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the complete review - diaries

A German Officer in
Occupied Paris

by
Ernst Jünger

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B+ : fascinating if limited and idiosyncratic experience of the Second World War

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Now translated into English for the first time, his second world war diaries show readers a middle-aged Captain Jünger as he revealed a private self, no doubt with an eye to eventual publication: camera-like, complicit, revelling in civilised pursuits by day; weary, frightened and guilty-feeling at night. Aphorisms, philosophical half-thoughts and religious musings jostle with odd, though seldom funny, dreams. Small pleasures flank sudden horrors. Jolting images appear and vanish as if on the surface of a lake. None of it adds up. No line is drawn or balance struck. Jünger, the political conservative who scorned modernity’s disorder, wrote a very modern, unconservative prose. (...) For English-speaking readers who do not know his work, A German Officer in Occupied Paris shows the many sides of this complex, elusive writer." - Edmund Fawcett, Financial Times
  
  
• "But however uneven or bizarre some of the entries, the overall structure of the journals -- free-flowing, chaotic, and kaleidoscopic -- works. Together they act as a mirror reflecting a world where the center had not held." - Andrew Stuttaford, New Criterion
  
  
• "With the publication of these extraordinary, sometimes hallucinatory diaries. English speakers have the chance to read one of the great witnesses to 20th-century Europe’s catastrophe. One whom, they may judge, cast too cold an eye, on life, on death." - Paul Lay, New Statesman
  
  
• "His single intense talent was for the spiky sporadic note form of a journal, something that proceeded in leaps and zigzags through moments of pure observation (.....) The surface of these journals seems to be all luxury and champagne, a pointillist flurry of elegance (,....) (W)hat's revealed through the enforced montage structure of Jünger's journals -- their commitment to linear notation -- is the problem of how to think within a catastrophe and the difficulty of maintaining any kind of true perspective. (...) It's this dedication to style and surface in the midst of destruction that is at once so dazzling and so dispiriting in his writing" - Adam Thirlwell, The New York Review of Books
  
  
• "Whereas Storm of Steel’s narrative distils the author’s best ideas, sieved through hindsight, the journal is a jumble of both perfectly formed and half-baked ones. Not every thought a man has is going to be worth reading, whatever his intellect. But gold shines amid the dross. (...) In many ways, the journals are On the Marble Cliffs made flesh -- Jünger’s ‘I told you so’. (...) He omits anything that would make him appear a villain. An ongoing extramarital affair in Paris is barely hinted at. But neither does he try to look a hero, omitting how he passed on to Jews information of upcoming deportations, buying them time to escape." - Alex Colville, The Spectator
  
  
• "Herr Jünger himself is, above all, an anti-specialist; he is not so much a novelist as an amateur philosopher, amateur theologian, amateur scientist, soldier, political theorist and aesthete. However extraordinary the combination may appear, it accounts for the originality and the importance of this writer. (...) The fascination of these war diaries lies in the hidden links continually discovered by Herr Jünger's penetrating and resourceful mind; an event, however interesting in itself, is never merely an event but a symbol and a symptom of some larger or deeper issue. (...) It is difficult to indicate either the scope or the depths of these diaries. Strahlungen is full of the unexpected" - Michael Hamburger, Times Literary Supplement
  
  
• "In his diaries, Jünger, though prey to depression, attains a perspective on these events from his extensive knowledge of literature and history. (...) (T)hese diaries are not only a remarkable document of the time, but bring us close to a strange but highly original person, always capable of a fresh response to the natural world, the atmosphere of Paris, and the hideous events that force themselves on his knowledge. Many of Jünger’s texts have an inhuman chill; these diaries reveal his humanity. The translators have given us a fluent, idiomatic English text, with only a few, though striking, slips. (...) Readers will also find indispensable the introductory biographical essay by Elliot Neaman" - Ritchie Robertson, Times Literary Supplement
  
