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

Jünger, Notes from the Caucasus , Voroshilovsk, 26 November 1942.

See Ernst Jünger, “Sicilian Letter to the Man in the Moon,” in Jünger, The Adventurous Heart , 121–130.

Jünger, “Sicilian Letter,” 130.

I borrow here the term “ Unschuld des Werdens ” (innocence of becoming) from the title given by Alfred Bäumler to a collection of some of Nietzsche’s unpublished works. See Die Unschuld des Werdens: Der Nachlass, ausgewählt und geordnet von Alfred Baeumler (Leipzig: Kröner, 1931). Although Bäumler was a prominent advocate of aligning Nietzsche’s philosophy with National Socialism, the phrase cogently captures an essential characteristic of Nietzsche’s attempt to reverse early modern pessimism, as well as Jünger’s notion of Heiterkeit (a combination of serenity and cheerfulness). Jünger of course breaks with Nietzsche by embracing multiple levels of reality below the surface of visual perception, a notion that Nietzsche scoffed at as a Platonic illusion. See Jünger, First Paris Journal , Paris, 7 January 1942 and 10 March 1942.

Jünger, First Paris Journal , Paris, 8 October 1942.

Günter Figal and Heimo Schwilk, Die Magie der Heiterket: Ernst Jünger zum Hundertsten (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1995).

Figal and Schwilk, Die Magie der Heiterket , 7.

I am indebted to Eliah Bures for this observation.

Richard Herzinger in this context coined the phrase “ Übermoderne ,” a deeper version of postmodernity. See “Werden wir alle Jünger?” Kursbuch 122 (December 1995): 93–117.

E. J. applies to Wagner categories from Nietzsche, which include a caricature of the composer as sorcerer.

Nietzsche contra Wagner (published 1895) refers to a critical essay written by Nietzsche that collects earlier passages from his writings focused particularly on Wagner’s religion. It promoted a major aesthetic debate about music and the role of the composer.

Quai : public path along a waterway; a wharf or bank where ships’ cargo is unloaded.

Member of the female Wehrmacht auxiliary.

The Arc de Triomphe stands at the center of this junction of twelve avenues that form a star ( étoile ) pattern, hence the “Square of the Star.” In 1970 the square was officially renamed Place Charles de Gaulle. E. J. usually refers to this spot simply as the Étoile .

Perpetua: E. J.’s pseudonym for his wife, Grethe. See Glossary of Proper Names for pseudonyms and nicknames.

Knacker’s yard: a slaughterhouse for old or injured horses.

Subtiles : Cryptopleurum subtile , the brown mushroom beetle, a collecting passion of E. J. who was an accomplished amateur entomologist. In 1967, he published a book on his beetle collecting forays with the punning title, Subtile Jagden [ Subtile Hunts ].

Mme. Richardet’s aunt.

Reference to a work by the Roman satirist Decimus Junius Juvenal that mentions a satirical book (possibly two, now lost) by Caesar answering eulogies on Cato—the so-called Anticato or Anticatones. The implication is to a gesture indicating a man’s penis as big or as long as these works, which would have been written on papyrus rolls.

Reference to the explosion of the hydrogen-filled passenger airship Hindenburg in Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937.

Kniébolo: E. J.’s pseudonym for Hitler, an invented name that echoes diavolo (devil).

A reference to Thomas Mann’s novel Lotte in Weimar [ The Beloved Returns , 1939].

Quotation from Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, fifth-century Roman writer.

This luxury hotel on Avenue Kléber served as headquarters of the German military command in occupied France.

Sea Lion (Ger. Seelöwe ), code name for the plan to invade Great Britain.

Des Esseintes: character in Huysmans’s Against the Grain .

In May 1941, Rudolf Hess astonished the world with his flight to Scotland, where he hoped to be granted an audience with King George VI and sue for peace with Germany. He was imprisoned and later tried in Nuremberg.

Duk-Duk dancers: males of the Tolai people of Papua New Guinea invoke the male spirit duk duk in their ritual dances with elaborate masks and costumes.

Quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols (1888).

Chypre (French for Cyprus): a perfume developed in 1917 by François Coty from Mediterranean ingredients.

Recte: Fumeurs d’Opium , 1896 [ Smokers of Opium ].

Jünger was quartered in the luxury hotel Raphael on Avenue Portugais, quite close to the Hotel Majestic.

Rastignac: character in the novels of Honoré de Balzac.

Lemures : vengeful spirits in Roman mythology. E. J. uses the term to refer euphemistically to the executioners and butchers of the NS regime. His source is Goethe’s Faust where the Lemuren serve Mephistopheles as gravediggers. This translation retains the Latin form.

On 21 August, a German naval cadet was assassinated in Paris, which ignited a string of assassinations of German military officers in France. French hostages were taken in reprisal and many were executed. Despite Hitler’s directive to execute 100 hostages for every German killed, General Otto von Stülpnagel resisted the order, which he thought would only fuel French resistance.

Ernstel, affectionate diminutive of Ernst, E. J.’s elder son. See Glossary of Proper Names.

Reference to E. J.’s novel, Auf den Marmorklippen [ On the Marble Cliffs ]. As soon as the work was published in 1939, it was considered a roman à clef in both Nazi and anti-Nazi circles and made enemies for E. J. within the regime.

Stavrogin: character in Dostoevsky’s novel Demons (1872).

Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky: character in Dostoevsky’s Demons .

Friedrich Georg Jünger, E. J.’s younger brother.

Prose piece by E. J., which appeared in the collection Das Abenteuerliche Herz (1938).

Sancho Panza: character in Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605).

Reference to Burckhardt’s influential work, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (German original, 1860).