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

At the two simultaneous battles of Jena and Auerstedt on 14 October 1806 near the river Saale, the armies of Napoleon encountered those of Frederick William III of Prussia. Napoleon’s forces prevailed over the Prussians.

Pied Piper of Hamelin.

E. J. uses the edition with critical apparatus edited by Eberhard Nestle of the Novum Testamentum Graece (1898).

Pitcairn Island. In 1790, mutineers from HMS Bounty settled on Pitcairn Island. After discord and hardship, several of them eventually turned to scripture, using the ship’s Bible as their guide.

Stater: a silver coin mentioned in Matthew 17:27: “go to the sea, cast a hook, and take up the first fish that comes up. When you have opened its mouth, you will find a stater coin. Take that, and give it to them for me and you.”

Le Crapouillot : outspoken French satirical political magazine (originally for the military) published from 1915 to 1996.

Cloaca maxima : the main sewer of ancient Rome.

E. J.’s wordplay produces the neologism einfalten —a back-formation from the adjective einfältig (foolish, simpleminded)—suggesting the activity of becoming “one-fold” or monodimensional.

The popular name ( Christbaum, Tannenbaum ) for incendiary flares dropped by parachute. These produced colored fire to mark a target area.

Military fort at Verdun.

On 27 February 1933, an arsonist set fire to the Reichstag [Parliament Building] in Berlin.

Wisdom of Solomon 3:6 (Apocrypha).

Capital letters in the typeface Antiqua that resemble hand lettering.

Pseudonym for Friedrich Hielscher.

Berchta: a female goddess from the tradition of alpine paganism. She appears during the twelve days of Christmas and oversees spinning.

Fasnacht: carnival.

Freya (Freyja): a goddess in Germanic mythology associated with fertility, love, beauty, and gold.

Biedenhorn refers to Jünger’s fictional character in On the Marble Cliffs , a corrupt leader of mercenaries.

Reference to Rashid ad-Din Sinan, called “The Old Man of the Mountain,” a leader of the sect of Ismaelite assassins in Syria at the time of the Third Crusade.

Volga Germans designates ethnic Germans (including Moravians and Mennonites) who in the eighteenth century were recruited to colonize areas along the Volga River in Russia where they kept their language and culture.

Pariser Zeitung [ Paris Newspaper ]: German language daily newspaper (1941–1944); the typo “nectar” [nectar] should read “hektar” [hectare].

Sauckel moved 5 million people from the Occupied Territories to work in Germany’s munitions industry. His methods for rounding up this labor force were infamously brutal.

Reference to Paul and Hélène Morand.

Peter Schlemiel: see note to First Paris Journal , Paris, 10 September 1942.

Latin, “Gate to Westphalia,” referring in this case to a gorge, also called the Westphalian Gap, in the district of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Beginen Tower: a fourteenth-century defensive tower, part of the original city wall, on the bank [ Ufer ] of the Leine River.

The world spirit: E. J. invokes Hegel’s concept of history, which is dominated by the deeds of important men.

The Elisabeth Linné phenomenon: at the age of nineteen, Elisabeth von Linné (daughter of the naturalist) wrote an article describing the flash of light in nasturtiums (Indian cress) at dusk; later research revealed it to be an optical anomaly.

Angelus Silesius was born to Protestant parents but converted to Catholicism when he was twenty-nine. He strove to persuade Protestants to return to the Catholic faith. His epigrammatic, mystical poetry, and hymn texts aimed to encourage devotion.

Attila’s hall: refers to the Middle High German epic Das Nibelungenlied , in which the king’s hall is the site of a bloodbath.

Urpflanze: see note to Second Paris Journal , Paris, 13 August 1943.

Quotation from the drinking song “Und als der Herr von Rodenstein “by Viktor von Scheffel (c. 1856).

Bellarmin: refers to Friedrich Hölderlin’s epistolary novel Hyperion oder Der Eremit in Griechenland [Hyperion or The Hermit in Greece] , published in 1797 (vol. 1) and 1799 (vol. 2). One letter that Hyperion writes from Greece to his friend Bellarmin contains a particularly severe criticism of Germany and the Germans.

Bosch’s triptych (1490–1510), one of his best-known works, hangs in the Prado Museum (Madrid).

“Let us be easygoing about words”; Bismarck reputedly used this phrase to mean it did not matter whether the navy was called Prussian or North German.

Reference to E. J.’s On the Marble Cliffs .

Adversative conjunctions such as “but, yet, however” introduce contrast or opposition.

The first name refers to Stendhal’s novel, The Life of Henri Brulard; Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky is a character in Dostoevsky’s novel The Demons .

Stralau is a section of Berlin. E. J. lived there on Stralauer Allee in 1928.

Makrobiotik oder die Kunst das Menschliche Leben zu Verlängern (Jena, 1797), [ Macrobiotics or the Art of Extending Human Life ].

The colloquial designation schwarz [“black”] describes committed zealots who support the regime. By contrast, see Second Paris Journal , Kirchhorst, 29 February 1944.

Reference to One Thousand and One Nights .

“For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.”

“White”: military colloquialism, connoting a skeptical, potentially subversive attitude toward the regime.

Jan Bockelson (1509–1536), “John of Leiden”: Anabaptist leader of the Münster Rebellion.

Johann Peter Eckermann was Goethe’s secretary and biographer.

La Grande Roquette: dungeon in Paris where those condemned to death were incarcerated.

A breakout battle [ Ausbruchsschlacht ] is a military maneuver to escape encirclement.

The compound Salvarsan (arsphenamine) was introduced in 1911 as the first effective treatment for syphilis.