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

At the shop of Lechevalier on Rue de Tournon in the afternoon. While studying engravings and colored plates in books on insects, I was overcome by a feeling of disgust, as though the presence of cadavers had diminished my enjoyment. There are transgressions that touch the world in its entirety and its whole logical context. At such points, the aesthetic person must turn away from beauty and devote himself to freedom. The terrible thing nowadays is that it cannot be found in any of the parties, and so one has to do battle alone. On the other hand, it is the day laborers of this war we must envy; they fall with honor on a small patch of ground. And yet they too enter another, greater world.

Later, at Charmille’s on Rue de Bellechasse. The street is quiet, and when I cross the stairwell time stands still in the twilit forecourts. This brings a feeling of security: “No one knows my name and no one knows this place of refuge.”

“ Voyage autour de ma chamber ” [voyage around my room] in the old easy chair, as on the flying carpet from One Thousand and One Nights . We chat, mostly about words and their meanings, and sometimes look things up in books. The library is rich, especially in theological and reference works.

Charmille. What I admire about her: her sense of freedom, which is evident in the shape of her forehead. Among human beings there exists a type that is salt of the earth, people who always prevent history from sinking completely into stifling servitude. Individuals know by instinct what freedom is, especially when they are born among policemen and prisoners. You can always find those who belong to the race of the falcon or eagle; they are recognizable even behind prison bars.

I had to reach this age to find enjoyment in the intellectual encounter with women, just as Kubin, the old sorcerer, prophesied of me. The change has meant something startling for me, precisely because I had been satisfied with the course of my life, like a specialist in ballistics who has watched his shot traverse its prescribed trajectory and then seen it take a new direction into a limitless dimension. He had not known the laws of the stratosphere.

In addition, the hunger for human beings grows significantly. In prisons, men see clearly their companions’ latent merits. We can do without anything as long as we have other people.

Ended the evening late at the Raphael: [23] Jünger was quartered in the luxury hotel Raphael on Avenue Portugais, quite close to the Hotel Majestic. Boissière, Fumeurs d’Opium . This book from 1888 was a treasure trove for me. It not only describes life in the Annamese [Vietnamese] swamps and forests but also has intellectual appeal. In the opium dream, there towers above the febrile tropical zones another, crystalline, world. Viewed from this level, even cruelty loses its horror. There is no pain here. That is perhaps the most exquisite quality of opium: it animates the mind’s creative power and begets enchanted castles in the imagination. Upon those towers the loss of the swamps and foggy realms of this earth can never inspire fear. The soul creates levels for our passage to death.

Went to the theater at Palais-Royal in dense fog. I returned the Boissière to Cocteau. He lives nearby on Rue de Montpensier in that very house where Rastignac [24] Rastignac: character in the novels of Honoré de Balzac. received Nucingen’s wife. Cocteau was entertaining guests. Among his furnishings, I noticed a slate blackboard he uses to illustrate aspects of his conversation with swift chalkmarks.

I sensed the danger on the way home, especially when the doors in the narrow old streets near the Palais-Royal opened onto hazy red-lighted areas. Who knows what is brewing in such kitchens, who knows the plans the lemures [25] 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. are hatching? We pass through this sphere in disguise, for if the fog were to lift, we would be recognized by these creatures, and the result would be disaster.

“ L’homme qui dort, c’est l’homme diminué .” [A man who sleeps is a man diminished.] One of Rivarol’s errors.

At the German Institute this afternoon. Among those there was Merline. Tall, raw-boned, strong, a bit ungainly, but lively during the discussion—or more accurately, during his monologue. He speaks with a manic, inward-directed gaze, which seems to shine from deep within a cave. He no longer looks to the right or the left. He seems to be marching toward some unknown goal. “I always have death beside me.” And in saying this, he points to the spot beside his seat, as though a puppy were lying there.

He spoke of his consternation, his astonishment, at the fact that we soldiers were not shooting, hanging, and exterminating the Jews—astonishment that anyone who had a bayonet was not making unrestrained use of it. “If the Bolsheviks were in Paris they would demonstrate it, show how it’s done—how to comb through a population, quarter by quarter, house by house. If I had a bayonet, I would know what to do.”

It was informative to listen to him rant this way for two hours, because he radiated the amazing power of nihilism. People like this hear only a single melody, but they hear it uncommonly powerfully. They resemble machines of iron that follow a single path until they are finally dismantled.

It is remarkable when such minds speak about the sciences, such as biology. They apply them the way Stone Age man did, transforming them only into a means to slay others.

They take no pleasure in having an idea. They have had many—their yearning drives them toward fortresses from which cannons fire upon the masses and spread fear. Once they have achieved this goal, they interrupt their intellectual work, regardless of what arguments have helped them climb to the top. Then they give themselves over to the pleasure of killing. It was this drive to commit mass murder that propelled them forward in such a meaningless and confused way in the first place.

People with such natures could be recognized earlier, in eras when faith could still be tested. Nowadays they hide under the cloak of ideas. These are quite arbitrary, as seen in the fact that when certain goals are achieved, they are discarded like rags.

The announcement came today of Japan’s declaration of war. Perhaps the year 1942 will be the one when more people than ever before will pass over and enter Hades.

Walked through the deserted streets of the city in the evening. Because of the assassinations, the populace is under curfew in the early evening. Everything lies lifeless in the fog. The sound of radios and chattering children came from the houses, as if I were walking among birdcages.

In the course of my work about the struggle between the army and the Party for authority in France, I am translating the farewell letters of the hostages [26] 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. who have been executed in Nantes. These came to light in the files. I want to preserve them because they would otherwise be lost. Reading them has given me strength. When faced with imminent death, man seems to emerge from his blind will and realize that love is the most intimate of all connections. Except for love, death is perhaps our only benefactor in this world.