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1993 23: 101Journal of European StudiesRichard Griffiths

A certain idea of France: Ernst Jünger's Paris Diaries 1941-44  

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A certain idea of France: Ernst Jünger’s ParisDiaries 1941-44

RICHARD GRIFFITHS* King’s College, London

J European Studies, XXlll (1993), 101-120 Pnnted m England

Wir sassen dann eine Weile auf der Place du Tertre im Garten derMere Catherine und gingen danach in Schneckenlinien um Sacr6Coeur herum. Die Stadt ist eine zweite geistige Heimat fur michgeworden, wird immer starker zum Inbild dessen, was an alter Kulturmir lieb und teuer ist.

[We sat then for a while on the Place du Tertre, in the garden of MereCatherine, and afterwards wandered in the streets that spiral aroundthe Sacr6 Coeur. The City has become a second spiritual home for me,and is becoming ever more ston~ly the epitome of what is dear andprecious to me in the old culture.] ]

Ernst Jfnger’s view of Paris and of France, during his period of dutythere from 1941 to 1944, is often reminiscent of that of his literarycounterpart, the German officer in Vercors’s Le Silence de la mer.

Jünger arrived in Paris, which he already knew from before the war,with a whole series of preconceptions with regard to French culture,and with a strong sense of the romantic associations, from bothliterature and history, of all that lay around him.His diaries depict him as living on a number of different levels;

working in the Wehrmacht headquarters, dining luxuriously in thebest restaurants, mingling with the French intelligentsia in theirsalons, but also spending a lot of time in solitary wandering aroundthe city, often in nostalgic mood. And always reading, reading ...His breadth of reading, particularly of French literature, was

enormous.

Jünger was a complex and elusive figure. His reaction to

contemporary German policy, which has often been discussed, wasone of distaste, but inaction. It was epitomized by his feelings when,leaving Maxim’s after a lunch with Paul Morand and his wife in June1942, he saw for the first time, as he sauntered down the Rue Royale,three young girls wearing the yellow star:

Zu Mittag im ’Maxim’, wohin ich von Morands eingeladen war ... In

* Address for correspondence: Department of French, King’s College, Strand,London WC2R 2LS.

0047-2441/93/2301-0101 $2.50 © 1993 Richard Sadler Ltd

101

102

der Rue Royale begegnete ich zum ersten Mal in meinem Leben demgelben Stern, getragen von drei jungen Madchen, die Arm in Armvorbeikamen ... Nachmittags sah ich den Stern dann hdufiger. Ichhalte derartiges, auch innerhalb der personlichen Geschichte, fiir einDatum, das einschneidet. Ein solcher Anblick bleibt nicht ohne

Ruckwirkung - so genierte es mich sogleich, dass ich in Uniform war.

[At midday to ’Maxim’s’, to which the Morands had invited me ... Inthe Rue Royale I encountered for the first time in my life the yellowstar, worn by three young girls passing by arm in arm ... During theafternoon I saw the star more frequently. I consider this, even withinone’s personal history, as a decisive event. Such a sight does not gowithout a reaction - I immediately felt embarrassed at being inuniform.]2Just over a month later, at the news of the way in which Jews were

being deported, he again, privately, showed his sympathy; but theimpression he gives is one of helplessness in face of insuperableforces:

Gestern wurden hier Juden verhaftet, um deportiert zu werden - mantrennte die Eltern zundchst von ihren Kindern, so dass Jammern inden Strassen zu h6ren war. Ich darf in keinem Augenblick vergessen,dass ich von Ungliicklichen, von bis in das tiefste Leidenden

umgeben bin. Was ware ich sonst auch fur ein Mensch, was fur einOffizier. Die Uniform verpflichtet, Schutz zu gewahren, wo es irgendgeht. Freilich hat man den Eindruck, dass man dazu wie Don

Quichote mit Millionen anbinden muss.

[Yesterday, a number of Jews were arrested, to be deported - Theyfirst separated parents from their children, so that you could hear thewailing in the streets. Not for a moment must I forget that I amsurrounded by unhappy people, by people suffering in their deepestbeing. What kind of a man would I be otherwise, what kind of anofficer. The uniform obliges one to accord protection, wherever onecan. One has the impression, to be sure, that like Don Quixote one willhave to fight, to do that, with millions of adversaries.)3Whatever Jfnger’s private thoughts, however much he confides to

his diary his distaste for the activities of &dquo;Kni6bolo’ (his nickname forHitler) and his henchmen, there is a perpetual sense of an inability toinvolve himself. He remains an observer, outside the events that heportrays. Even at the time of the generals’ plot, in 1944, when heknew many of the plotters and was aware of what was afoot, heremained aloof, though sympathetic; despite his connections, hewas not brought to book, but spared by Hitler (though removed fromactive service).

Junger’s attitudes epitomize those of many of the old Wehrmacht,serving Germany in war, suspicious of the new forces that were

103

ruling their country, disapproving but subservient. Only with theimminent prospect of defeat and chaos did real distress visit Junger;by 1944 his diaries are far from the insouciance of his arrival in Parisin 1941.

Enough has already been written, however, about Junger’sambiguous detachment from the political dilemmas of his time, andabout his ability to withdraw into the role of the noble and

disapproving observer. There are other matters which come to thesurface in his Paris diaries, from 1941 to 1944. Prominent amongthese are his attitudes to France, to the French, to French literatureand to French culture. These form a counterpoint to his depiction ofthe political events of his stay; and they tell us a great deal aboutattitudes, both French and German, to the years of Occupation. Thepurpose of this article is to examine Jfnger’s relationship to Franceand the French during these crucial years.

