DER ARBEITER
(ON ERNST JUNGER)
A. DUGHIN
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Translated by Victor Olevich
20 December 1998
Followed by
A SHORT EXCERPT FROM
THE STORM OF STEEL
BY ERNST JUNGER
Translated by Basil Creighton8
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Ernst Junger is a prominent contemporary
German writer, whose literary and political
fate is a classic symbol of everything avantgarde,
lively, and nonconformist in European culture
of the twentieth century. A participant and
witness to two world wars, one of the chief
theoreticians of German Conservative Revolution
in 1920s-1930s, inspirer of national socialism,
who quickly turned into a "dissident
from the right" after Hitler came to
power, survived official disfavor during
Nazi totalitarian rule, only to be ostracized
by the victors during the "de-nazification"
campaigne, whose talent and profundity of
thought allowed him to overcome the bias
of "democrats." Today, Junger is
by right considered to be the emblem of the
twentieth century, a mouthpiece not only
of the "lost generation," but of
the "lost century," full of passionate
and dramatic struggle of the last sacral
splashes of national life against the suffocating
profanity of contemporary technocratic universality.
Junger is the author of many novels, essays,
articles, and short stories. He is diverse,
versatile, complex, at times contradictory
and paradoxical. But the main subject of
his works always remains the same - the Laborer,
central, almost metaphysical character, whose
overt and latent presence is felt in all
of his pieces. It is no coincidence that
the best known and conceptual of his books,
which he was editing and rewriting all through
his life, is called "The Laborer."
The Laborer, "Der Arbeiter," is
the central type of all those political,
artistic, intellectual, and philosophical
trends, which, notwithstanding their diversity,
are brought together in the concept of "Conservative
Revolution." The Laborer is the main
hero of the Revolution, its subject, its
existential and aesthetic pivot. We are talking
about a special type of modern man, which
in a most critical experience of profane
reality, being at the very heart of technocratic
soulless mechanism, in the iron bowels of
totalitarian war or hellish industrial labor,
in the center of nihilism of the twentieth
century, finds in himself a mysterious fulcrum,
which takes him to the other side of "nothingness,"
to the elements of spontaneously awakened
inner sacrality. Through intoxication with
the modern world, Junger's Laborer perceives
the radiant immovability of the Pole, crystal
cold of objectivity, in which Tradition and
Spirit appear not as something old, ancient,
but as Eternal, as eternal return to the
timeless Origin. The Laborer is not a conservative
or a progressive. He is not a defender of
the old and not an apologist for the new.
He is the Third Hero, Third Imperial Hero
(according to Niekiesch), the new Titan,
in whom, through the utmost concentration
of modernism in its most venomous and traumatic
forms, through industrial and frontal chaos,
opens up a special transcendental aspect,
which mobilizes him for a metaphysical, heroic
act. The Laborers are people of the trenches,
factories, "nomads of asphalt,"
deprived of inheritance in technocratic civilization,
taking the challenge of split reality and
amassing in their souls special energies
of a great rebellion, as brutal and objective
as the agressive nature of industrial- bourgeois
environment. Ernst Junger is the creator
ofpolitico-ideological concept of "total
mobilization," which became the theoretical
and philosophical base for many conservative
revolutionary movements. "Total mobilization"
is the necessity for a general awakening
of the nation for the purpose of building
a new civilization, in which Heros and Titans,
bearers of the flame of National Revolution
born willfully from the abyss of social alienation,
will be at the center.
But, according to Junger, "total mobilization"
of masses, nations, peoples is based on a
special, unique existential experience, without
which the Revolution will either turn into
a materialist degenerate form, or will be
reanimated by inertial pharisaic conservatives.
That is why the existential aspect is given
priority in Junger's works, which show an
entire gallery of types of the"third
hero" (novels "The Steel Storm,"
"A Heart in Search for Adventures,"
"On Marble Cliffs," "Escape
to the Forest," "Heliopolis,"
etc.), who is following the way of inner
Revolution, exploring the most extreme and
risky forms - war, mysticism, drugs, erotism,
borderland psychic states. Nietzsche's formula
"that which does not kill me, makes
me stronger" is Ernst Junger's credo
in literature, as well as in life. Just like
his characters, he calmly drinks champagne.
In 1995, Ernst Junger turned 100 years old.
But time is not imperious in regard to his
crystal intellect and dazzling talent. Not
long ago, in a letter to the publisher of
the Belgian magazine "Antaeus"
Christopher Gerard, Junger wrote: "XXI
century will be the century of Titans, and
XXII - the century of Gods."
These words contain a short resume of the
creative work of a great contemporary writer,
Laborer, and hero Ernst Junger.
EXCERPT FROM
THE STORM OF STEEL
BY ERNST JUNGER
Translated by Basil Creighton
The Storm of Steel
: From the Diary of a German Storm Troop
Officer on the Western Front.
Chatto & Windus, 1929.
