Ernst Juenger: From Nihilism
to Tradition
LOUIS CLAIR
E RNST J uENGER, an intellectual father of Nazism, is also the author
of the best-known anti-Nazi book written inside Germany; an apostle
of the warrior, .he has also written an appeal for peace; once a ful–
lower of the anti-Christian Nietzsche, · he has set himself up as the
defender of basic Christian values. Such are some of the contradic–
tions in this writer whose work has always had the power of pro–
voking passionate debate but has nevertheless remained very little
known
in
America and England-apart from a few references here
and there, like Werner Bloch's, "From Under the Lid," (PAR'WiAN
REVIEW, July-August 1942), and the recent remarks by Stephen
Spender in his
European Witness .
T he reasons for this neglect must seem very strange to us when
we reflect that Juenger has perhaps probed more deeply into the
perplexities of modern civilization than any of his contemporarie&
among European writers. As we grow progressively aware of the
decadence and nihilism that have overtaken European culture, so
it becomes necessary that we pay attention to a writer who, having
once been the prophet of nihilism, is now its rebel. The man who
returns from the abyss has more to tell us than the spectator who has
only walked its edge without ever descending.
I
J uenger's earlier work was formed by the experience of the First
World War. Though classed among the nationalists because of his
early war
books-Thunders of Steel
(1920),
The Battle as Inner Ex–
perience
(
1922),
Fire and Blood
(
1926 )- Juenger never surrendered
himself to chauvinism. These books hardly contain a patriotic line;
Juenger's inspiration lies elsewhere- in the nature of mechanical war–
fare itself, the power of the huge supra-individual forces of modern
war, the extreme situations of battle that transform the individual into
something alien to himself.
·
The spirit of these books excludes compassion. War is <:n ele-