***

We should, perhaps, first look closely at Jünger himself. Often seenas the epitome of a certain kind of German Right, Jünger was born in1895. He had a brilliant career in the First World War, beingwounded 14 times, and being awarded the ’Pour le Merited In hiscampaign diary, In Stahlgewittern, published in 1920, and in a

number of other works, he praised war, and pure action, as the forcethat would re-fashion and revitalize the world. He became theembodiment of the restlessness and dissatisfaction of the war

generation in the post-war situation. In contrast with this (and in away typical of the contradictions and ambiguities that we will see inhim) he left the army in 1923 to do research in botany, zoology andmarine biology. Meanwhile, however, he became editor of theStahlhelm newspaper Die Standarte, and of the nationalist journalArminius. He became sympathetic to the Nazi movement, withoutactually joining it. He seemed, in fact, attracted by any kind ofextremist movement which might get Germany out of what he sawas a blind alley of mediocrity. In Der Arbeiter (1932) he proposed astate run on authoritarian lines, geared to war in every aspect.From 1933 onwards, however, when a movement embodying

some of these ideas came to power, he withdrew into the role of a

consciously detached observer. It was as though his ideas hadmerely been the expression of a dissatisfaction with Weimar politics,and as though once they were put into action he found himself out oftune with them. He returned to the study of insects and plants (with

104

which he was also to continue throughout the war; a significant partof the Paris diaries deals with these matters). In 1938 he visited Paris,where he met a number of major literary figures. Then, in 1939,he published what is possibly his most famous work, Auf denMarmorklippen, a novel of heavy symbolism, whose ambiguitiesconcealed an allegorical attack on the Nazi regime (an attack whichwas not at first perceived as such by its targets, but which during thewar was to inspire, among others, certain members of the FrenchResistance movement).4

In 1940 Junger, mobilized once more, took part in the campaign ofFrance. His 1940 diary, Gärten und Strassen, covers this campaign.Later, in 1941, after a short period in France at St Michel, he wasposted to the staff of General von Stflpnagel at the army headquartersin Paris. There he was to remain until August 1944 (with theexception of a spell on the Russian front from October 1942 toJanuary 1943).Something of his complex character is to be perceived from the

very first day of his stay in France, in 1941. As he journeys, heruminates about literature (Octave Mirbeau, Wagner, Baudelaire,Nietzsche). In Charleville, he buys books on Rimbaud and by Gide.In St Michel, he begins to read Si le grain ne meurt, and is fascinatedby the passage on the kaleidoscope. Amid all this, he visits Paris, inApril, on a wet week-end. On the Saturday evening, with a fellow-officer, he eats at the Rotisserie de la Reine P6dauque and then goeson to a nude show at Tabarin, where the nudes and their spectatorsgive rise to philosophical musings about the human anatomy andabout the ’Mechanismus des Triebes’. Later, they proceed to abrothel, where, like Camoes talking about Petrarch to the prostitutesin a Goa brothel, Jünger finds a young Russian girl to whom he cantalk about his favourite Russian authors, Pushkin, Aksakov andAndreyev. On the following day, a wet Sunday, he wanders aroundParis on his own, visiting the Madeleine twice, and eating at

Prunier’s for lunch and dinner. He sees Paris as being like ’einaltvertrauter Garten, der nun verodet liegt und in dem man dennochWeg und Steg erkennt’. [’A garden known of old, which now lieswaste, but in which one can nevertheless recognize the paths andbyways’]5

After his appointment to Paris, from October onwards, Junger wasto divide his leisure time between high living in the best restaurantsand clubs, and nostalgic walks around Paris, its churches and itscemeteries. The additional ingredient in this life was to’ be his

frequent meetings, in the social context, with Parisian writers, artistsand dilettantes. The very first diary entry after his move gives us aperfect example of his reception into this kind of society. Junger has

105

been invited to lunch with Ambassador de Brinon.6 Among thosepresent are the playwright and actor Sacha Guitry, and the actressArletty. Twenty policemen are posted around the house. Jungernotes that, though Brinon’s wife is Jewish, he continually makes funof the ’Youpins’. Guitry is on top form, and Jünger finds him’angenehm ... obwohl das Mimische das Musische in ihm starkfberwiegt’ [’agreeable... although in him the actor’s mimicryoutweighs the poetic’ ] . ~ As for Arletty, ’Um sie zum Lachen zubringen, genfgt das Wort Cocu; sie kommt also hierzulande kaumaus der Heiterkeit heraus.’ [’To make her laugh, all that is needed isthe word &dquo;cocu&dquo;; so she scarcely ever stops laughing, in these

circles’ .]8 8Guitry’s main joke of the evening appears to have been a

remarkably unselfconscious (or rather, remarkably selfconscious)pun upon the word ’collaboration’. Junger was talking to him aboutone of his favourite authors, Mirbeau; Guitry, describing howMirbeau died in his arms, ascribed to him the following final words:’Ne collaborez jamais!’. Junger noted this down for his collection offamous last words, making it clear that Mirbeau was naturallyreferring to plays written in collaboration, ’denn damals hatte dasWort noch nicht den heutigen Hautgout’ [’for in those days the worddid not yet have its present savour’].9

Guitry’s unconcern, nay glee, at the implications of collaborationwas typical of many in Paris at the start of this second year of theOccupation. From now on, Jünger was to mix with such peoplefreely. We will be examining more closely Jfnger’s relationship withsmart Parisian life; but first we should perhaps look at the nostalgicand emotional attitudes to France, based in part on his reading,which were to find their expression in his private relationship withthe city itself.

***

Part of Jfnger’s pleasure at being in Paris had to do with a sense ofcontinuity with his pre-war experience of that city. When he visitedan old friend, Poupet, in the rue Garanci~re, for example, the streetsaround Saint-Sulpice gave him a sense of eternity, while the rueGarancière itself, which he had visited in 1938, gave him the

impression that time had come full circle:

Nachmittags bei Poupet in der Rue Garanci~re. In diesen Gassen umSaint Sulpice mit ihren Antiquariaten, Buchhandlungen und alten

106

Manufakturen fiihle ich mich so heimisch, als ob ich schon fiinfhundertJahre in ihnen gelebt hatte.

Als ich das Haus betrat, entsann ich mich, dass ich im Sommer 1938zum ersten Mal seine Schwelle überschritten hatte, damals vom

Luxembourg kommend, wie heute von der Rue de Tournon. Soschloss sich der Zirkel der verflossenen Jahre wie in einem Gurtelstuck.

