Sämtliche Werke - Band 17: Essays IX: Ad hoc

by Ernst Jünger

»Ad hoc« – Jüngers Gelegenheitsschriften und -reden erlauben Einblicke in seinen Familien- und Freundeskreis, wenn er etwa seinem Bruder zum Geburtstag gratuliert. Doch auch die »Gelegenheit« nutzt er zur tiefergehenden Reflexion.

Der vorliegende Band entspricht Band 14 der gebundenen Ausgabe.

Der siebzehnte Band versammelt zumeist kürzere Arbeiten Ernst Jüngers, die stets einem konkreten Anlass verpflichtet waren. Doch gehorchen die Reflexionen etwa über Alfred Kubin oder André Gide keinesfalls einem wie auch immer gearteten Zwang; vielmehr zeigen sie zum einen die Vernetzung Jüngers, zum anderen ermöglichen sie Aufschlüsse über ihn selbst, denn auch im Blickwinkel auf den Anderen wird seine Sichtweise erkennbar.
Dies gilt insbesondere für die beiden Geburtstagsgrüße an seinen Bruder und die »Familiäre Notiz«, aber auch die Preisreden und Nachrufe, die letztlich zeigen, dass der »Jahrhundertmensch« Jünger mit seinen beinahe 103 Jahren viele seiner Weggenossen überlebte.

Im Einzelnen enthält der Band:
– Caspar René Gregory
– Alfred Kubins Werk: Nachwort zum Briefwechsel, – Die Staubdämonen
– Nachruf auf André Gide
– Geburtstagsbrief an William Matheson
– Karl O. Paetel zum 50. Geburtstag
– An Friedrich Georg zum 65. Geburtstag
– An Friedrich Georg zum 70. Geburtstag
– Brief nach Rehburg
– Nelsons Aspekt. Hans Speidel zum 70. Geburtstag
– Erinnerungen an Henry Furst
– Zwei Besuche. In memoriam Jean Schlumberger
– Ausgehend vom Brümmerhof. Alfred Toepfer zum 80. Geburtstag
– Post nach Princeton
– Alonso de Contreras
– Kriegsstücke von drüben
– Vorwort zu »Blätter und Steine«
– Geleitwort zu Hans Speidels »Invasion 1944«
– »Antaios«. Zeitschrift für eine freie Welt. Ein Programm
– Dankansprachen bei der Verleihung des Rudolf-Alexander-Schröder-Preises, des Immermann-Preises, des Straßburg-Preises, der Freiherr-vom-Stein-Medaille, des Schiller-Preises des Landes Baden-Württemberg
– Durchbruch? Paul Toinet
– Rivarol
– Paul Léautaud. »In Memoriam«
– Postscriptum zu Paul Léautaud

397 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 28, 2015

About the author

Ernst Jünger was a decorated German soldier and author who became famous for his World War I memoir Storm of Steel. The son of a successful businessman and chemist, Jünger rebelled against an affluent upbringing and sought adventure in the Wandervogel, before running away to briefly serve in the French Foreign Legion, an illegal act. Because he escaped prosecution in Germany due to his father's efforts, Junger was able to enlist on the outbreak of war. A fearless leader who admired bravery above all else, he enthusiastically participated in actions in which his units were sometimes virtually annihilated. During an ill-fated German offensive in 1918 Junger's WW1 career ended with the last and most serious of his many woundings, and he was awarded the Pour le Mérite, a rare decoration for one of his rank.

Junger served in World War II as captain in the German Army. Assigned to an administrative position in Paris, he socialized with prominent artists of the day such as Picasso and Jean Cocteau. His early time in France is described in his diary Gärten und Straßen (1942, Gardens and Streets). He was also in charge of executing younger German soldiers who had deserted. In his book Un Allemand à Paris , the writer Gerhard Heller states that he had been interested in learning how a person reacts to death under such circumstances and had a morbid fascination for the subject.

Jünger appears on the fringes of the Stauffenberg bomb plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler (July 20, 1944). He was clearly an inspiration to anti-Nazi conservatives in the German Army, and while in Paris he was close to the old, mostly Prussian, officers who carried out the assassination attempt against Hitler. He was only peripherally involved in the events however, and in the aftermath suffered only dismissal from the army in the summer of 1944, rather than execution.

In the aftermath of WW2 he was treated with some suspicion as a closet Nazi. By the latter stages of the Cold War his unorthodox writings about the impact of materialism in modern society were widely seen as conservative rather than radical nationalist, and his philosophical works came to be highly regarded in mainstream German circles. Junger ended his extremely long life as a honoured establishment figure, although critics continued to charge him with the glorification of war as a transcending experience.