THE JUENGER CASE
a
Nazi;
for he retired from the stage (which he had helped to set)
after 1934. But a "fascist" (or possibly a national-bolshevist) he was in
1932, and
Der Arbeiter
(The Worker) is practically a textbook in
straight fascist social mythology. Now it may be readily admitted that
On the i'Jarble Cliffs,
the war diaries, and the pamphlet on the peace
are (and were meant to be) anti-Nazi works; it is, however, an entirely
different question whether these works really show a change of heart
or whether they do not retain the outlines of Juenger's old social and
personal philosophy-except for convenient terminological substitutions.
For what happened in the case of these later works? The forces of
technological nihilism, embodied in the "absolute state," did not hesitate
to turn against their own sponsor and, like the sorcerer's apprentice,
Juenger suddenly discovered that he had lost the magic key for con–
trolling the very forces which he himself had wished into existence and
power. (In this respect, Juenger's fate is simply that of a "literary"
Thyssen.) Thus he withdrew from the struggle, weathered the storm
in a hermitage, and prepared the ground for a new type of absolutism.
In
On the Marble Cliffs,
the two brother-heroes are dedicated to
the study of ancient books, manuscripts, precious flowers, stones, and
minerals-at a time when the country in which they live is laid waste
and enslaved by the High-Forester, allegorical symbol of Hitler. In the
war diaries Juenger-marching into France as a leader of a company
which, much to his ever-recurring regret, never sees action because the
advance of German mechanized units obliterates the French campaign
with a blitzkrieg-discovers ·the same kind of tradition.. The absorption in
the precious minutiae of the world of manuscripts, flowers, and minerals
is not only an escape from the horrible realities of the world of man,
but also the key to the safeguarding of human freedom, dignity, and
value. In
Der Friede,
finally, Juenger makes explicit the transition from
the world of private escapes into a new form of absolutism: the absolute
state is replaced by an absolute theology, the technological elite by a
theological elite, Germany's imperial tasks by the concept of occidental
civilization; but except for these substitutions the underlying spirit is
the same as ever: war is still the great metaphysical experience out of
which the new theological order will be born; it creates a new elite–
beyond good and evil (guilt and responsibility), beyond liberalism and
authoritarianism, uniting victors and va:nquished, transcending class and
party differences; again the new order provides for the worker-type
masses; again their happiness and freedom lie in the adjustment to a
hierarchical order, in the exercise of obedience and discipline, in the
performance of useful services.
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