Gardens and streets

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gardens and Streets is a diary by Ernst Jünger that appeared in 1942 . It covers the period from April 3, 1939 to July 24, 1940. It begins about five months before the start of the Second World War , then deals with Jünger's participation in the western campaign in 1940 and ends about a month after the Franco-German armistice .

Compared to In Stahlgewittern , the title of this war diary is strikingly civil.

“Gardens and Streets” was recorded in Radiation in 1963 , which also includes the diaries up to December 1948.

content

For April to August 1939, the entries deal with moving to a new house, gardening, hunting for insects, writing on the marble cliffs , reading Jünger or visiting his brother Friedrich Georg . The military or the threat of war do not yet play a role.

With disciple convened on August 26, 1939 Following are descriptions of exercises by laying on the West Wall in Rastatt , and how the enemy is there first, apart from minor exchanges of fire, the seat of war without a fight opposite. Jünger was stationed on this section of the front from November 1939 to April 1940. For the rescue of an injured soldier, he later received the Iron Cross, 2nd class clasp . The entries deal mainly with inspections of the bunkers and trenches, observations of nature between the facilities or Jünger's 45th birthday.

On May 23, 1940, Jünger's unit crossed the border to Luxembourg near Echternach in order to move on to France via Belgium . Jüngers and other officers and soldiers are amazed at the sustained rapid advance, as they were familiar with years of trench warfare with minor changes in the front from the First World War . Jünger does not take part in any significant battles. Billing with private individuals or pastors takes up a lot of space, as does the consumption of French wines or discussions about what a soldier can and cannot requisition for himself.

The diary ends with the return trip after the armistice and the sentence: Everyone would like to return home like this.

shape

The entries are typically half a page to two pages long, with a few reaching up to ten pages. Not every day has an entry, there are often two or three in between, the longest gap, 17 days, is between October 17 and November 3, 1939, while preparing for the march to the front.

The entries become more and more detailed. Thus, for the time before the draft, an average of around two pages are allotted to a week, while the stationing at the front takes about three, and during the campaign itself more than nine pages per week.

Single

The 73rd psalm

On March 29, 1940, Jünger's 45th birthday, it says early in the morning: Then I got dressed and read the 73rd Psalm at the open window. The content of the Psalm is not reproduced; it reads, among other things: "For I was excited about the glorious speeches when I saw that the wicked were doing well" (verse 3); "Therefore the mob falls to them and rushes to them in heaps like water" (v. 10) and: "Yes, you put them on slippery ground and throw them to the ground" (v. 19).

The censorship department of the Propaganda Ministry demanded that these and other areas of gardens and streets be deleted, but this did not happen (Kiesel p. 510). This position is sometimes cited as an example of Jünger's rejection of the Nazi regime.

To the war

Jünger considers war to be inevitable. On August 28, 1939, he wrote: The controversial has accumulated so much that only the fire can work it up. Jünger does not note his own assessment of the "controversial".

Jünger also proves to be a committed soldier at the age of 45. On May 27, 1940, he wrote down his question to a general: Can one hope to get into the fire? In these notes, however, he shows no resentment against the enemy; rather, he studies and characterizes the French civilians and prisoners of war surrounding him impartially.

On June 21, 1940, Jünger wrote about the difference between World War I and World War II, on the occasion of his award with the Iron Cross II Class: It was on this occasion that it became particularly clear to me the span that lies between the first and this second world war. At that time the high medals for killing opponents, today the ribbon for a rescue corridor. The distance at which I stayed from the fire is also strange.

Museales

In Laon , Jünger spends some time studying the library's collection of autographs : its strong volumes contained numerous documents , from Carolingian parchments , whose elaborate signatures the ruler signed with a line, to the manuscripts of contemporaries; And: I thought for a moment of transferring the documents and also the Elzevire that I had seen to the museum and entrusting them to the guard, but the responsibility seemed too great even for such a movement. (June 12, 1940)

dreams

Jünger repeatedly records his dreams. So it says on February 14, 1940 about the dreamed visit to a shop in Naples :

The extraordinary thing about this piece was that you could see the purple spots with which the animal plays in life and which fade in death, as well as the green irises of its large eyes, preserved in the stone. But I hesitated whether the shell of a crocodile, petrified in pale green jade, might not be preferable to him. The petrification was so skilfully done that each plate played as if on hinges and that a silver peal sounded when you lifted the armor. What follows more generally: You celebrate such festivals night after night, and only occasionally does a sudden awakening give you a glimpse ... Our wealth is enormous ...

literature

expenditure
  • Gardens and streets: From d. Diaries from 1939 a. 1940, Mittler, Berlin 1942
  • Complete Works, Volume 2. Diaries II: Radiations I, Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-12-904121-4
  • Radiation I (Gardens and Streets - The First Paris Diary - Caucasian Records), dtv (paperback), Munich 1995, ISBN 3-423-10984-X
Secondary literature

Web links