The worker. Rule and form

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The worker. Herrschaft und Gestalt is a theoretical work by Ernst Jünger published in 1932 , in which he deals with the figure of the worker as an elementary power that destroys civil society . For disciples it shows the lift of a new era, which is determined by the “total work character”. This undermines the values ​​of the bourgeois world - esteem of the individual , democratic liberalism , social contract - and opposes them with the facts of the "type", "workers state" and work plan.

By Armin Mohler , one of the architects of the New Right , who was working the "Bible of heroic realism read". In the Germanistic reception, Jünger's share in the development of National Socialism was discussed and an affinity and anticipation of fascism and the Nazi state was seen in the worker . Since the 1990s, Jünger's text has also been discussed as a “fascist work of art”.

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The “worker” as a theoretical work

In a radio interview, Jünger explains his plan to deliver a theory of modernity through the figure of the worker :

“My task is simply to lengthen the perspectives that are now becoming visible everywhere, and if I have a particular and initially unintended conviction during this work, it consists in the fact that all these perspectives are directed towards a common point of intersection are. I call this common place, where the changes lose their chaotic character and can be recognized as meaningful, the figure of the worker. "

The preparatory writings include “Die totale Mobilmachung” and “Die Arbeits-Mobilmachung” from “Die Kommenden” . Jünger's work can be read on the one hand as a description, on the other hand as a foresight on future conditions, but is certainly an update of apocalyptic thought patterns of the 1920s. In doing so, Jünger does not view the downfall of the bourgeois world neutrally, but with satisfaction. In the foreword from 1963, which was written later, Jünger explains that he was concerned with the possibility of "not only understanding the events, but also, although dangerous, to greet them".

First part: concept of the worker

Jünger's overview of the epochs is not explicated on the basis of a stringent theory, but rather plays around the figure of the worker from different perspectives . In doing so, he decouples them from societal and social conditions and attributes them to an elementary power . This breaks into the bourgeois world and reshapes it until it finally disappears.

Since the figures are not ephemeral phenomena that are spontaneously formed from configurations, but rather timeless , their increased occurrence and intervention in modern times is an unstoppable process. For Jünger, the concept of gestalt does not have the current meaning in the sense of gestalt psychology , but is to be read as a metaphysical term. For disciples, “seeing shapes” means a “revolutionary act” (§ 10), since it allows them to participate in new developments both spiritually and in action.

Part two: the phenomenology of modernity

In the second part of the book, Jünger provides a rich panorama of observations in which he sees the figure of the worker coming up, this ranges from the cloakroom, the leisure behavior of the masses, body cult, the replacement of the theater by the cinema, to the physiognomy of the city dweller. Central here is the replacement of the individual by the type of worker. This is accompanied by a uniformity of the civilized world (also visible in the similarity of disparate areas of advertising, hygiene, statistics), which can sometimes turn out to be cruel.

reception

The worker was discussed controversially after his appearance. For example, in the spring of 1933, the literary magazine Neue Rundschau published three reviews on 16 pages. Kurt Heuser saw a promising draft order in the worker . Richard Behrendt, on the other hand, criticized the book as an incomparably destructive “general attack” on bourgeois culture. In the magazine Der Grail , Friedrich Muckermann associated a "relationship" with Russian Bolshevism . Other reviewers such as Max Hildebert Boehm also considered Jünger's technocratic stance to be “Bolshevik”. Martin Heidegger declared the work to be a “metaphysics of what is rightly understood, d. H. imperial 'communism' purged of all 'bourgeois' ideas ”.

In the Germanistic reception since the 1960s, workers were seen to have a strong affinity for fascism and National Socialism . Armin Mohler declared the concept of “heroic realism”, which formed a central category of the worker , to be the “model” of the “ conservative revolution ”. He wanted to rehabilitate the "Conservative Revolution". For Lothar Baier , the worker was “a kind of magna charta of the conservative revolution ”, not as an analysis but as the “result of an alchemistic synthesis: the Bolshevism of the first five-year plan , the practices of Japanese imperialism and the organization of the German war economy were mixed up . Incidentally, Jünger did not work out the mixing ratio himself, but copied it from Spengler and Niekisch . ”For Karl Prümm and Jürgen Manthey , the structures of the Nazi state were anticipated in the essay . Fritz J. Raddatz saw the "Constitution of National Socialism" in the worker . Uwe Ketelsen read the essay “as the draft of an aesthetic fascist modernity concept”.

Helmuth Kiesel admits that the worker represents a totalitarian concept that the National Socialists could also use. A review in the Völkischer Beobachter in 1932 was very unfriendly. Kiesel agrees with Stefan Breuer , according to which the will to “a hierarchical, authoritarian, dictatorial state” speaks from the worker , “in which the individual should be completely absorbed by the organization, but still a state that would be everything the Nazi regime was not: unity, organization, discipline, a structure with fixed responsibilities and thus also a certain responsibility ”. Jünger did not campaign for a terrorist rule, said Kiesel, and also did not recommend the extermination of certain "races" or "classes". In 1932, Jünger believed in the possibility of remedying the needs and injustices of the time with technocratic means.

literature

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Secondary literature

  • Jürgen Brokoff: The worker. Dominion and Shape (1932) . In: Matthias Schöning (Ed.): Ernst Jünger-Handbuch. Life - work - effect . Metzler, Stuttgart 2014, pp. 105–116.
  • Steffen Martus : Ernst Jünger. Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 978-3476103338 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Armin Mohler: The Conservative Revolution in Germany 1918-1932, Darmstadt 1989, p. 125f.
  2. ↑ Jürgen Brokoff: The worker. Dominion and Shape (1932) . In: Matthias Schöning (Ed.): Ernst Jünger-Handbuch. Life - work - effect . Metzler, Stuttgart 2014, p. 115.
  3. ↑ Quoted from Steffen Martus: Ernst Jünger . Stuttgart 2001, p. 88.
  4. ↑ See Steffen Martus: Ernst Jünger . Stuttgart 2001, p. 89.
  5. ↑ Ernst Jünger: The worker. Rule and form. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1982, p. 7.
  6. ^ Helmuth Kiesel: Ernst Jünger. The biography. Siedler, Munich 2007, pp. 394–396.
  7. ^ Helmuth Kiesel: Ernst Jünger. The biography. Siedler, Munich 2007, p. 395.
  8. ↑ Nadja Thomas: "The revolt against the secondary world". Botho Strauss and the “Conservative Revolution” . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004, p. 130 f.
  9. ^ Lothar Baier: Ernst Jünger and Weimar . In: Streit-Zeit-Schrift , Volume VI, 1 (September 1968), p. 33 f.
  10. ↑ Jürgen Brokoff: The worker. Dominion and Shape (1932) . In: Matthias Schöning (Ed.): Ernst Jünger-Handbuch. Life - work - effect . Metzler, Stuttgart 2014, p. 115.
  11. ^ Helmuth Kiesel: Ernst Jünger. The biography. Siedler, Munich 2007, p. 396.
  12. ↑ Uwe-Karsten Ketelsen: Ernst Jünger's »Der Arbeiter« - a fascist modernity concept. In: Ders., Literature and Third Reich . SH-Verlag, Schernfeld 1992, p. 259.
  13. ^ Helmuth Kiesel: Ernst Jünger. The biography. Siedler, Munich 2007, p. 397.
  14. ^ Helmuth Kiesel: Ernst Jünger. The biography. Siedler, Munich 2007, p. 397 f.