[In the afternoon, went to see Poupet, in rue Garanci6re. In these littlestreets around Saint Sulpice, with their antique shops, bookshops andold small factories, I feel as much at home, as if I had lived in them forfive hundred years.As I entered the house, I remembered that I had crossed its

threshold for the first time in Summer 1938, coming on that occasionfrom the Luxembourg, while today I was coming from the rue deTournon. In this way the circle of the years closed like a belt. ] 10Much of his enjoyment of Paris stemmed from literary and

historical associations. The city was, for him, the scene of events,fictional and real, which had stimulated his imagination over theyears. Thus, visiting Cocteau in the rue Montpensier, he rememberedthat Cocteau lived ’in jenem Hause, in welchem Rastignac die Frauvon Nucingen empfing’ [’in the house where Rastignac receivedMme de Nucingen’].11 Balzac is a recurrent theme, as is Huysmans.Visiting Saint Sulpice, Jünger climbs ’die enge Wendeltreppe, dieHuysmans in LA-Bas beschrieb’ [’the narrow spiral staircase describedby Huysmans in LA-bas.’]. 12 In some cases, historical and literaryreferences intermingle. Visiting Picasso in the rue des Grands

Augustins, Jünger associates the house both with Balzac and withthe regicide Ravaillac:

Nachmittags bei Picasso. Er wohnt in einem weitraumigen Gebdude,dessen Etagen zu Speichern und Lagerrdumen herabgesunken sind.Das Haus, Rue des Grands Augustins, spielt in den Romanen vonBalzac eine Rolle, auch brachte man Ravaillac nach seinem Mordanschlagdorthin.

[In the afternoon, went to see Picasso. He lives in a vast building,whose various floors have sunk to being storerooms of various kinds.This house, in the Rue des Grands Augustins, plays a role in thenovels of Balzac; it was here, too, that Ravaillac was brought after hisassassination attempt.]13

Jfnger’s visits to cemeteries, too, are in search of the graves ofsome of his favourite writers, artists, musicians and historicalcharacters. In P6re Lachaise he deplores the poor taste of OscarWilde’s tomb, and admires those of Cherubini and Chopin, and ofthe entomologist Latreille. 14 In the little cemetery by the Trocad6rohe revisits the funerary monument to Marie Bashkirtseff. 15 Looking

107

for Verlaine’s tomb, he goes in error to Clichy cemetery. The nextday, he finds it in Batignolles cemetery, and notices a fresh bouquetof flowers on it: ’Nicht jeder Dichter hat nach ffnfzig Jahren nochfrische Blumen auf seinem Grab’, he muses. [’Not every poet still hasfresh flowers on his grave fifty years on.’]16Most of the associations he draws between life and literature have

to do with nineteenth-century writers, and particularly the fin-de-si8de poets and novelists. Such writers preponderate, too, in hisreading and in his literary conversation. Junger’s sense of Paris is,however, wider than this. For, he believes, the fact that history andliterature leap out at him from every corner means that he, too, isparticipating in an ocean of real or fictional events. He, too, is a partof the continuity of the living nature of Paris:

Gedanke: Auch ich geh6re nun zu den ungezahlten Millionen, diedieser Stadt von ihrem Lebensstoff gegeben haben, von ihrenGedanken und Geffhlen, die das Steinmeer einsaugt, um sich imLaufe der Jahrhunderte geheimnisvoll zu wandeln und aufzubauen zueinem Schicksalskorallenstock. Wenn ich bedenke, dass ich aufdiesem Wege an der Kirche von Saint Roch vorfberkam, auf derenStufen C6sar Birotteau verwundet wurde, und an der Ecke des Rue deSaint Prouvaires, an der die sch6ne Strumpfhandlerin Baret imHinterstübchen ihres Ladens Casanova das Mass nahm, und dass dasnur zwei winzige Daten in einem Meer phantastischer und realerVorgdnge sind - dann ergreift mich eine Art von freudiger Wehmut,von schmerzhafter Lust.

[A thought: I too now belong to the untold millions of people, whohave given to this city something of the substance of their being, oftheir thoughts and feelings, which are absorbed by the sea of stone,which then mysteriously changes them in the course of centuries andbuilds them up into a coral reef of destiny. When I think that, on theway here, I passed by the Church of Saint Roch, on whose steps C6sarBirotteau was wounded, and also the corner of the rue de SaintProuvaires, where the beautiful stocking-seller Baret measuredCasanova in the back of her shop, and that these are merely two tinyfacts in an ocean of fictional and real events - then I am gripped by akind of joyous melancholy, a kind of painful pleasure. ]17On a visit to Paris in May 1941, before the definitive move there,

but at a time when his placement there was definitely on thehorizon, Junger had been made aware by a friend’s comments thatParis could be a source of inspiration for him. Musing on Paris’s roleas a transmitter of culture, he sees how advantageous it would be totake the opportunity of taking root there:

Es ist eine Idee von Gruninger, der seit langem zu meinen begabtenLesern und wohl auch Schü1ern zahlt, dass ich hier in Paris besser als

108

bei dem, was ich sonst treibe, aufgehoben sei. Und in der Tat ist eswohl moglich, dass diese Stadt nicht nur besondere Gaben, sondernauch Quellen der Arbeit und der Wirkung fur mich birgt. In einem fastwichtigeren Sinne als frfher ist sie noch immer Kapitale, Sinnbild undFestung altererbter Lebenshohe und auch verbindender Ideen, andenen es den Nationen jetzt besonders fehlt. Vielleicht tue ich gut,wenn ich die Moglichkeit, hier Fuss zu fassen, wahrnehme. Sie tratohne mein Zutun an mich heran.

[Grfninger, who has long been one of my most talented readers andindeed disciples, has the idea that I am in safer hands in Paris than inwhat I otherwise might be doing. And it is indeed possible that thiscity contains not only singular gifts, but also sources of work andeffective action for me. It is still, in an almost more important sensethan before, the capital, the symbol and the stronghold of an elevatedstyle of life passed down across the ages, and also of unifying ideas,which are particularly lacking in the nations to-day. Perhaps I will dowell to take up the possibility of establishing myself here. Theopportunity came to me without my having anything to do with it.]18The same feeling for Paris, the city, was to remain with him

throughout his stay (even when he found contemporary Frenchculture a disappointment). In 1943, as he saw ’catastrophe’ approaching,he nevertheless expressed his joy that this jewel among cities wasstill untouched, and hoped that it would survive the deluge, like theArk, and continue its cultural task across the centuries:

Wieder empfand ich ein starkes Geffhl der Freude, der Dankbarkeit,dass diese Stadt der Stadte die Katastrophe noch unvehrsert bestand.Wie Unerhortes bliebe uns erhalten, wenn sie gleich einer mit alterund reicher Fracht bis an die Borde beladenen Arche nach dieserSintflut den Friedensport erreichte und uns verbliebe fiir neue Sakule.

