/lit/ - Literature

>>19340295
This alone should suffice, but I never want to see this argument again, so I will continue.
The first matter is that of Junger's relation to the NSDAP and figures like Goebbels and Hitler. One should keep in mind who we are dealing with: a man of thirty living amidst the rise of German fascism; a military professional with sympathies for both the peasantry and nobility; a proponent of the old regime, but perhaps far less than the ancients; a war hero caught up within the nationalist sorrow of an occupied state; and, perhaps most importantly, a philosophical and theological German who is also worldly in his sentiments.

This man certainly did write for fascist publications in the 1920s, there's no denying this. But he also maintained ties with leftist circles, and particularly the National Bolsheviks - who, much like Junger, are difficult to characterise and situate within a simple left/right political compass. One can isolate the problem quite easily: sympathy for fascist elements does not equate to support for fascism, just as sympathy for women and Jews does not make one a marxist. Junger, quite early on, distanced himself from the NSDAP and people like Goebbels. Their relationship was strictly professional, they were colleagues, and not even close ones. Characterising them as 'friends' is an obvious political injection, Junger himself said he regretted the relationship even as minor as it was, and did not even want any contact with Goebbels or Hitler. He came to see them as demonic figures, dead creatures which would potentially destroy Germany.

>>13371549
If heroic war is impossible - the end of the noble who leads the forces of the state onto victory certainly seems well beyond us - then the battlefield begins to escape human territory, appearing at a deeper level. It is interesting that material warfare reintroduced the spiritual and metaphysical component of warfare, long thought abandoned, even outlawed in some sense by the European region at its inception. The brutality and total saturation of military operations and technique ensures that devastation is certain for the soldier, he is little more than an instrument of the law's machines, and even incurs upon the most peaceful territories, threatening to consume those who think themselves free of its reach. War begins to threaten far beyond its borders, and the soldier loses his very reason to fight if his kin and nation are threatened by total asymmetrical engagement. This necessitates either complete abandonment of war or a reconnaissance into its buried battlefields, digging into deep trenches where man is capable of enduring when his body cannot.

Modern warfare reveals itself as political continuation of the status quo, an oppositional form of warfare which begins to take up the dominant form of militarism no matter its position, or a primarily spiritual relation to life and freedom. It is philosophy as preparation for death, although experienced through technical capacities. Regardless of such fatalism, however, the inescapable pressures reveal an encroaching spiritual question that will have to be dealt with, either before the war, amidst its battles, or afterward within the ruins. The current crisis of soldiers incapable of adjusting to civilian life at home suggests that it is a losing battle to deal with the spiritual nature of warfare after blood has been spilled. And so with each death of a soldier outside of war we are driven further into an indefensible territory, a dark horizon where capture is certain - spiritual answers will be demanded of us, even if we refuse to acknowledge the questions. And so we are all faced with a great blast sending us flying through the air far above those cavalry fighters, and perhaps even higher than those men destroyed by the great raining steel of modern war. It is in this total abandonment of the earth and the very gravity of our identity as Western men that we are forced to return violently to theological questions.

>>13134754
Start here:
https://youtu.be/gOPBYt3LMrc

Okay, let's have a gentlemen's war and clear up this argument over fascism.
I'll start with a few quotes:

>'I would rather write a single good poem than lead sixty thousand fools.'

>At the German Cultural Institute. Among others, Celine, tall, bony, rather heavy, but alert in discussion - rather, in monologue. He's astonished that we, soldiers, do not shoot, hang, exterminate Jews. "If Bolsheviks were in Paris you would see..." I learned something from his monologue. He made clear the monstrous power of Nihilism. When such people speak of biology it's just a means to kill others.

>Since insane people are sterilized and killed the newly-borns with mental disturbances have multiplied. Even with the repression of mendicity poorness has become general. The decimation of Jews has diffused Jewish features in everybody. Killing does not wipe out types, it rather frees them.
>Feast for lemurs with the massacre of men, women, and children. The hideous booty is buried. Then other lemurs come to unbury it. They film those chipped, half-rotten trunks with repulsive satisfaction. Then they show each other their films. Curious forms of life fester on carrion.

>If everything went wrong, conservative forces are to blame. German youth had no instinct. Hitler addressed boys "hard as iron", "resilient as leather", "quick as hounds"... They were his chosen supporters, a breed of men to be eventually mass-produced in foundries and tanneries using animal sperm.