[In the following essay, Keller discusses the place of destructiveness and compassion in Jünger's work.]

Destructiveness is one theme which is ever present in the work of Ernst Jünger from In Stahlgewittern to Eine gefährliche Begegnung. It dominates the first of these texts and is critically assessed in the latter, indicating that division in Jünger's work at which he had hinted in his diary entry of 16 September 1942. There he had made the less than modest remark that he considered his books on the First World War, Die totale Mobilmachung, Der Arbeiter and sections of his essay Über den Schmerz, as his 'Old Testament'. It was that part of his work which was dominated by the theme of aggressiveness and which had made his name notorious. His account of the First World War was such that some critics expressed doubt that what he produced could still be considered literature, while others could see Jünger's rendering of his war experience in psycho-pathological terms only. Unlike Henri Barbusse, for whom the experience of the First World War had been the basis for a passionate plea for pacifism in his novel Le Feu, Jünger saw in it the redemption from the constraints of an over-refined culture. For him war was not so much an aberration of humanity as a revelation of its true face. In this respect he was in agreement with Freud who, during these war years, had enlarged his view of humanity to include a concept of destructiveness which he described in strikingly similar terms to those of Jünger. Yet, whereas Freud registers these developments with concern, Jünger seems to welcome them. When looking at the combatants of the First World War Jünger does not visualize the average conscript, as Barbusse with his 'poilus' had done, but concentrates rather on the 'wenigen Erlesenen', who actually thrived in this situation.

These 'Stahlgestalten' are for him—as the 'Urmenschen' are for Freud—the living proof that the sources of war are to be found 'tief in unserer Brust' and that 'Die Sucht, zu zerstören, ist tief im menschlichen Wesen verwurzelt […]'. Such figures reveal their relationship to their primeval ancestors, particularly in their disregard for the life of their fellow-men, a point on which both Jünger and Freud agreed, and one which Jünger elaborated on by referring to this exalted breed of warriors as 'prächtige Raubtiere'. Jünger sifts through his knowledge of history to locate precedents to an attitude which links the exploits of the battlefield with an excessive life style, regarded by him as characteristic of his princes of the trenches. These he finds in the actions of figures like Tamerlan and the asiatic despots whose morality Jünger describes thus:

Sie handelten, wie es ihrem Wesen entsprach. Töten war ihnen Moral, wie den Christen Nächstenliebe. Sie waren wilde Eroberer […] Man kann Genuß an ihnen empfinden wie an bunten Raubtieren, die mit kühnen Lichtern in den Augen durch tropische Dickungen brechen. Sie waren vollendet in sich.

The mercilessness advocated here would also form the prominent feature of a state run by such princes of the trenches; a state whose blueprint Jünger had presented in Der Arbeiter. Here Jünger had noted that in this state the notion of 'der sehr alten Wissenschaft der Entvölkerungspolitik' would be revived. The attitude of 'désinvolture' so often advocated by Jünger and described in his essay Über den Schmerz as that 'angemessene Kälte […] des Zuschauers, der von den Rängen des Zirkus aus das Blut fremder Fechter verströmen sieht […]' would be the adequate position from which to confront the obduracy of the world that is revealed in these works.

The concepts which dominated the first part of Jünger's career as a writer, and which were often bitterly attacked by critics, continued to play their role in the second, as narratives such as Auf den Marmorklippen, Heliopolis, Die Zwille and Eine gefährliche Begegnung demonstrate. In all of these works the theme of destructiveness is still present, but is counterbalanced by a reflective questioning of its appropriateness and by the introduction of the idea of compassion, an idea completely missing in the works of the earlier period.

Looking at figures such as the Oberförster in the Marmorklippen, the Landvogt in Heliopolis, Teo in Die Zwille and Kargané in Eine gefährliche Begegnung we note that all share some of the qualities of the 'Stahlgestalten' and of the 'Raubtiere' extolled in the earlier work. Like them they are linked with death, destruction and excess. This much is obvious in the case of the Oberförster as the destroyer of the Marina, and the Landvogt as the persecutor of the Parses in Heliopolis, but these elements are also present in figures like Teo or Kargané. Teo, like his forbears in Der Kampf als inneres Erlebnis, is introduced to us as a hunter of men, as are the Oberförster and the Landvogt, and like them he is driven 'zu Dingen, die verletzend, gefährlich, tödlich sind'. He shares with the Oberförster and the Landvogt the measured use of terror to achieve his ends. Kargané, the fourth discernible member of this group, fits a similar pattern. Described as 'intelligent, präzis, tapfer, […] gewiß auch brutal', he is presented to us as a 'Freibeuter' and an exemplary representative of that type of man with whose help colonial empires were created in the space of decades.

Aggressiveness and disregard for the suffering of others link these figures with their predecessors of Jünger's 'Old Testament', as do the nature of their excesses, in which they almost slavishingly follow the pattern set by the oriental despots conjured up in Der Kampf als inneres Erlebnis. The 'Asiatischen Partien' of the Oberförster bear witness to this as do the 'Orgien' of the Landvogt or the activities Kargané conducts in his Transylvanian castle. It is likewise made clear that the inclinations of the precocious Teo tend in the same direction.