[Once more I experienced a strong feeling of joy, of thankfulness, thatthis city of cities was getting through the catastrophe still intact. Whata marvel it would be, if she, like an ark laden to the brim with a richold cargo, were to reach the port of peace after this deluge, and wereto remain to us for future centuries.]1As he left the city before the allied advance in 1944, Junger was still

obsessed by the course of history, in which this occupation had beenmerely one event. Saying good-bye to the city from his favouritevantage-point of the Sacre Coeur, he saw it as a woman awaitingnew embraces; ’cities are like women, and are gracious only to thevictor’:

Noch einmal auf der Plattform von Sacr6 Coeur, um einen Abschiedsblickauf die grosse Stadt zu tun. Ich sah die Steine in der heissen Sonnezittern wie in der Erwartung neuer historischer Umarmungen. DieStAdte sind weiblich und nur dem Sieger hold.

109

[Once more on the terrace of the Sacr6 Coeur, to have a farewell lookat the great city. I saw the stones quiver in the hot sun, as thoughawaiting new embraces from history. Cities are like women, and areonly gracious to the victor.]2°

* * *

Junger, on his arrival in Paris, clearly presumed that friendshipbetween Frenchmen and Germans would continue on the same basisas before the war. He looked up old literary and artistic friends, asthough there were no change in their relationship. In 1941, shortlyafter his arrival in Paris, he telephoned Schlumberger: ’Er weilt

jedoch, wie fast alle meine frfheren Bekannten, nicht in Paris’. [’Likemost of the people I already know, however, he is not in Paris’].21This naturally says more about Jfnger’s presumptions than aboutSchlumberger’s attitudes. But just as, in the early days, Junger foundmany signs of sympathy or acceptance among the general populationof Paris,22 (even though, by late 1942, this general acceptance haddisappeared), so he found, too, a welcome in the smart literarycircles of the capital (an acceptance that was to be more lasting).There is a strange sense of continuity about it all, as though the

war were a mere interlude. This is summed up by the history of MmeMarie-Louise Bousquet’s salon. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, thissalon in the Place du Palais-Bourbon was still receiving visitors everyThursday afternoon. It was known to those who visited it at that

stage that it had also flourished in the inter-war period, when suchpeople as Val6ry and Giraudoux were reported to have frequented it.What Jfnger’s diary makes clear is that Mme Bousquet’s socialactivities had continued unabated throughout the war, with Junger,once he had met her in March 1943, being very much one of hercircle, as he was already of that of her friend Florence Gould.Junger’s description of a visit to Mme Bousquet’s flat in April 1943not only describes brilliantly the rather disconcerting character of thehostess, but also evokes her cult of the descendants of the great, andher habit of taking any newcomer to examine the library of which shewas so proud:Zum Tee bei Marie Louise Bousquet, am Platz du Palais Bourbon ...Ich traf dort auch Heller, Poupet, Giraudoux und Madame Olivier dePrevost, eine Urenkelin von Liszt. Madame Bousquet - in derenBehandlung ich fbrigens immer eine gewisse Behutsamkeit waltenlasse wie ein Chemiker gegenüber Stoffen von unbestimmter Reaktion- zeigte mir die Bibliothek, die klein, quadratisch und ganz mit Holz

110

getafelt war. Ich betrachtete dort die Manuskripte, die Widmungenund die sch6nen Einbande.

[Went to tea at Marie-Louise Bousquet’s, in the Place du Palais-Bourbon... I met there Heller, Poupet, Giraudoux and MadameOlivier de Prevost, a great-granddaughter of Liszt. Madame Bousquet- whom I always treat with a certain caution, like a chemist faced withvolatile substances - showed me the library, which is small, squareand entirely panelled with wood. I looked at the manuscripts, thededications and the beautiful bindings 123Madame Bousquet, Florence Gould and their circle appear to have

indulged in a certain amount of gossip and malice, into which Jungerhimself, we know from other sources, was not unprepared to join.Jouhandeau, for example, in his Journal sous l’occupation, describeshow Florence Gould and Marie-Louise Bousquet were extremelycatty about his wife tlise (Bousquet: ’Elle n’est pas fr6quentable’),and how Junger entered into the game.24 These two ladies were alsoextremely favourably disposed towards the young German officerswhom they met. Junger records Madame Bousquet’s remark abouthis young friend Klaus Valentiner: ’Mit einem Regiment von solchenjungen Leuten hatten die Deutschen Frankreich erobert ohne einenKanonenschuss’. [’With a regiment of young men like that theGermans could have conquered France without a shot being fired’].25I am reminded of the French man of letters whom I asked, in the1950s, to tell me what it had been like living in Paris during the war.’It was very good’, he said. ’Everything went on much as before. Thesalons flourished. In fact, they were made more interesting by somedelightful German officers. The only problem was the awfulcollaborators one sometimes had to meet there ...’

’Everything went on much as before’. People like Madame

Bousquet seem to have survived regimes in a way only matched, acentury and a half before, by the Abbe Sieyes. One is not surprised,very shortly after the war, to find, in Evelyn Waugh’s diary for 1-2April 1946, that Nancy Mitford took him to the salon of a certain’Madame Bouquet’, who received people on Thursdays:

Next day met Maurice Bowra, sat in the sun in Tuileries gardens,drank champagne cocktails, drove up the river with Diana to lunch ata terrace restaurant, then with Nancy to the salon of a Mme Bouquetwho has her Thursdays.26In Waugh’s bread-and-butter letter to Nancy Mitford, he mentions

once more ’Madame Bouquet’s’:Paris was heaven but goodness it was exhausting. It so muchoverexcites me nowadays to meet new people that I cannot sleep after

111

it. I should be neither genial nor genial after a second Thursday atMme Bouquet’s. 27So Madame Bousquet carried on, in much the same way, despite

war, occupation, liberation, épuration. One does not, unfortunately,have such complete information as regards the post-war activities ofFlorence Gould, whose midday receptions Jünger continued to

attend regularly right up to his final departure in August 1944:’Mittags bei Florence; vielleicht ist dies der letzte Donnerstag’. [’Atnoon, to Florence’s. This is perhaps the last Thursday’].28

