Ernst Jünger: Traitor and Moral Coward

by Angelicus

IN CERTAIN circles that can be described as either traditionalist or conservative, the name of Ernst Jünger is mentioned with respect and admiration. This should not surprise us.

A few days ago I came across an article about Jünger by John Morgan, a man who describes himself as a member of the right: “And by the Right, I certainly don’t mean conservatism — I’ve never regarded myself as merely a conservative — but rather the ‘radical’ Right; not necessarily radical in the sense of being extreme, but of being willing to question the very foundations upon which our civilization as it is currently constituted is resting.” His article is very sympathetic toward Jünger. This highlights the irreconcilable gap that separates us National Socialists from the “right.”

National Socialism at its core had nothing to do with the so-called right, which was mainly concerned with the welfare of the upper classes.

Jünger became famous in Germany as the author of the book Storm of Steel, that describes his experiences as a platoon leader in the Imperial German Army during World War 1. He was a courageous soldier and won not only the Iron Cross 1st Class but also the highly coveted Pour le Merite, Prussia’s highest military award.

His background, and his attacks to the corrupt liberal republic of Weimar, led some leaders of the NSDAP to believe that Jünger would support the National Socialists. The party offered him a seat in the parliament in 1927 but he refused it. There was something perverse in Jünger that made him reject the movement that represented everything good and noble in the German people.

Some people join a political movement out of instinctive sympathy with its principles, others do it after a period of study and reflection. In Jünger there was none of that. He instinctively rejected National Socialism from the very beginning. He was a conservative, and as such he was unable to appreciate a popular movement like National Socialism. He also was, although perhaps unconsciously, an individualist “liberal” — hence his dislike for the totalitarian nature of the Third Reich. Both of these traits: conservatism and liberalism, were the hallmarks of the traitors known as “the German resistance” with whom Jünger clearly and naturally sympathized.

In 1934 he wrote to the national newspaper Der Völkischer Beobachter (The Popular Observer) forbidding the publication of any of his articles. He was invited several times to speak on the radio, for programs which supported the NSDAP, and he refused. In 1939 his novel On the Marble Cliffs was published, which is in essence the story of an oppressive totalitarian regime bent on destroying an aristocratic rural community in an imaginary country. It was a veiled attack on the German National Socialist government, which by then had been in power for six years. In spite of his arrogance and rudeness towards the supposedly brutal National Socialists, he was never molested. So much for the “tyranny” and “intolerance” of Hitler’s Germany!

Like many conservatives, he was a snob. He found the National Socialists “vulgar,” though strangely he did not express the same feelings for the so-called “National Bolsheviks” whose leader Ernst Niekisch was a close friend. In fact, Jünger wrote several articles for Niekisch’s magazine Widerstand. Regarding this, I shall quote a paragraph from John Morgan’s article, which is very illuminating: “Jünger was especially close to Ernst Niekisch, who was the leader of the current known as the ‘National Bolsheviks,’ which sought to combine nationalism with the best elements of Communism, and Jünger was a frequent contributor to Niekisch’s newspaper, Widerstand (Resistance). Many years later, he was to remark that if Niekisch had become the leader of Germany in the 1930s instead of Hitler, that the history of Germany in the twentieth century would have taken an entirely different, and more successful, course.”

The fact the Jünger was happy to collaborate with Niekisch while rejecting firmly the overtures of the NSDAP speaks volumes.

From the very beginning he sided with the Jews, as his liberal individualist and cosmopolitan views harmonized with their agenda.

His position in favour of the workers was nothing more than virtue signalling. The great social revolution carried out by the National Socialist movement, that brought untold benefits and happiness to German workers, was totally ignored by him. He acted like an arrogant snob who deep down despised the working class.

Jünger’s case, among millions of others, proves that “racial purity” alone is not enough. By giving preeminence to the purely biological aspects of our people, we run a danger of forgetting a most crucial factor, the spiritual aspect. The fact that a man or a woman may be a perfect Aryan specimen does not much benefit our race’s progress unless that man or woman acts in an honourable Aryan manner. Jünger, just like those traitors who conspired to murder the Führer, was biologically 100% Aryan — but he was in many ways deaf to the voice of the blood. He said he was “shocked and horrified” by the racial doctrine of the NSDAP, and refused to see the Jews for what they really are: the mortal enemies of the Aryan race. He quit a veteran’s organization when Jews were no longer welcome as members. He was close to some of the “Prussian officer class” traitors who tried to kill Hitler late in the war. Morgan says, “By 1944, Germany was facing inevitable defeat, and Hitler’s announced policy of total war and fighting to the last man was already leading to the complete devastation of the country.” But Hitler’s policy of total war was the logical reply to the Allies’ demand for “unconditional surrender” at the Casablanca conference in January 1943. Regarding “the complete devastation of the country” — this had already been largely achieved by the murderous, relentless bombing offensive of the Allies which, by the way, continued almost to the last day of the war!

Morgan continues: “Also, most of the leaders of the Stauffenberg plot were Prussian aristocrats who had no intention of allowing Germany to become a liberal Anglo-American colony in the aftermath of their [hoped-for] success. Rather, their intention was to insist on an independent Germany which would side with the Western allies in a continuing struggle against the Soviets.” Stauffenberg and his cronies were arrogant, resentful snobs who hated Hitler from the very beginning, period. They never forgave him for putting an end to their privileged lifestyle. Not only that, but they showed themselves as imbeciles when they ignored the clear and public demand for unconditional surrender by the Allies. They apparently believed that: 1) Churchill and Roosevelt would listen to them, and 2) the Allies would agree to join them to fight against their friend and partner Stalin.

Jünger survived the war and lived to enjoy a lucrative retirement and the adulation of conservatives who saw him as a hero. His eldest son, Ernst Jr., who turned out to be a traitor like his father, was killed in Italy while serving in a penal unit after being expelled from the Naval Academy for “subversive activities.” When we think of the thousands of German soldiers, and the European volunteers who fought along with them, who were jailed, tortured, or murdered, five, ten, or even twenty years after the end of the war because they would not betray their comrades or admit crimes they did not commit, Ernst Jünger’s despicable behaviour becomes even more worthy of contempt.

Ernst Jünger and his “resistance” comrades were largely a group of resentful and cowardly snobs who hated Hitler for not preserving their privileged social status, and for not restoring the Kaiser as many of them had expected. The so-called Conservative Revolution was another lie: a group of arrogant upper-class intellectuals who, while Germany was being destroyed by Jews and international bankers, found consolation in dreaming of a new “aristocratic” regime that would restore and preserve their privileges. While these cowards were writing their pathetic books, thousands of heroes wearing brown shirts were fighting the Bolsheviks in the streets, saving Germany and laying the foundations of the Third Reich.

Ernst Jünger was an heroic soldier in World War 1, but his behaviour during and after the Third Reich was anything but heroic. He proved that one can be a brave and honourable soldier in war only to become a traitor afterwards. He refused to take sides when even greater heroes were dying in the streets for their people.

That makes him a coward, and that is how he should be remembered.

He enjoyed a comfortable situation for more than a decade thanks to the undeserved generosity and respect of Adolf Hitler, who ordered that he should not be disturbed although he was aware of his hostility toward the NSDAP. Although Jünger did not directly participate in the plot to assassinate Hitler, he knew of it and did nothing about it. And not only that: He aided many of the traitors by providing alibis for them.

That makes him a traitor, and that is how he should be remembered.

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Source: Author