ERNST JUENGER
465
supranationalism, religion. But if in these last three books, Juenger
makes a desperate effort to re-establish contact with the tradition of
the West, in the process he has also become trite and banal. The
values that he rediscovers and advocates with the enthusiasm of the
neophyte have become emptied of substance. Their heritage can no
longer be appropriated by simple absorption but only by a process
of creative transvaluation. But this transvaluation would demand a
final break with one tendency present in Juenger throughout: his
belief in the ultimate powerlessness of man to shape his own destiny.
The submission to the iron laws of technological necessity has been
replaced-despite the moving but vaguely moralizing appeal to the
creative resources of the individual-by a submission to religion:
Because no help from man can come, God is the help we call upon.
NOTE: There is very little literature on Juenger accessible in English. An ex–
cellent interpretation of the early Juenger can be found in Erich Kahler's his–
torical study,
Man the Measure
(New York, 1943). The only useful work written
outside Germany is
Ernst Juenger, Die Wandlung eines D eutschen Dichters und
Patrioten,
by Karl 0. Paetel (New York, 1946), which, unfortunately, has not
yet been translated. Though I disagree with some of Mr. Paetel's conclusions,
I have found the book a mine of valuable information and informed appreciation.