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In the evening we sat up a long while drinking
coffee that two French women made for us
in a neighboring house. It was the strongest
drink we could procure. We knew that we were
on the verge this time of a battle such as
the world had never seen. Soon our excited
talk rose to a pitch that would have rejoiced
the hearts of any freebooters, or of Frederick's
Grenadiers. A few days later there were very
few of that party still alive.
On the 23d of August we were transported
in lorries to Le Mesnil. Our spirits were
excellent, though we knew we were going to
be put in where the battle of the Somme was
at its worst. Chaff and laughter went from
lorry to lorry. We marched from Le Mesnil
at dusk to Sailly-Saillisel, and here the
battalion dumped packs in a large meadow
and paraded in battle order. Artillery fire
of a hitherto unimagined intensity rolled
and thundered on our front. Thousands of
twitching flashes turned the western horizon
into a sea of flowers. All the while the
wounded came trailing back with white, dejected
faces, huddled into the ditches by the gun
and ammunition columns that rattled past.
A man in a steel helmet reported to me as
guide to conduct my platoon to the renowned
Combles, where for the time we were to be
in reserve. Sitting with him at the side
of the road, I asked him, naturally enough,
what it was like in the line. In reply I
heard a monotonous tale of crouching all
day in shell holes with no one on either
flank and no trenches communicating with
the rear, of unceasing attacks, of dead bodies
littering the ground, of maddening thirst,
of wounded and dying, and of a lot besides,
The face half-framed by the steel rim of
the helmet was unmoved; the voice accompanied
by the sound of battle droned on, and the
impression they made on me was one of unearthly
solemnity. One could see that the man had
been through horror to the limit of despair
and there had learned to despise it. Nothing
was left but supreme and superhuman indifference.
"Where you fall, there you lie. No one
can help you. No one knows whether he will
come back alive. They attack every day, but
they can't get through. Everybody knows it
is life and death." One can fight such
with fellows. We marched on along a broad
paved road that showed up in the moonlight
as a white band on the dark fields. In front
of us the artillery fire rose to a higher
and higher pitch. Lasciate ogni speranza
Soon we had the first shells on one side
of the road and the other. Talk died down
and at last ceased. Everyone listened-with
that peculiar intentness that concentrates
all thought and sensation in the ear-for
the long-drawn howl of the approaching shell.
Our nerves had a particularly severe test
passing Fr6gicourt, a little hamlet near
Combles cemetery, under continuous fire.
As far as we could see in the darkness, Combles
was utterly shot to bits. The damage seemed
to be recent, judging from the amount of
timber among the ruins and the contents of
the houses slung over the road. We climbed
over numerous heaps of d6bris-rather hurriedly,
owing to a few shrapnel shells-and reached
our quarters. They were in a large, shot-riddled
house. Here I established myself with three
sections. The other two occupied the cellar
of a ruin opposite. At 4 A. M. we were aroused
from our rest on the fragments of bed we
had collected, in order to receive steel
helmets. It was also the occasion of discovering
a sack of coffee beans in a comer of the
cellar; whereupon there followed a great
brewing of coffee. After breakfast I went
out to have a look round. Heavy artillery
had turned a peaceful little billeting town
into a scene of desolation in the course
of a day or two. Whole houses had been flattened
by single direct hits or blown UP so that
the interiors of the rooms hung over the
chaos like the scenes on a stage. A sickly
scent of dead bodies rose from many of the
ruins, for many civilians had been caught
in the bombardment and buried beneath the
wreckage of their homes. A little girl lay
dead in a pool of blood on the threshold
of one of the doorways. In the course of
the afternoon the firing increased to such
a degree that single explosions were no longer
audible. There was nothing but one terrific
tornado of noise. From seven onward the square
and the houses round were shelled at intervals
of half a minute with fifteen- centimeter
shells. There were many duds among them,
which all the same made the houses rock.
We sat all this while in our cellar, round
a table, on armchairs covered in silk, with
our heads propped on our hands, and counted
the seconds between the explosions. Our jests
became less frequent, till at last the foolhardiest
of us fell silent, and at eight o'clock two
direct hits brought down the next house.
From nine to ten the shelling was frantic.
The earth rocked and the sky boiled like
a gigantic cauldron. Hundreds of heavy batteries
were concentrated on and round Combles. Innumerable
shells came howling and hurtling over us.
Thick smoke, ominously fit up by Very lights,
veiled everything. Head and ears ached violently,
and we could only make ourselves understood
by shouting a word at a time. The power of
logical thought and the force of gravity
seemed alike to be suspended. One had the
sense of something as unescapable and as
unconditionally fated as a catastrophe of
nature. An N. C. 0. of No. 3 platoon went
mad. At ten this carnival of hell gradually
calmed down and passed into a steady drum
fire. It was still certainly impossible to
distinguish one shell from another.
At last we reached the front line, It was
held by men cowering close in the shell holes,
and their dead voices trembled with joy when
they heard that we were the relief. A Bavarian
sergeant major briefly handed over the sector
and the Very-light pistol. My platoon front
formed the right wing of the position held
by the regiment. It consisted of a shallow
sunken road which had been pounded by shells.
