Fw: [Juenger-list] Grass and Juenger - "and the first shall be last"

[John King]

Not seeing much reaction on this list is not at all surprising, unfortunately... we've all got rather passive over the last few years.

>I'm surprised to have seen no commentary either on this list or in the
>German press (as far as I am able to follow it from afar) on the seemingly
>natural comparison between these two authors' relationships to Nazi Germany
>and the public's corresponding perception of them. I did notice a brief
>comparison in this context between Heidegger and Grass in Die Presse (Wien)
>a week ago, but of Juenger nothing at all.

 I'm not overly suprised. Jünger and Grass are of different generations and adopted quite distinct strategies for working through the experience of the Third Reich, the Second World War and the experience of defeat and displacement. Furthermore, the places they were assigned in the discourses of the last sixty years were also quite different.

>As an unabashed fan of Juenger (and someone who always firmly believed in
>the correctness of both his attitude to the Nazis and towards public
>justification of this attitude), I find it hard not to view the current
>controversy with some relish. I don't dislike Grass, I am rather
>indifferent, but I was disappointed when Grass received the Nobel Prize at a
>moment when Juenger was another logical candidate who was passed over. 

 Frankly, the current discussion is a storm in the proverbial teacup compared to what it might have been ten or fifteen years ago. My personal feeling is that Grass is all the more credible for having been in the Waffen SS. Nonetheless, I can quite understand why he considered it politic to keep quiet about it.

>Juenger was passed over not because of the quality, originality and
>contributions to peace of his work, but because of the persistent
>stereotypes of his purportedly  dubious relationship with early National
>Socialism. When scholars and "ordinary" readers finally begin to occupy

I respectfully submit that the reason is because Grass is a better author, in particular of fiction. "Heliopolis" or "Die Blechtrommel" - not really a fair comparison ;) And if you ever read the article "Revolution und Idee" in the "Völkischer Beobachter", that would generally tend to relativise "purportedly". The "dubiousness" comes not from membership in or direct colloboration with the NSDAP but in the areas of overlap between the NSDAP and other elements on what is generally called the "extreme right" and with which Jünger was quite definitely associated.

>themselves with something other than Juenger's early works, this stereotype
>will slowly erode and his works will be studied and 'studiable' by the
>public without prejudice. The opposite seems to be true of Grass. In

This is already the case. It is indeed also the case with his early work, unless you are dealing with those who still endlessly repeat the post-Second World War right-left debates on Jünger where the actual content of his work seemed to play a secondary role.

>contrast to Juenger's transparency and integrity from early on, despite
>rather individualistic and unpopular views, Grass said nothing of his own
>clear enthusiasm (and so late in the war, when the moral aspect of the
>picture was clear!). In reward for his cowardly but clever silence, he wins
>the Nobel Peace Prize. And only when his own mortality and conscience begin
>to threaten him late in life does he risk coming out of the closet.

Grass did not win the Peace Prize, he won the prize for Literature, which is what I'm sure is what was meant.
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1999/index.html)

 So, we have Jünger on the one hand who, in an attempt to deal with the legacy of the First World War, writes extensively in national-revolutionary journals as an adult, and on the other Grass who as an impressionable teenager volunteers for U-Boot service but is instead assigned to the Waffen-SS... One might even suggest parallels in the anti-bourgeois gesture, breaking free from the constraints of the parental home into the dubious adventure of active military service, in 1914 for Jünger and thirty years later for Grass.

Greetings from Hamburg,

jk