Эрнст Юнгер - A German Officer in Occupied Paris - The War Journals, 1941-1945

In the evening at the Didiers’. There I met Hendrik de Man again; he showed me the passage in his Après Coup [ Afterwards ] where he described our previous encounter.

Visited Florence. Abbé Georget, her aumônier [chaplain], was also there. Talked about the Celts and about Brittany, where he is from. Is there still anything Celtic in us? Just as fragments of old buildings are incorporated into castles, elements of lost races are intertwined with the modern nations. Forgotten foster-mothers approach our beds in dreams.

Georget was the confessor to the daughter of Léon Bloys. When he recounted details about this author he mentioned “ Entrepreneur de Démolitions ” [Demolition Contractor], [150] Phrase from the title of Bloy’s book, Propos d’un Entrepreneur de Démolitions (1884) [ Remarks of a Demolition Contractor ]. which Bloys had printed on his calling card. This is a nihilistic quirk similar to Nietzsche’s “Philosophizing with a Hammer” and more. Yet the assessment of nihilism lacks detachment—it must reflect the surroundings the nihilist encounters. And the dubiousness of its values, which he embodies both in his person and his actions, becomes evident. He thus becomes an annoyance; even more irritating is the drama of those minds that cannot perceive changes in the weather, like a drop in atmospheric pressure that precedes the typhoon. They seek to stone the prophets.

In the city the shortages of electricity, light, and gas are getting worse. We are living in the midst of a new kind of siege. The attack does not target factories and warehouses as much as it does the arteries of energy and traffic. This is in keeping with a war among workers. Assaults reinforce the effects of the huge bombardments.

The situation calls to mind that of 1939 when people talked about war until it finally came. It’s been like that with the invasion, which perhaps neither of the parties sincerely desires. Yet this is precisely where the stroke of fate will be revealed.

Through all this, you can still see beautiful women on the streets in their new hats, styled rather like tall turbans. This is the couture of the Tower of Babel.

Current reading: “Essay on the Destruction of Hamburg” by Alexander Friedrich—an account sent to me in manuscript. You get the feeling that these cities are like Bologna bottles: [151] Bologna bottle, also called Bologna phial: a container strong enough on its outside to hammer a nail, while a small scratch on its interior causes it to shatter; often used in physics demonstrations and magic tricks. internal tension makes their structure so delicate that a jolt is enough to make them crumble. It is curious that so many people seem to be gripped by a new sense of freedom that follows the complete destruction of their property. Friedrich Georg predicted this, even at the spiritual level:

[The knowledge that I have acquired / Is dry tinder / Come, flames, and engulf, devour / All this old rubbish.]

Property is not considered suspect only by outside observers but also by the disinherited themselves; it is even thought burdensome. Possessions require the strength to possess—nowadays who wants to keep up a castle, be surrounded by servants, or collect masses of objects? The nearness of the world of carnage is relevant here. Anyone who has ever seen a metropolis hit by a meteor and go up in flames will look at his house and his furniture with new eyes. Perhaps we will see the day when people offer each other their property as presents.

Capriccio s—like the ones Kubin predicted as early as 1909 in his novel The Other Side . There, herds of cattle that had broken out of their pens on the edge of town came trotting down the burning streets. The animals entered the city, while humans spent their nights in the forests.

In one of the houses that was in flames, a little shop clerk was sitting between the cowering inhabitants of the building who were all prevented from fleeing by the exploding bombs. Suddenly a man of Herculean strength forces his way in to take her to safety. He grabs her around the hips and drags her outside. He carries her across a plank into a room not yet engulfed in fire, while behind them the house collapses. By the light of this pyre the man sees that he has not rescued his wife at all, but a woman he does not know.

Friedrich ends his essay with the reflection that it is a lovely thought for Goethe to let his Faust regain consciousness “ in anmuthiger Gegend ” [in a pleasant region].

Jean Charet, the polar explorer: “above the polar circle there are no Frenchmen, no Germans, or Englishmen anymore—there are only men.” The yearning for the north and south poles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is analogous to the search for the philosopher’s stone: They are magical sites, endpoints that create a planetary consciousness. They are also seminal poles, fructified by the eyes of their discoverers. The nations of the Old World are changed by these new dimensions. The polar circle is the absolute state where no differentiated energies can exist except the primal force. Compare that to the narrow view of Schubart, who envisaged eternally separate heavens and homelands for the nations. That’s one of the passages I read that harmed me; it also contradicts Germanic sensibility. For our fathers, the enemies that had just hacked each other to pieces entered the gates of eternity as shades, arm in arm, and proceeded to Glasor, [152] Reference to Glasir, a tree or grove in Norse mythology that bears golden red leaves beside the gates of Valhalla. the grove with the golden leaves, where they were united at the banquet table.

Visited Madame Didier on the Boulevard des Invalides. Because there was no fresh clay to be had, she sculpted my head from the material formerly used in her bust of Montherlant. That is a detail that would have amused Omar Khayyam.

In the Tuileries. The field poppies were in full bloom. I thought in passing how well the name fits the essence of this plant. [153] Reference to the German designation. The first element of the word ( klatsch ) means clap, snap. It connotes both the garish, snappy quality of the color and also the fragility of the petals, which are destroyed by a breath of air. This applies to all authentic words—they are woven from a combination of meanings, from ever-changing material. For that reason alone, I do not share the avoidance of imagery shown by such authors as Marmontel and Léautaud, nor do I share the developmental perspective of etymology. Writing or speaking a word sounds a bell that sets the air vibrating within its range.

In the afternoon, the death sentence that had been handed down in absentia for General von Seidlitz was announced. It seems that his activity fills Kniébolo with worry. Maybe the Russians have a general on their side to match our Niedermayer. As this was happening, an oath of allegiance to Kniébolo from the field marshals in the Wehrmacht was proclaimed; it used the familiar clichés. I think it was Gambetta who asked, “Have you ever seen a general who is courageous?” Every little journalist, every working woman, is capable of greater courage. The selection process is based on the ability to keep your mouth shut and follow orders; then add senility to these qualities. Maybe that still works in monarchies.

Visited Madame Didier in the evening; her portrait bust of me is coming along. During the process, I had a feeling of Promethean emergence into being, like a demiurge. It is an uncanny sensation, especially the kneading, stroking motion that conjures the material into form. Artists are closest to the great creative energies of the world. It is their symbols deposited in the graves and rubble of the earth that bear witness to life that once pulsed with vitality.