* * *

One would be tempted, on the basis of a number of entriesin Jiinger’s diary relating to Florence Gould’s and Marie-LouiseBousquet’s salons, to see Jiinger’s activities in literary circles in Parisas being exclusively on this rather superficial and mondain level, sofar from the more serious depiction of Paris as the cultural capital ofthe world that we find in his solitary musings. And there is no doubtthat his relations with a number of the authors, artists and actors hemet were on the same level of inconsequentiality. He noted SachaGuitry’s bons mots about his guests (’Die schonste Frau von Paris- vor zwanzig Jahren’ [’The most beautiful woman in Paris - twentyyears ago’]29), and depicted his obsession with stories about himself,in which his meetings with royalty played an important part. Muchof what he reported about people like Cocteau related to the

superficially funny anecdotes and jokes that they told;3° and much ofhis conversation with the literati of the capital seems to haveconsisted of gossip and mondanities.One would be tempted to see his attachment to French literature

as being on the same level. His interest in Proust, Bloy, Mirbeau,etc., seems at times to have been fed above all by anecdotes andautograph letters. Guitry gave him letters of Mirbeau, Bloy and

Debuss~, Poupet a letter of Proust’s; Cocteau told anecdotes aboutProust; 1 Bonnard described Gide as ’Le vieux Voltaire de la

p6d6rastie’, and Rochefort (whom he had known personally) ashaving ’den Eindruck eines kleinen Photographen gemacht’ [’giventhe impression of being a small photographed’] 32 And so on.But Jfnger’s own comments on his reading, confided to his diary,

show a far more serious, and often profound, appreciation of thebooks that he was reading; and when he found suitable people withwhom to discuss that literature, worthwhile conversations ensued.Thus he discussed Pascal, Rimbaud, L6on Bloy, Gide, Montherlant,

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with Henri Thomas; Baudelaire with Carlo Schmid, who had beentranslating him; Leon Bloy with Jouhandeau; Maupassant with theMorands; etc.33 In these conversations, and in Jiinger’s diary entries,certain authors recur obsessively; none more so than L6on Bloy. Butit is also significant to note that among the living authors with whomhe was obsessed, there was an important place for authors who werepolitically suspect in the wartime situation - Malraux in particular.The first mention of Malraux is in a conversation with Drieu la

Rochelle shortly after Jiinger’s arrival in Paris. Jiinger felt a strongaffinity for Drieu, with whom he had so much in common: a heroicwar record; an obsession with the action and fraternity of war, andthe decadence of the peacetime world to which they had returned in1918; a consequent turning to the solutions of the fascist Right; aneventual disillusionment with every such solution that had beentried. It is significant that Drieu, who in 1944 was to confide to hisdiary his esteem for Malraux, who ’n’est pas dupe, ni des autres, nide lui-meme’, and was to claim him as his ’fr6re en Nietzsche et enDostoievski’,34 should have chosen to talk to Jiinger, at their firstmeeting, about this fellow-writer, whose political itinerary had beenso different from his, but who was in essence so similar to him. It iseven more significant that Junger, too, should declare how much hevalued Malraux’s insights into the ’civil war’ of the twentieth

century, insights which he had valued from the moment he had readLa Condition humaine:

Gesprach mit Drieu la Rochelle, dem Herausgeber der ’NouvelleRevue Fran~aise’, im besonderen fber Malraux, dessen Erscheinungich verfolge, seit mir vor Jahren sein Roman ’La Condition humaine’ indie Hdnde fiel. Ich halte ihn seitdem fur einen der seltenen Betrachter,denen ein Auge fiir die Biirgerkriegslandschaft des 20. Jahrhundertsgegeben ist.

[Conversation with Drieu la Rochelle, the editor of the ’NouvelleRevue franqaise’, in particular about Malraux, whose career I havefollowed, ever since years ago his novel ’La Condition humaine’ cameinto my hands. Since then I have held him to be one of the rareobservers who have a clear view of the civil war panorama of the 20th

century.]35

Talking with Jouhandeau in early 1942, Jünger was to come back tothis view of Malraux as the chronicler of the ’twentieth century civilwar’, this time coupling his name with that of Bernanos. He maywell have been referring, in part, to both writers’ involvement on theRepublican side in the Spanish Civil War; but also to the greater ’civilwar’ of inter-war Europe (in which the Right-wing Bernanos and theLeft-wing Malraux had played such similar parts). The nature of

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their political commitment does not seem to have concerned him;what mattered was their powers of observation, and their attitude toaction. Jouhandeau drew attention to the fact that Cicero’s biographywas perhaps the best description of ’civil war’ in general:

Jouhandeau, mit dem ich fber Bernanos und Malraux, dann fber dieLandschaft des Bfrgerkrieges im allgemeinen sprach, meinte, dassnichts so verstandlich macht wie Ciceros Biographie. Er weckte in mirdie Lust, mich wieder mit jenen Zeiten zu beschaftigen.

[Jouhandeau, to whom I talked about Bernanos and Malraux, and thenabout the picture of civil war in general, thought that nothing makes itso understandable as Cicero’s biography. He awoke in me the desireto occupy myself with that period again.]36Another person to whom Jünger talked about Malraux was Thierry

Maulnier, with whom he also discussed the progress of the war.Junger’s comments on this conversation are significant. He declaresthat he felt himself to be standing right outside the issues, which heperceived as being illusory, merely serving as they did to producethe action that was necessary (a very ’Malrucian’ concept):

Bei all dem wird mir deutlich, wie sehr ich bereits ausserhalb desNationalstaates stehe ... Die Menschen kampfen heute unter denalten Fahnen um eine neue Welt; sie wdhnen sich immer noch an denPunkten, von denen sie aufgebrochen sind. Doch darf man hier nichtzu klug sein wollen, denn die Tauschung, in der sie sich bewegen, istfur die Aktionen notwendig, gehort zum Rdderwerk.

