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

The leaders who emerge from the crew in such cases, or who impose themselves on the crew, could be called “black captains”; they act as pirates in the way they manage the crime and the violence. When the Batavia was wrecked on a desert island off the coast of New Holland [Australia], power was handed over to a ringleader named Cornelis, who had everyone killed who did not accede to his plans. He divided the booty, including five women who had been among the passengers. He kept one for himself and designated another, an ambassador’s daughter, for his lieutenant. The others were given to the crew for their general use.

Shipwrecks pose the question of whether any higher order than that of the state exists. For order alone can save us, and we have seen this in the case of those sailors who settled on Pitcairn. [40] Pitcairn: In 1790, the mutineers from the HMS Bounty , together with other Polynesians, settled these islands in the south Pacific. At such moments, every crew stands at the crossroads.

The evacuation of East Prussia and Silesia brings us pictures hitherto unknown in European history. This reminds me of the destruction of Jerusalem. The persecution of the Jews has aspects of which the blind perpetrators know nothing. As such, it negates the New Testament and promotes Abrahamic law.

The punishing cold continues. We hear that many of the children who fled from the Eastern provinces have frozen to death along the country roads and in open freight cars. Scores are now being settled, and the innocents are paying the terrible price. Went into the forest in the afternoon with old Herr Kerner to mark trees, since our coal supply is running low. We were also on the moor, where there is still a small stand of birches. The axe revealed the heartwood in its gleaming brilliance. As I was writing down the numbers, I saw my father, the man who purchased this forest, as if on the surface of a mirror. Wood is a wonderful, honorable material.

On the way home, I conversed with the old fellow. I noticed that a certain sense of homespun ease—familiar in many a Lower Saxon farmer—comes with a brazen heart. These are characters who even in their own family circles would walk right over corpses. He described a scene from his youth when he was both half-drunk and pretending to be drunk, and he eavesdropped on his wife with a friend. His wait for the fait accompli came to nothing.

In church for the memorial service for Ernstel. Tomorrow it will be two months since the boy was killed. For me, he will always be one of those I carry with me in the sanctuary of my heart. Omnia mea mecum porto [all that is mine I carry with me]—the proverb is more apt than ever.

Read more about shipwrecks. The crew of a Portuguese cutter that ran aground on a sandbank on the Calamian Islands in 1688 suffered a strange fate. In the first half of the year, the survivors lived on this desolate patch by eating sea tortoises that would come on land to lay their eggs. During the second half they lived off the flesh and the eggs of gannets, large sea birds that build their nests in the sand. These two creatures alternated as food sources. They were marooned there for six years until the birds stayed away. The shipwrecked men, whose number had dwindled to sixteen, then set to work constructing a boat, or rather, a type of chest out of driftwood and caulked with a mixture of birds’ feathers, sand, and the fat of tortoises. This was stitched together with the strong sinews of the tortoises. A sail was stitched from the birds’ skins. With this craft they were able to reach a port in Southern China, and from there they were taken by missionaries to Macao.

Read in the memoirs of Count de Viel-Castel; Friedrich Georg and I had talked about this work years ago. Unpleasant view of the world that sees only the dark side of human beings and their scandalous behavior. Of course, there was no lack of profiteering during the Second Empire. All the preconditions for the catastrophe we are now wallowing in were well established back then. I am often amazed that a war like the one of 1870–1871 could have ended so favorably—I mean for both sides—without worsening. Bismarck himself sensed this and was happy when the peace terms were finally ratified.

Most of our mail relates to Ernstel’s death, but today it also brought a card from Carl Schmitt:

Ernestus non reliquit nos sed antecessit. Cum sciam omnia perdere et Dei sententia qui mutat corda hominum et fata populorum, rerum exitum patienter expecto .

[Ernstel has not left us but only preceded us. Since I know that all things die, and that the will of God alters the hearts of men and the fates of nations, I await patiently my departure from life.]

Name of sender: Volkssturmmann [Civil Defense Man] Schmitt, Albrechtsteerofen. The card upset me; it made me clearly aware of the abrupt shift that has cast millions of people these days into utter catastrophe, into mud and fire. Just as individual moments attach themselves to such ideas, the red silk easy chair surfaced in my memory. That was where I had sat so often in his apartment in Steglitz to discuss the course of the world late into the night over good wine.

Since Ernstel’s death, I have forgotten to record the raids and bombardments, although there has been no shortage of them in the interim. As I write this morning, the air is filled with activity. Am also worried about Brother Physicus. The last I heard, he was in Schneidemühl, which is surrounded.

Browsed in Chamfort again. What can be said of Rivarol is also true of him: There is a particular kind of clarity that can be attributed to disinfection [of prose style]. Yet this also incorporates a new freedom and to see it in statu nascendi [emerging] is a great pleasure. For a century, witty writers drew on him.

The following anecdote amused me once again: The Regent did not wish to be recognized at a masked ball. “I can remedy that,” said Abbé Dubois, and during the ball proceeded to dole out kicks to his backside. Finally the Regent said, “Abbé, you disguise me too well.”

To split firewood, aufklöben . [41] Reference to a regional verb for splitting that means literally “to split something apart or rive open a log.”

Finished my reading about shipwrecks. The material should be organized into a systematic treatise.

Cannibalism. After the Betsey went down off the coast of Dutch Guyana in 1756, the helmsman, a man named Williams who was the strongest of the nearly starved survivors, showed his “generosity” by offering his comrades a piece of his hindquarters to help them cling to life with his blood.

The crew of the American ship Peggy was reduced to butchery in 1665 when she became impossible to steer while sailing from the Azores to New York and had to spend months as a plaything of the waves. [42] E. J. cites in translation the words of the Roman poet Lucretius (first century BCE), ludibrium pelagis (plaything of the waves). Once the ship’s cat had been devoured as the last of their provisions, the crew decided to extend the lives of the survivors by killing one of their own. Against the will of the captain, who lay ill in his cabin, lots were drawn and a Negro slave on board was chosen. This suggests that the unfortunate man had been chosen in advance and that the lottery was merely a sham. He was slain at once.

The body kept them alive for over two weeks. Then they had to settle upon a second victim, and this time the captain was in charge of drawing lots out of concern that it would otherwise take place without him. He wrote the names on small pieces of paper, threw these into a hat and shook it. The crew watched these preparations in silence, their faces pale and mouths quivering, their fright visibly etched on every feature. A man drew the piece of paper; the captain opened it and read the name: David Flat. The crew gave in to the captain’s request to postpone his slaughter until the eleventh hour of the next morning. At ten o’clock, when a large fire was already blazing and the cauldron in place on it, a sail came into view. It was the Susanne whose captain re-victualed the ship and took her in tow.