgotten antecedent to Storm of Steel, this serialized novella deals with Jünger's stand-in Sturm, mostly hunkered down in a bunker on the trench line, keeping company with his squad and engaging in some story-within-the-story storytelling, both of prior adventures and a fictionalized bit of prose from another soldier's POV. There's a lot of "slice of life" in the trenches, little portraits of characters and events that give some real verisimilitude, noting how they would hammer in show more fixtures in the wall above a fire to be able to cook or boil water. One soldier taking the time after being shelled to swig the last drops of his flask, because "it'd be a shame to waste it". And of course the looming shadow of instant brutal death, even in the recounting of earlier stratagems like synchronizing a gas attack in a mining tunnel with an above ground bombardment.
As with its bigger brother (Storm of Steel) there's not much sentimentality and maudlin reflection of the "war is hell" variety, the atrocities are very matter of fact, and while there's plenty of meaningless deaths, we mostly see a stoic soldier's soldier response to these threats. Nor is there a lot of reflecting on the cheap tricks used to get the better of The Other, or the man in the other trench being just another poor sap fighting a war for his betters (all of which ring more true for something like All Quiet on the Western Front). Instead the break from the war comes mostly in the form of desires and dreams, for the future, from times on leave, seeking women, pursuing art. There's very much a life beyond the trench that waits for them, no mindless grunts here. show less

Written at the fall of Weimar, Junger had an idea of what was to come.

He also knew there was no going back, diagnosing like Barzun in From Dawn to Decadence that the old ways died in the trenches.

'Between the body at the very instant of death and the corpse in the next, there is not the slightest relationship.'

'There are two breeds of men, one of which we recognize as ready to bargain at any price, the other as ready to fight at any cost.'

'Yet it is irrefutable that a locomotive can pull a show more company of soldiers instead of a dining car, and an engine can move a tank instead of a luxury vehicle - and the advance in traffic brings together more rapidly not only the good Europeans, but also the wicked ones. Likewise, the artificial synthesis of nitrogen compounds can be put to work both in agricultural technology and explosives. All those things can be ignored only as long as one does not come in contact with them.'

'So it has become possible for wars to be waged nowadays without anyone noticing, because the stronger side prefers to describe them as something like peaceful penetration, or police action against bands of robbers - wars that exist in reality, but not in theory.'

(Regarding zones of annihilation in the last war, like natural disasters) 'It is a romantic notion that their unleashing, their use in battle for life and death, can be prevented by social contracts. The assumption behind this notion is that man is good - however, man is not good, but rather good and evil at the same time. Any reckoning that can stand the test of reality must take into account that there is nothing of which man is not capable.'

The claims of the necessary usurpation of the bourgeois by the worker 'Typus', of total mobilization didn't last the Nazi/Soviet era, nor could he have predicted the rise of the consumer after they fell.

Regardless, Junger informs us that there is no going back from our present moment, and that nature and humans abhor a vacuum - so many want to be told what to do. show less

Brave, noble writing. I recognize this fiery character, as this youthful, strong and vibrant style and gamut attests for a seasoned fighter's spirit. Immature yet, well-experienced, yet overly bold in assessments. Compared to Junger's writing colouristics in Eumeswil, the latter seems a toned down realistic account of the major fruition of his life's harvests. "The Peace" however is as relevant today as it was in post-war times. Nowadays hatred and injustice are distributed in an act of show more inverted slavery, a silent, crawling one that vampirizes the world and replaces people's values, virtues, and freedom with surrogates and apparitions. show less

A condensed elucidation of the philosophy of one of the most affable fascist writers around, if that isn’t a too unpalatable turn of phrase, here espousing a gentlemanly Heraclitean ‘war is the father of all things’ mentality concerning WWI where one is able to lap up the horror and bloodlust of battle. Walter Benjamin’s distanced enjoyment of his own alienation is here twisted into an exhilaration before the spectacle of one’s own utter annihilation in a far more brutal setting show more than just your old stereotypical plain Jane petit-bourgeois concrete jungle. This work is the account of a true heir of Nietzsche, with all the warts and chancres and tasteless asides that entails. Definite must-read for fans of Mishima’s Sun and Steel and, like some kind of acrid Europa-endorsing fine wine, I’d pair this book with the discography of Death in June - my go to would be ‘Oh How we Laughed’ but ‘But, What Ends when the Symbols Shatter?’ would probably do just as well. show less