[In all this it become clear to me how much I am already standingoutside the national State ... Men are fighting today under the oldflags for a new world; they imagine themselves still to be at the pointwhere they started from. Yet one should not try to be too clever aboutthis, because the illusion within which they move is necessary foractions, belongs to the clockwork that produces them. j3lIn all this, Jiinger is close to Malraux’s ideas, and also to those of

Drieu la Rochelle. Meeting the latter at the German Institute inNovember 1943, Junger reminisced with him about the time whenthey had been facing each other across the lines in 1915. The

companionship of arms, and the sense of the heroism and purity ofthe war experience, and of the terrible decline that has set in in thisnew world, are vividly expressed:

Abends im Deutschen Institut. Dort der Bildhauer Breker mit seiner

griechischen Frau, ferner Frau Abetz, Abel Bonnard et Drieu la

Rochelle, mit dem ich 1915 Schfsse wechselte. Das war bei Le Godat,dem Orte, vor dem Hermann Lbns gefallen ist. Auch Drieu entsannsich der Glocke, die dort die Stunden schlug; wir haben sie beide

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gehort. Dazu dann gekaufte Federn, Subjekte, die man nicht mit derFeuerzange anfassen mag. Das alles schmort in einer Mischung ausInteresse, Hass und Furcht zusammen, und manche tragen schon dasStigma des grausigen Todes auf der Stirn.

[In the evening, at the German Institute. There, met the sculptorBreker and his Greek wife, also Frau Abetz, Abel Bonnard and Drieu laRochelle, with whom I exchanged shots in 1915. It was near Le Godat,the place where Hermann L6ns fell. Drieu, too, remembered the bellthat struck the hours there; we both heard it. Then I met mercernarywriters, open to bribery, creatures one wouldn’t care to touch evenwith tongs. They all stew in a mixture of self-interest, hatred and fear,and many of them already bear on their foreheads the sign of dreadfuldeath.]38The contempt for the ’vendus’ who inhabit the Parisian world has,

by 1943, become part of Jfnger’s make-up. Drieu clearly stands outas a bearer of former virtues; and even now, in no way does Jungersee friendship with the occupier as having any disgrace in it for theFrench writers and artists to whom he is closest. Jouhandeau,Morand, Giraudoux, Cocteau, Maulnier, L6autaud, Arland, Braque,Marie Laurencin, they are all part of an international of the artswhich seems to him naturally to produce friendships which areabove events. His scorn is reserved for those who involve themselvesin the politics of collaboration, those murky figures who were ever-present on the Paris scene, and who vied with the occupier in theirzeal for the policies of the Third Reich. Jünger would perfectly haveunderstood the writer, mentioned earlier, who referred to the charmof the war-time salons, spoiled only by the presence of ’collaborators’;he appears to make the same distinction.

By early 1942, Junger was aware of the forces for evil in some of theFrench, which could create a terrible alliance with those forces inNazi Germany which he so much detested and feared:

Kein Zweifel, dass es Einzelne gibt, die f3r das Blut von Millionenantwortlich sind. Und diese gehen wie Tiger auf Blutvergiessen aus.Ganz abgesehen von den Pobelinstinkten ist in ihnen ein satanischerWille, ein kalter Genuss am Untergang der Menschen, ja vielleicht derMenschheit, ausgepragt ... Entsetzlich war, was Jodl dort uberKni6bolos Absichten ausserte. Auch muss man wissen, dass vieleFranzosen solche Plane und Henkersdienste zu leisten begierig sind.Nur hier im Hause walten Krafte, die die Verbindung der Partner zuVerhindern oder doch aufzuhalten fdhig sind ...

[There is no doubt that there are individuals who are answerable forthe blood of millions. They aim, like tigers, at the shedding of blood.Quite apart from the herd instinct, there is a Satanic will stampedwithin them, a cold enjoyment at the destruction of human beings,

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perhaps even of all humanity ... What Jodl told us about Kni6bolo’s(Hitler’s) aims was terrible. And it must be realized that manyFrenchmen are eager to carry out such plans and to performexecutioners’ duties. Only here (in the Wehrmacht headquarters) dopowers govern, which are capable of hindering or preventing thealliance of these partners.]39The best example that Jünger gives of a Frenchman with such a

’satanischer Wille’ is someone hidden under the pseudonym’Merline’. Commentators have seen in this a reference to C61ine; andcertainly, the character’s utterances would not have seemed out ofplace in C61ine’s mouth:4o

Nachmittags im Deutschen Institut. Dort unter anderen Merline ...Er sprach sein Befremden, sein Erstaunen darüber aus, dass wirSoldaten die Juden nicht erschiessen, aufhdngen, ausrotten - seinErstaunen daruber, dass jemand, dem die Bajonette zur Verffgungstehn, nicht unbeschr5nkten Gebrauch von ihnen macht ... Es warmir lehrreich, ihn derart zwei Stunden wften zu horen, weil dieungeheure St5rke des Nihilismus durchleuchtete.

[In the afternoon, at the German Institute. There I met, among others,Merline ... He expressed his surprise, his astonishment that wesoldiers are not shooting, hanging, exterminating the Jews - hisastonishment that anyone with bayonets at their disposal does notmake unrestricted use of them ... It was instructive for me to listen tohim raving on in this way for two hours, because the monstrousstrength of nihilism shone through it all. ]41

This led Junger to muse on the nature of such people, and the forcesthat drive them:

Ihr Gluck liegt nicht darin, dass sie eine Idee haben. Sie hatten derenschon viel - ihre Sehnsucht treibt sie Bastionen zu, von denen aus sichdas Feuer auf grosse Menschenmengen erbffnen und der Schreckenverbreiten lasst. Ist ihnen das gelungen, dann halten sie mit der geistigenArbeit inne, gleichviel mit welchen Thesen sie emporgeklommen sind.Sie geben sich dann dem Genuss des Tbtens hin; und dieser Trieb zumMassenmorde war es, der sie von Anfang an dumpf und verworrenvorwdrtszwang.

