Total mobilization

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The anthology War and Warriors , in which total mobilization appeared in 1930

Total mobilization is an essay by Ernst Jünger published in 1930 . This was published in the anthology War and Warriors , which Jünger himself edited.

content

In the essay, Jünger describes the total mobilization with the absolute recording of the potential energy that transforms the warring industrial states into volcanic blacksmiths' workshops (complete works p. 126). For this harnessing of all forces to wage war , states committed to progress such as the USA , France and the Soviet Union are particularly suitable (p. 127), in contrast to monarchies, which tend to only partially mobilize out of caution against activating the broader population. That is why the particularly monarchist tsarist Russia and Austria-Hungary perished in the First World War , and that is why the less “progressive” Germany lost the war.

As examples of how mobilization works, three people are specifically mentioned who were actually critical of the German Empire, but supported it during the war: the Social Democrat Ludwig Frank , the journalist Maximilian Harden and Walter Rathenau .

Younger position

Jünger's attitude towards total mobilization is ambivalent. On the one hand, it contradicts the “heroic spirit” to which he feels obliged (p. 121) and he regrets the increasing standardization and rationalization and the increasing importance of the “masses” that are associated with total mobilization. On the other hand, they followed strict historical consistency (p. 140). Jünger is far from wanting to complain about the inevitable (p. 134).

War and warrior

The volume War and Warriors is part of Jünger's extensive political journalism in the 20s and early 30s. Jünger was mostly personally known or friends of the authors involved. Other anthologies from this period were Luftfahrt ist not (1928), The Unforgotten (1928), The Battle for the Reich (1929), The Face of the World War (1930) and others. a. The volume War and Warriors included the following contributions:

reception

In 1930 Walter Benjamin wrote about the entire volume War and Warriors : What developed here under the guise of a volunteer in World War I, then a mercenary in the post-war, is in truth the reliable fascist class warrior ...

Helmuth Kiesel classified the essay as follows: Jünger was neither the inaugurator nor an unreflective propagator of the “total mobilization”, but its diagnostician.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmuth Kiesel, Ernst Jünger. Die Biographie , Siedler, Munich 2007, p. 368 ff
  2. ↑ http://openlibrary.org/b/OL6750418M/Krieg-und-krieger
  3. ^ Walter Benjamin in: Die Gesellschaft, GS III, 238–250. Quoted from: Helmuth Kiesel, Ernst Jünger. Die Biographie , Siedler, Munich 2007, p. 378
  4. ↑ Helmuth Kiesel, Ernst Jünger. Die Biographie , Siedler, Munich 2007, p. 374

literature

expenditure
  • Total mobilization , in: War and Warriors . Edited by Ernst Jünger. Junker and Dünnhaupt , Berlin 1930, pp. 9-30.
  • Total mobilization , in: Complete Works. Volume 7. Essays I , pp. 119-142, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-608-93477-4
Secondary literature
  • Michael Braun, The total mobilization of the dictatorial fantasy: Ernst Jünger. In: The poetic moment: essays on contemporary literature. Ed. V. Michael Braun, 1986, pp. 46-52.
  • Uwe-K Ketelsen, Now not only the historical structures are blown up, but also their mythical and cultic prerequisites: On Ernst Jünger's “Die totale Mobilmachung” (1930) and “Der Arbeiter” (1932). in: Ernst Jünger in the 20th century. Ed. V. Hans-Harald Müller and Harro Segeberg, Munich, Fink 1995, pp. 77-95.
  • Helmuth Kiesel , Ernst Jünger. Die Biographie , Siedler, Munich 2007, p. 372 ff., ISBN 3-886-80852-1
  • Steffen Martus , Ernst Jünger. Stuttgart, Weimar 2001, p. 49 ff, ISBN 3-476-10333-1