Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger was born on March 29, 1895. See ranking, bio blurb, and everyone else born that day.
About Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger (German: [ɛʁnst ˈjʏŋɐ] ; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, soldier, philosopher, and entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir Storm of Steel. A prolific writer of over forty books, Jünger wrote particularly in the furtherance of conservatism and against what he perceived as the spiritual oppression of man. The son of a successful businessman and chemist, Jünger rebelled against an affluent upbringing and sought adventure in the Wandervogel German youth movement, before running away to briefly serve in the French Foreign Legion, which was an illegal act in Germany. However, he escaped prosecution due to his father's efforts and was able to enlist in the Imperial German Army on the outbreak of World War I in 1914. During an ill-fated offensive in 1918 Jünger was badly wounded and was awarded the Pour le Mérite, a rare decoration for one of his rank and was the last living recipient when he died in 1998. He wrote against liberal values, democracy, and the Weimar Republic, but rejected the advances of the Nazis who were rising to power. During World War II Jünger served as an army captain in occupied Paris, but by 1943, he had turned decisively against Nazi totalitarianism, a change manifested in his work "The Peace" (German: Der Friede). Jünger was dismissed from the army in 1944 after he was indirectly implicated with fellow officers who had plotted to assassinate Hitler. A few months later, his son died in combat in Italy after having been sentenced to a penal battalion for political reasons. After the war, Jünger was treated with some suspicion as a possible fellow traveller of the Nazis. By the later stages of the Cold War, his unorthodox writings about the impact of materialism in modern society were widely seen as conservative rather than radical nationalist, and his philosophical works came to be highly regarded in mainstream German circles. Jünger died an honoured literary figure, although critics continued to charge him with the glorification of war as a transcendental experience in some of his early works. He was an ardent militarist and one of the most complex and contradictory figures in 20th-century German literature.