[Their happiness does not lie in the fact that they have an idea. Theyhave already had many of them - their desire drives them to bastions,from which to open fire on great masses of people and spread terror. Ifthey succeed in this, they stop all mental activity, no matter with whattheories they have climbed up there. From then on they givethemselves up the pleasure of killing; and it was this impulse towardsmass murder that pushed them on from the beginning, in an obscureand confused way.]42

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If ’Merline’ was an extreme, Jfnger’s relations with the otherpolitical collaborators were marked by a detached curiosity, and attimes by distaste. Abel Bonnard was, it is true, a special case, as hewas both politically involved, and a writer. Junger had a number oftalks with him, feeling that he ’vorziiglich eine Art von positivistischerGeistigkeit verkorpert, mit der es zu Ende geht’ [’embodies a kind ofpositivist spirituality, which is fast disappearing.’], even though hisfeatures were distinguished by ’eine Art von kindlich-greisenhafterVerdrossenheit’ [’a kind of childlike-cum-senile peevishness’].43After a dinner with Bonnard in August 1943, Junger asked himselfhow such an apparently ’kluger, klarer Kopf’ [’clever, clear mind’]as Bonnard could have got mixed up in politics, and above allin a kind of politics where ’auch nimmt die Anruchigkeit nochununterbrochen zu’ [’the disreputable nature of the activity is

continuously increasingFor Benoist-MOchin, too, Junger clearly felt some sympathy,

pitying him for having set out on the wrong path, which was goingto lead him to disaster:

Dieser Minister macht den Eindruck einer prdzisen Intelligenz. SeinFehler liegt darin, dass er am Scheideweg die falsche Wahl getroffenhat. Nun sieht man ihn auf einem Pfade, der enger und unwegsamerwird. Hier muss er die Bewegung steigern, wdhrend das Ergebnisgeringer wird. Auf diese Weise verbrauchen sich die Energien; sieführen Verzweiflungsschritten und endlich dem Sturze zu.

[This minister gives the impression of a precise intelligence. His errorconsists of having, at the crossroads, chosen the wrong path. Now wesee him on a path which is becoming ever narrower and moreimpracticable. He has to increase his efforts, while the results becomeever smaller. It is in this way that energies get used up; they lead toacts of despair, and finally to catastrophe.]45But if Jünger could feel some sympathy for men such as Benoist-

M6chin and Bonnard, in the presence of extreme collaborators likeD6at 46 he felt nothing but unease; for him, such men were

’dangerous company’, and gave off an aura of ’demonic forces’which were the result of the obsession with power at any price:

D6at, den ich zum ersten Male sah, zeigte Kennzeichen, die ich schonan verschiedenen Menschen beobachtete ... Es handelt sich umeinschneidende moralische Prozesse, die physiognomisch, und zwarvor allem an der Haut, sichtbar werden, indem sie ihr bald einen

pergamentenen, bald einen abgebrühten, auf jeden Fall aber vergrobertenCharakter verleihen. Das Streben nach Macht um jeden Preis verh5rtetden Menschen, zugleich wird er im damonischen Bezirk angreifbar.Man spurt diese Aura; sie wurde mir besonders deutlich, als er michnach dem Aufbruch in seinem Wagen nach Haus brachte. Auch ohne

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die beiden stammigen Herren, die man den ganzen Abend nicht

gesehen hatte und die sich nun neben den Chauffeur setzten, hatte ichgespurt, dass die Fahrt nicht unbedenklich war. Gefahr in schlechterGesellschaft verliert den Reiz.

[D6at, whom I was seeing for the first time, showed characteristicsthat I have already noticed in various people ... It is a question ofdecisive moral processes which become visible in the face, and aboveall in the skin, which is lent a character which is sometimes

parchment-like, sometimes scalded, but at all events coarsened. Thestriving for power at all costs hardens a person, and at the same timehe becomes subject to demonic forces. One can perceive this aura; itbecame particularly clear to me, when he took me home in his car afterthe party broke up. Even without the two massive gentlemen, whomone had not seen all evening, and who now came to sit next to thechauffeur, I would have perceived that the journey was not aharmless one. In bad company, danger loses its attraction.]4~

* * *

It has been impossible, in an article of this length, to explore all thecomplexities of Jfnger’s relationship with France and the French.Above all, there is an important study still to be made of his reading,and of its effects on his attitudes. Junger’s obsession with thewritings of L6on Bloy (whose works he is continually readingthroughout his stay - the only greater reading being that of the entireBible, book by book - and whom he is continually discussing withwhomever he meets) would, in particular, repay close examination,for the insight it gives us into Jfnger’s own mentality, and hisapocalyptic vision of contemporary events, as the war proceeds. 48What we have seen, however, is a man who came to France with

certain presuppositions about France’s historical and literary legacy.He mingled in cultured French circles, and was accepted in them. Asthe war proceeded, he became aware that the French population ingeneral was far less favourably disposed towards the occupier thanhad been the case on his arrival in 1941. He noted, on a number ofoccasions, examples of these new attitudes, which initially surprisedhim.49 No such change of attitudes was evident, however, in theliterary circles in which he moved. In Jfnger’s last year in Paris,Morand had of course departed for his ambassadorship in Roumania,but the salons and homes of all those whom Jünger had been seeingremained open to him - particularly the home of Jouhandeau, towhom he had become particularly close. Among new people to sharehis company in that last year were the artist Marie Laurencin and the

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author Paul L6autaud, who as late as 6 July 1944 was still giving himliterary advice (to read Jules Vall6s), while at the same time ’in sehrzarter Weise’ [’very delicately’] offering him help, if the Germanshad any problems in the city. ° As Jünger left Florence Gould’s salonon his last Thursday in Paris, he met Marcel Arland in the street: ’Wirwechselten einen Handedruck’ [’We exchanged a handshake’].51This was his last wartime meeting with a French littérateur.One cannot avoid having the impression, however, that the Paris

literary world must have disappointed Junger. Happy as he was toexchange gossip and mondanities, content as he was to exchangeliterary anecdotes and autograph letters, he had in fact a seriousenthusiasm for French literature (particularly that of the latenineteenth century), and a vision of French culture which was betterserved by his solitary nostalgic wanderings in the Paris that had beenthe setting for it, than in the literary salons and gatherings in whichhe participated. And his readings take a greater and greater place inthe diaries as the war progresses (even though the social life retainsits place), as though he were looking more and more inwards, to findsome kind of explanation of the crumbling world around him. Thisis, of course, where L6on Bloy comes in; but that is another story, tobe told another time.

REFERENCES

1. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, Paris, 18 September 1942 (Werke, Stuttgart: Klett Verlag,n.d., II, 399).

2. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, Paris, 7 Juni 1942 (Werke, II, 351).3. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, Paris, 18 Juli 1942 (Werke, II, 363).4. This statement is based on a comment made by Professor Gilbert Gadoffre,

himself a prominent member of the Resistance movement, on the occasion of aheated discussion after a paper on Junger at a conference at Loches in the earlySixties.

5. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, Paris, 6 April 1941 (Werke, II, 240).6. Fernand de Brinon: b.1885. Started as a journalist. Strongly Germanophile and

pro-Hitler, he founded in 1935, with Otto Abetz (future German ambassador tooccupied France) the Comité France-Allemagne. In 1940, he was appointed Vichyambassador to the Occupied Zone. Took a strong collaborationist line. Escaped toGermany in August 1944, and attempted to form a government in exile withDéat, Darnand and Luchaire. Arrested, tried in 1947, and shot.

7. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, Paris, 8 Oktober 1941 (Werke, II, 270).8. Ibid., same date (Werke, II, 271).9. Ibid., same date (Werke, II, 270).

10. Ibid., 7 Januar 1942 (Werke, II, 298).11. Ibid., 4 Dezember 1941 (Werke, II, 291).12. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, 4 April 1943 (Werke, III, 36).13. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, 22 Juli 1942 (Werke, II 365) (Ravaillac was the assassin

who killed Henri IV in 1610).14. Ibid., 19 Juli 1942 and 2 August 1942 (Werke, II, 363, 373).15. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, Paris, 23 Februar 1943 (Werke, III, 13).16. Ibid., 4 Januar 1944 (Werke, III, 216).

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17. Ibid., 10 Mai 1943 (Werke, III, 70).18. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, Vincennes, 30 Mai 1941 (Werke, II 256).19. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, Paris, 7 August 1943 (Werke, III, 122).20. Ibid., Paris, 8 August 1944 (Werke, III, 303).21. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, 29 April 1941 (Werke, II, 245).22. E.g., the cordial handshake given to him by a man in the crowd on Bastille Day

(14 Juli 1941) (Werke, II, 269); the relationships he has with various Parisianwomen; his friendly relationships with various French families on his arrival inFrance; etc.

23. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, 18 April 1943 (Werke, III, 46).24. Marcel Jouhandeau, Journal sous l’occupation (Paris: Gallimard, 1980), 174-5 (juin

1943) .25. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, 11 Marz 1943 (Werke, III, 20).26. The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, edited by Michael Davie, (Harmondsworth: Penguin

Books, 1979), 647.27. The Letters of Evelyn Waugh, edited by Mark Amory (Harmondsworth: Penguin

Books, 1982), 227 (Letter to Nancy Mitford, Maundy Thursday (18 April) 1946).28. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, 10 August 1944. (Werke, III, 304).29. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, 15 Oktober 1941 (Werke, II, 274).30. See, e.g., Cocteau’s conversation in a little cellar night-club in the Rue de

Montpensier on 10 January 1942, and ’bei Madame Boudot-Lamotte’ (Gallimard’ssecretary) on 1 February 1942, etc. (Werke, II, 300, 311).

31. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, 15 Oktober 1941, 7 Januar 1942, 17 Februar 1942.(Werke, II, 273, 299, 318).

32. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, 27 April 1943 (Werke, III, 55-6).33. Pariser Tagebucher, passim.34. Drieu la Rochelle, Journal, 19/4/44, quoted in Frédéric Grover, Drieu la Rochelle

(Paris: Gallimard, 1962), 201.35. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, 11 Oktober 1941 (Werke, II, 271).36. Ibid., 28 März 1942, (II, 336).37. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, 13 Juli 1943 (Werke, III, 102).38. Ibid., 16 November 1943 (Werke, III, 196).39. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, 8 Februar 1942 (Werke, II, 315-6).40. But one cannot be sure; Céline appears under his own name elsewhere in the

diaries.41. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, 7 Dezember 1941 (Werke, II, 292).42. Ibid. (Werke, II, 292).43. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, 27 April 1943 (Werke, III, 56). Abel Bonnard (1883-

1968) was a writer and journalist who was prominent on the French Right in theinter-war period. Minister of Education for Vichy from April 1942 to theLiberation, he was also a prominent racist who welcomed the wearing of theYellow Star and was a member of the Comité d’Épuration de la Race Française, and,along with such men as Benoist-Méchin, involved in the organization of theLegion of Volunteers against Bolshevism. He fled to Germany, and then Spain,in 1944, and was condemned to death in absentia.

44. Ibid., 31 August 1943 (III, 143).45. Das erste Pariser Tagebuch, 9 September 1942 (Werke, II, 391). Jacques Benoist-Méchin

(1901-1983) had been an enthusiast for rapprochement with Germany in the inter-warperiod. A member of Doriot’s Parti Populaire Français, he became a ministerunder Darlan in 1941, Secretary of State involved in Franco-German negotiations.He resigned from the Government in September 1942 (just after this meetingwith Junger), and in 1942-3 was involved in the organization of what eventuallybecame the Légion des Volontaires Français contre le Bolchévisme. After the war, hewas sentenced to death (commuted to life imprisonment, and amnestied in 1953).

46. Marcel Déat (1894-1955), a prominent Socialist in the immediate post-war years,split off (with Marquet and others) from the SFIO in 1933, and headed a group of’néo-socialistes’. A prominent pacifist in the pre-war years, and a proponent ofan authoritarian Socialist state. After the Fall of France, he became one of the

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leading and most violent Paris collaborators, keen to incorporate France in theNew Order for Europe. A member of the Amis des Waffen-SS and of the Milice.Violently anti-Vichy, he finally became a minister, in March 1944, in the lastVichy government, in which, under German pressure, the influence of the Pariscollaborators was paramount. Fled to Germany in August 1944, and participatedin Brinon’s government in exile. Escaped to Italy in 1945, was condemned todeath in absentia, but lived in secrecy in a Turin convent until his death in 1955.

47. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, 5 Juli 1943 (Werke, III, 97).48. The present writer is undertaking such a study, which will appear elsewhere.49. The first example of this being his surprise at the look of hatred in a shop-girl’s

eyes as she looks at him in uniform (18 August 1942) (Werke, II, 384).50. Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, 6 Juli 1944 (Werke, III, 294).51. Ibid., 10 August 1944 (III, 304).