  
• "Always intended for eventual publication, the journal eschews soul-searching and avoids anything overtly confessional. In its entries Jünger records his dreams, migraines and depressions, describes his interaction with Parisian artists and aristocrats sympathetic to the Germans, closely inspects every flower and insect he encounters and obsessively reflects on the human condition. (...) Some critics argue that his transcendental-mystical bent tends to aestheticize horror and suffering, which to some extent it certainly does. Still, Jünger himself deserves to be honored as a serious, if morally and politically complicated, European humanist." - Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       A German Officer in Occupied Paris is, somewhat surprisingly, the first translation of Strahlungen I-II -- Ernst Jünger's The War Journals, 1941-1945. Jünger, a decorated World War I hero, was already internationally well-known before the time covered in these diaries, his memoir of that First World War, In Stahlgewittern (1920, but repeatedly revised) already translated into English -- as The Storm of Steel -- in 1929 (and more recently, in Michael Hofmann's 2003 translation, as Storm of Steel).
       The English title is a more prosaic-descriptive one than Jünger's own grandiose original ('Radiations'); it's also a bit misleading -- both because while Jünger was stationed in Paris for most of the period covered, significant sections are devoted to his time on the Eastern Front (one of the four sections is: 'Notes from the Caucasus') as well back home in Kirchhorst by Hannover (both on leave and then for most of the final section, the 'Kirchhorst Diaries'), as well as because, while Jünger certainly was a high-ranking German military officer, these diaries only very limitedly present him in that function. Indeed, A German Officer in Occupied Paris is not, first and foremost, the account of a Nazi at/and his work. Instead, it is a diary of personal experiences, observations, thoughts, and dreams (yes, Jünger records a lot of his dreams) by someone presenting himself here as rather incidentally if dutifully involved in the apparatus of state- and war-machine. Certainly, war intrudes -- and, on his travels to the Eastern Front, the bombings of Paris, and then the looming (ever-closer ...) German defeat, he's confronted with war front and center --, but on the whole one of the most shocking things about this record is how comfortably and casually Jünger goes about life, mingling in Paris literary salons, buying books (oh, what books !), and conducting his affairs -- more often of the intimate-personal kind (not that he's in the least explicit about those), especially with 'Doctoresse' (Sophie Ravoux), rather than the professional ones. Yes, there are times and places of great deprivation and hardship (and cold) -- but there are also those dinners at Maxim's.
       [The German edition of Strahlungen I-II now includes the previously separately published Gärten und Straßen (diaries covering 1939-1940; first published 1942) and Die Hütte im Weinberg (diaries covering 1945-1948; first published in 1958, as Jahre der Okkupation). Later diaries of Jünger's, originally published as Siebzig verweht, are now also published as Strahlungen -- volumes III through VI.]
       A German Officer in Occupied Paris is not a detailed day-by-day intimate diary, but more like notebooks in which Jünger records events, meetings, and thoughts that strike him. Sometimes he does describe his actual activity in some detail, but mostly he's quite general; the focus tends to be on his impressions of people, books, and general circumstances. He also records many of his dreams -- often in greater detail than his professional duties (which, quite honestly, remain vague and opaque: mostly, it's unclear just what exactly he is tasked with and what he spends his days doing professionally): "Dreams bring me hope for the future, give me security", he admits at one point, and given the real-life nightmare growing around him one can understand his clinging to them -- though one has to note, he long puts on a damned good show of not being too perturbed by the German catastrophe that is soon tightening like a noose.
       (The dream-descriptions are, like most everything, quick and to the point; some are interesting in context as well, and a few are simply little gems on their own -- not least: "Was present at a meal where Socrates was also invited. He was a small man, thin, with short hair, a gaunt, intelligent face; he wore a gray, well-cut suit".)
       There are suggestions and glimpses all along of a general despondent gloom, but Jünger rarely elaborates on them, keeping things succinct:

     Many of the letters I receive take on an ominous, eschatological tone, like cries from the deepest regions of the vortex, that place that gives us a glimpse of rock bottom.