It was a few hundred meters left of Guillemont
and a rather shorter distance right of Boisde-Tr6nes.
We were parted from the troops on our right,
the Seventy-sixth Regiment of Infantry, by
a space about five hundred meters wide. This
space was shelled so violently that no troops
could maintain themselves there. The Bavarian
sergeant major had vanished of a sudden,
and I stood alone, the Very-light pistol
in my hand, in the midst of an uncanny sea
of shell holes over which lay a white mist
whose swaths gave it an even more oppressive
and mysterious appearance. A persistent,
unpleasant smell came from behind. I was
left in no doubt that it came from a gigantic
corpse far gone in decay. * * * When day
dawned we were astonished to see, by degrees,
what a sight surrounded us. The sunken road
now appeared as nothing but a series of enormous
shell holes filled with pieces of uniform,
weapons, and dead bodies. The ground all
round, as far as the eye could see, was plowed
by shells. You could search in vain for one
wretched blade of grass. This churned-up
battlefield was ghastly. Among the living
lay the dead.
As we dug ourselves in we found them in layers
stacked one upon the top of another. One
company after another had been shoved into
the drum fire and steadily annihilated. The
corpses were covered with the masses of soil
turned up by the shells, and the next company
advanced in the place of the fallen. The
sunken road and the ground behind were full
of German dead; the ground in front, of English.
Arms, legs, and heads stuck out stark above
the lips of the craters. In front of our
miserable defenses there were torn-off limbs
and corpses over many of which cloaks and
ground sheets had been thrown to hide the
fixed stare of their distorted features.
In spite of the heat no one thought for a
moment of covering them with soil. The village
of Guillemont was distinguished from the
landscape around it only because the shell
holes there were of a whiter color by reason
of the houses which had been ground to powder.
Guillemont railway station lay in front of
us. It was smashed to bits like a child's
plaything. Delville Wood, reduced to matchwood,
was farther behind.
It was the days at Guillemont that first
made me aware of the overwhelming effects
on the war of material. We had to adapt ourselves
to an entirely new phase of war. The communications
between the troops and the staff, between
the artillery and the liaison officers, were
utterly crippled by the terrific fire. Dispatch
carriers failed to get through the hail of
metal, and telephone wires were no sooner
laid than they were shot into pieces. Even
light-signaling was put out of action by
the clouds of smoke and dust that hung over
the field of battle. There was a zone of
a kilometer behind the front line where explosives
held absolute sway. Even the regimental staff
only knew exactly where we had been and how
the line ran when we came back after three
days and told them. Under such circumstances
accuracy of artillery fire was out of the
question. We were also entirely in the dark
about the English line, though often, without
our knowing it, it was only a few meters
from us. Sometimes a Tommy, feeling his way
from one shell hole to another like an ant
along a track in the sand, landed in one
that we occupied, and vice versa, for our
front line consisted merely of isolated and
unconnected bits that were easily mistaken.
Once seen, the landscape is an unforgettable
one. In this neighborhood of villages, meadows,
woods, and fields there was literally not
a bush or a tiniest blade of grass to be
seen. Every hand's breadth of ground had
been churned up again and again; trees had
been uprooted, smashed, and ground to touchwood,
the houses blown to bits and turned to dust;
hills had been leveled and the arable land
made a desert. And yet the strangest thing
of all was not the horror of the landscape
in itself, but the fact that these scenes,
such as the world had never known before,
were fashioned by men who intended them to
be a decisive end to the war. Thus all the
frightfulness that the mind of man could
devise was brought into the field; and there,
where lately had been the idyllic picture
of rural peace, there was as faithful a picture
of the soul of scientific war. In earlier
wars, certainly, towns and villages had been
burned, but what was that compared with this
sea of craters dug out by machines? For even
in this fantastic desert there was the sameness
of the machine-made article. A shell hole
strewn with bully tins, broken weapons, fragments
of uniform, and dud shells, with one or two
dead bodies on its edge-this was the never-changing
scene that surrounded each one of all these
hundreds of thousands of men. And it seemed
that man, on this landscape he had himself
created, became different, more mysterious
and hardy and callous than in any previous
battle. The spirit and the tempo of the fighting
altered, and after the battle of the Somme
the war had its own peculiar impress that
distinguished it from all other wars. After
this battle the German soldier wore the steel
helmet, and in his features there were chiseled
the lines of an energy stretched to the utmost
pitch, lines that future generations will
perhaps find as fascinating and imposing
as those of many heads of classical or Renaissance
times. For I cannot too often repeat, a battle
was no longer an episode that spent itself
in blood and fire; it was a condition of
things that dug itself in remorselessly week
after week and even month after month. What
was a man's life in this wilderness whose
vapor was laden with, the stench of thousands
upon thousands of decaying bodies? Death
lay in ambush for each one in every shell
hole, merciless, and making one merciless
in turn. Chivalry here took a final farewell.
It had to yield to the heightened intensity
of war, just as all fine and personal feeling
has to yield when machinery gets the upper
hand. The Europe of to-day appeared here
for the first time on the field of battle....
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