Ernst Jünger (1895–1998) was a German writer, soldier, diarist, and entomologist whose work spans nearly the entire twentieth century. Born in Heidelberg, he spent part of his youth in the Wandervogel movement and briefly joined the French Foreign Legion before returning to Germany. Jünger served as an infantry officer on the Western Front during the First World War, where he was wounded repeatedly and received Germany’s highest military decoration, the Pour le Mérite. His experiences formed the basis of In Stahlgewittern, translated as Storm of Steel, first published in 1920. The book established his reputation through its unsentimental, intensely observant account of industrial warfare. During the Weimar Republic, Jünger became associated with nationalist and anti-liberal currents often described as part of the Conservative Revolution. His writings of the 1920s and early 1930s explored war, technology, discipline, danger, and the transformation of modern society. Although admired by some National Socialists, he did not join the Nazi Party and refused official cultural positions under the regime. His political stance remains contested: he was a severe critic of parliamentary democracy and a nationalist writer, yet he maintained an independent position toward Hitler’s government. During the Second World War, Jünger served as a German army officer in occupied Paris. His Paris diaries, later published as Strahlungen, record his observations of occupation, culture, warfare, and the moral degradation of the Nazi era. He had contacts with officers involved in opposition to Hitler, though he was not punished after the failed July 1944 assassination attempt. After 1945, Jünger became one of Germany’s most prominent and controversial literary figures. His novels and essays increasingly turned toward myth, dreams, nature, technology, spiritual independence, and the endurance of the individual under total power. Important later works include On the Marble Cliffs, The Glass Bees, Eumeswil, and The Adventurous Heart. Alongside his literary career, he was a serious collector and student of beetles, publishing scientific work in entomology. Jünger lived to the age of 102 and died in Riedlingen, Germany, in 1998. He remains admired for the precision, force, and intellectual range of his prose, while his early nationalist politics and aestheticization of war continue to provoke debate.
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