     Discourse at the garden gate:
     I: "things are lively in the air today."
     Neighbor: "Yes, they say Osnabrück and Chemnitz have been destroyed."
     But I was talking about the mosquitoes that were buzzing around for the first time.

The coal shortage is a nuisance. The household requires a staff of more than twenty.

     I shall miss the world of books; I have spent precious hours in it -- oases in a world of carnage. Walking along either bank of the Seine represents perfection in its own right; time flows by easily. It's hard to imagine how to improve on this, and it would not be anywhere near as beautiful if the books cost nothing.

     Went to Berès in the evening, where I looked at books. I bought the old Malleus Maleficarum [Hammer of Witches] by Sprenger in the Venice edition of 1574. The purchase would have excited me more twenty years ago, when I was studying hallucinogens along with magic and Satanism.

The annoying thing about such texts is that their author avoids describing nuanced and gentle impressions while recording and exaggerating lurid ones. Reading them is like walking through meadows thronged with larger-than-life blossoms, while grasses and moss are absent.

His is a case of an anarchist with conservative memories who opposes nihilism.

His mind has a certain condensed quality of something boiled down, like a soup made from extinct fishes and mussels whose flavor has intensified. Good to read when the appetite has been destroyed by too much bland food.

Bloy is like a tree rooted deep in a swamp yet producing sublime blossoms at its top.

     Of all the cathedrals only one remains -- that built by the dome of our folded hands. In that alone lies our security.

As a product of the purely masculine intellect, it is like a predator whose overwhelming menace mankind has not immediately recognized. We have foolishly raised this animal in close quarters with ourselves, only to discover that it cannot be domesticated.

I am overcome by loathing for the uniform, the epaulettes, the medals, the weapons, all the glamour I have loved so much. Ancient chivalry is dead; wars are waged by technicians. Mankind has thus reached the stage described by Dostoevsky in Raskolnikov. He views people like himself as vermin.

For me it is a pleasure to see how young people who have learned from me can get right to the point. The fate of Germany is hopeless if a new chivalric order does not emerge from its youth, and especially its workers.

In brief, the nineteenth century was a rational one, while the twentieth century is sectarian. Kniébolo feeds on this -- hence the complete inability of the liberal intelligentsia even to perceive where he stands on matters.

The leadership is trying to promote hope in new and unknown weapons because they are incapable of new ideas. The complete lack of judgment shown by the masses as they permit themselves to be deceived into s a state of euphoria remains remarkable.

This descent into ever-darker regions is horrifying -- it is a meteoric plunge from the sphere of salvation. Destruction must inevitably grow from these chasms and fire spew forth from them.

     Concerning this journal. It captures only a certain layer of events that take place in intellectual and physical spheres. Things that concern our innermost being resist communication, almost resist our own perception.

     Books in name only, but actually psychological machines to manipulate people. The reader enters a chamber and gets a dose of cosmic radiation. After reading the book, he becomes someone else. Reading, too, is now different -- it is accompanied by the awareness of danger.

- M.A.Orthofer, 17 January 2019

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Links:

• Columbia University Press publicity page
• Klett-Cotta publicity pages for volumes: I and II
• Christian Bourgois publicity page
• Tusquets Editores publicity pages for volumes: I and II

• ABC (Spanish)
• Bigmammy (French)
• Cuaderno de campo (Spanish)
• CulturalGangBang (French)
• Dublin Review of Books
• The Fourth Policeman
• H-Diplo
• His Futile Preoccupations .....
• Journal21 (German)
• Kirkus Reviews
• Lapsus calami (Spanish)
• Libereditor's Blog (Italian)
• New Criterion
• New Statesman
• Niklas' blog
• NonSoloProust (Italian)
• Porto Franco (Italian)
• The Washington Post
• Die Zeit (German)

• Ernst Jünger - Anarch site

• See Index of (Auto)Biographical works under review
• See Index of German literature

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About the Author:

       German author Ernst Jünger lived 1895 to 1998.

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© 2019-2021 the complete review

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