It is one of the features of Jünger's later works that the opponents of these figures of aggressiveness are not entirely set apart from them. It is made plain to us that they have important features in common which they, however, strive to overcome. In the case of the Marmorklippen this is related in the autobiographical account of the two brothers who, among other things, admit that they themselves enjoyed the destructiveness of warfare, appreciated, for a period in their lives, the social contact with the Oberförster, as well as holding membership of the power-seeking order of the Mauretania. Similarly the hero of Heliopolis, de Geer, who associates concentration camps with the domain of the Landvogt, is confronted in the laurel night dream with a scene in such a camp, presented to him with the commentary 'Das bist du!'. For all his innocence Clamor, the hero of Die Zwille, nevertheless shares with his deadly aggressive counterpart Teo a morbid fascination with crime. Gerhard von Busche, more passive bystander than anything else in the crime committed in Gefährliche Begegnung, nevertheless contemplates whether he himself rather than Kargané should not be considered the culprit, and ultimately concludes: 'Im Abgrund waren die Menschen nicht verschieden; sie schmolzen wie Zinnfiguren ineinander ein'. In formulating his view of the situation in this way Busche alludes to an idea which seems to underlie all previous stories and which is made most explicit in Die Zwille. There the idea that even the most innocent share a common tie of human aggressiveness, or as Jünger likes to call this, share our fateful Cainitian heritage, is imparted to us by the reflections of the Superus, who, while the father of Teo, is however in character as in his inclinations very much closer to Clamor. While reflecting upon the differences between his own gentleness and the aggressiveness of his son Teo and the company Teo attracts, he comes up with an insight similar to that of von Busche, when he states:

Dort unten, wo ich allein bin, sind Teo und Clamor mir ähnlich, […] da beginnt es schon zu verschmelzen, doch noch ein Stockwerk tiefer, und sie werden identisch mit mir. Wie soll ich da urteilen?

Brigitte Reitenbach in her study on Die Zwille has demonstrated that the idea formulated here by the Superus is symbolically expressed in the form of that particular type of sling-shot (= Zwille), around which this narrative is constructed. Taking the stem of 'die Zwille' to symbolise a common heritage, the Superus draws an analogy between the two branches which fork from this stem and the two different types of conduct under discussion: one branch representing the aggressiveness of Teo, and the other the gentleness of Clamor.

What differentiates these two lifestyles from one another is the idea of compassion, a concept alien to Jünger's 'Old Testament'. To delineate the scope of this concept it might be useful to recall the definitions of both Theodor W. Adorno, who analysed the concept against the background of the German catastrophe, and Arthur Schopenhauer, a philosopher, whom Jünger knew well. Adorno notes the 'Perhorreszierung des Mitleids' by the 'faschistischen Herren der Welt' and later defines compassion as 'das Gefühl der Solidarität mit den […] quälbaren Körpern'. With this conception of compassion Adorno comes close to the view of Arthur Schopenhauer, who explains it as the

ganz unmittelbare, von allen anderweitigen Rücksichten unabhängige Teilnahme zunächst am Leiden eines andern und dadurch an der Verhinderung oder Aufhebung dieses Leidens

coming in the end to the conclusion that

Dieses Mitleid ganz allein ist die wirkliche Basis aller freien Gerechtigkeit und aller echten Menschenliebe.

The application of these concepts of compassion to the four works under discussion seems to present difficulties for the reader only in the case of the Marmorklippen. It would appear that the admission of the two brothers that they lacked the gift to perceive the sufferings of the weak and nameless 'wie man vom Senatorensitze in die Arena blickt' is an allusion to Jünger's statement in his essay Über den Schmerz, and is one of the first of many similar revocations of his earlier attitude. However does this change of mind also translate into compassion in Marmorklippen? The critics dealing with this question are divided. Gerhard Loose, who believes that compassion is evident in this work, points to the brothers' chivalrous care for women and children, an episode which Marian McQueen disparages as 'a showy, almost gratuitous, act of chivalry' by the two brothers carrying little weight 'given their previous abandonment of the Marina to its own military defense'. To this negative vote in regard to the practice of compassion in Marmorklippen can be added the concerns of Hansjörg Schelle, who points critically to the way the narrator forsakes both his lover and his son. So whereas the Marmorklippen is perceived to represent a break with previously held positions, as is argued for instance by Karl Heinz Bohrer, it also demonstrates the difficulties its author had in successfully integrating this new concept of compassion into his work.

Such difficulties no longer seemed to apply to Heliopolis and the works leading up to this novel. Its hero, Lucius de Geer, notes disapprovingly that 'Tötung des Mitleids in der eigenen Brust' is the prerequisite for acquiring a position of power, 'gewollte Macht' as he puts it. His attitude towards the persecuted and the tortured fulfils Adorno's definition of compassion to the letter. His commitment to compassion, moreover, which he places above military efficiency, becomes in the end the reason for his fall and subsequent reorientation. In Die Zwille Clamor shows compassion for the downtrodden as well as for the animals who become the victims of Teo's destructiveness, and, when expelled from the school, finally becomes an object of compassion himself, when a benevolent teacher is prepared to take charge of him in his father's stead.

Not unlike Lucius de Geer in Heliopolis, Rittmeister von Goldhammer in Eine gefährliche Begegnung disregards all conventions of his social standing and risks ostracism by his colleagues in his determination to prevent the duel between Kargané and von Busche from taking place, because he sees it as a 'Zugriff auf einen, der sich nicht wehren konnte'. Compassion for the defenceless is the driving force behind his action.

Ernst Jünger had travelled a long way from his 'Stahlgestalten' of the twenties to these figures of mercy of the seventies and eighties. To have accomplished this journey was, considering its beginnings, no mean achievement.