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

Ernstel is dead, killed in action, my good child. Dead since 29 November of last year! We received the news yesterday on 11 January 1945, just after seven o’clock in the evening.

The dear boy met his death on 29 November 1944; he was eighteen years old. He was felled by a shot to the head during a reconnaissance patrol in the Apuan Alps in central Italy and, according to his comrades, died immediately. They could not take him along, but went back for his body later with an armored vehicle. He was given his final resting place in the cemetery of Turigliano near Carrara.

Such a good lad. Ever since childhood, he strove to emulate his father. Now he has done so on his first try, and truly surpassed him.

Today I went up into the little attic room that I had vacated for him, and which is still filled with his aura. Entered quietly, as if it were a sacred place. Found there among his papers a little journal that began with the epigraph: “He advances farthest, who does not know where he is going.”

Anguish is like rain that runs off in torrents and is only gradually absorbed by the earth. The mind cannot grasp it all at once. We have now entered the true, the only community of this war—entered its secret brotherhood.

I cannot stop thinking about Ernstel. So much about his life is a riddle that is hard to solve. What does it mean that during the same year he was able to free himself from the grip of tyranny? That was such a propitious sign; all the benevolent powers seemed to be working together, as if secretly in league with each other. Perhaps he was meant to bear witness before his death and prove himself in the true cause of which so few people are capable.

Sleep does me good, but as soon as I awaken, the pain starts up again. I ask myself how it is possible that we thought about the boy every day for all those weeks without ever even hearing an echo of the truth. Of course, there is always the notation that I made in the pages of this journal on 29 November 1944, on the day of his death, perhaps even in the hour of his death. [38] On 29 November 1944, Gretha Jünger, Ernst’s mother, dreamed of having an eyetooth pulled. At the time I was thinking of the widespread popular superstition, yet it is strange that in all my attempts to interpret Perpetua’s dream, the closest possibility was the furthest from my mind.

We stand like cliffs in the silent surf of eternity.

Memorial service for Ernstel. Superintendent Spannuth held it in the library. The boy’s picture stood on the table between sprigs of fir and two candles. The conclusion of Psalm 73 and Ernstel’s confirmation motto (Luke, 9:62) were chosen as texts: “And Jesus said unto him, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Present were: the family, the refugees living under our roof, and our two neighbors, Lahmann and Colshorn.

The death of a son introduces one of those dates—one of those watersheds—into my life. The things, the thoughts, the deeds before and after are now different.

Went to Burgdorf. Had vivid thoughts of Ernstel near Beinhorn. When we were there last December the two of us walked through the woods in the fog and discussed death. He said, “At times I’m so curious that I can hardly wait for it.”

The lemures try to intrude into a death like this, as if they could appropriate it. A case in point is the company commander who sent me the message that Ernstel had died “for the Führer.” What is more, he was well acquainted with the boy’s record. After that there was the functionary who had the task of bringing me the message “in a dignified manner” (as stipulated in his printed instructions)—horrendous. Yes, that’s all part of our reality, and it dawned on me early that one emotion is the only appropriate response: grief.

It is the tragedy of the best people that ethos and polis do not coincide in reality. Yet, like parallel lines, they cross in infinity.

While I have frequent and meaningful dreams about my dead father, things regarding my son are opaque. There is something about his death that seems unsolved, unreconciled, unsettled. Last night Perpetua had the first clear dream about him. She was in a hospital and met him in the corridor; he was startled to see her. He was already very weak, and died in her arms. She could hear his dying sweat splash onto the floor.

The Russians have entered East Prussia and Silesia. New efforts to halt this breakthrough while the butchering continues in the West. The energy, resilience of people’s wills remains astonishing. Of course, this quality only shows itself as we are heading downhill—its only trait and accomplishment being mindlessness and decline. This is no longer war, which is why Clausewitz warned that politics must never be allowed to reach this state.

According to reports, the Tannenberg memorial [39] The Tannenberg Memorial commemorated the German soldiers who died at the second battle of Tannenberg (1914). The coffin of Paul von Hindenburg, who had commanded the German troops, was placed here in 1934. has been blown up and Hindenburg’s body taken to safety. “Der Alte” [“The Old Man”] finds no peace in his grave, but then he was the gatekeeper, the man who held the door for Kniébolo. At first he thought he could oppose the man and then exploit him, but Kniébolo turned out to be the more cunning.

A night rich in dreams. I found myself in exotic climes, surrounded by brightly colored birds. Inside my coat on my left, I clutched a white dove and on my right, a dark bat. Both creatures—I cherished the dark one more—would occasionally take flight and then return to me as if to their nests. The dream image was comforting and lovely.

These days I often look at pictures of Ernstel with new ideas about photography. No photograph can compete with a good painting in that sphere where art reigns supreme and where ideas and consciousness hold sway. Yet photography has a different, darker quality—the photograph is basically a shadow image. It records something of a person’s substance, of his aura; it is a replica of him. In this sense, it is related to script. We leaf through old letters and photos to jog our memories. At such times, wine is beneficial.

Two weeks have now passed since I got the news. Starting to work again. I finished the manuscript of my Rhodes journals, and all that is left is to make a clean copy. I often have the impression of writing on paper that is already beginning to be scorched by the flame.

Read further about shipwrecks. In the course of my reading, I had some good thoughts of a general nature. For example, a ship represents order, the state, the status quo; a shipwreck loosens the planks and, with them, all cohesion, so that human relationships sink to their most basic level. They become more physical, bestial, or cannibalistic. Those amputated hands that are consistently mentioned demonstrate the physics of this dynamic. The lifeboats can only take a certain number of people; anyone else who clutches at their sides threatens to sink them in the deep. Because there is modus in rebus [a limit in all things], the crew will defend itself with oars, knives, and axes against any fatal overloading. This occasionally proceeds under a veneer of order, such as in 1786 when the Portuguese admiral’s ship Saint James foundered on a group of cliffs in East Africa. In this case, the crew of the overfilled lifeboat chose a leader with absolute power, namely a half-blooded Indian from a noble tribe. All this man had to do was point his finger at the weakest person, who was then immediately thrown overboard. Under such circumstances, it is typical that power always seeks the point of least resistance. And so whenever it happens that cannibals attack, they agree on the cabin boy—according to Bontekoe’s account.