Ernst Jünger's first and most famous
book In Stahlgewittern ("Storm of Steel")
was first published in 1920. An
autobiographical account of the author's
experiences of fighting on the Western
Front in World War I, it quickly went
on to be reworked and republished. The
earliest Edition that the library
possesses, shown here with picture on the cover, was the second version of the book
and was published in 1922. Jünger
continued to work with, and capitalize on
his war experiences in books like Das Wäldchen 125 ("Copse 125")
and Feuer und Blut ("Fire and Blood"). In the late 1920s
Jünger became increasingly interested in
photography. "Photography acts," to borrow a
line from Jünger, "as an insensitive an
invulnerable eye that records in withstands
the destruction visited up on
human bodies by modernity."
For Jünger, it was an easy move from the collections of war images presented in
Das Antlitz des Weltkrieges ("The Face of the World War") and
Hier spricht der Feind ("The Voice of the Enemy"). To the images of quotidian danger seen
Der gefährliche Augenblick or "The
Dangerous Moment." Images uncapturable on
the moonscape battlefields of the world
war, were able to be photographed in the
industrial landscape. The viewer
witnesses the harrowed faces of miners
emerging from a collapsed mineshaft
appearing as shell-shocked specters of
battles past. Images like this act as
primers for a more concrete experience
and aid in the creation of a new
humanity, hardened against the trials of
modern life, and especially the pain
caused by modern war. The photographer
Albert Renger-Patzsch was publishing works contemporaneous with Jünger's deepening
interest in photography in the late
1920s in early 1930s.
Renger-Patzsch's photographs are
generally devoid of people and, when
people do appear, they are small and
indistinguishable from the cityscapes
and landscapes they populate. Machines
and nature share equal status. The formal
similarities between the spirals of a
flower or the fossilized impressions of
ammonites and a cast-iron cylinder are highlighted.
His photographs make no attempt to
divine or hinted anything deeper than
the outside, rather, they often focus on
minute details of commonplace objects,
forcing the viewer to fashion new
perspectives in order to make sense of them.
The two men's works from the 1920s
and 1930s shares strong similarities.
These affinities can be characterized in
terms of the hallmarks of what, according
to John Willett, the artists of the New
Objectivity strove for.
Clarity, balance, and mechanical hardness. Ernst Jünger and Renger-Patzsch later
worked together on two volumes of
photographs for which Jünger provided
the accompanying essays. These volumes, entitled "Trees" and "Rocks" can be seen as
documents of a belated encounter. Jünger's philosophy of seeing stereoscopically
provides an entry point to a new
contemplation of the two men's work when
it is juxtaposed. The caption seen here,
taken from the book "Rocks" reads:
"Ammonites in Jurassic limestone.
Metamorphic rocks, dead stone filled with
the life of geological past. The
limestone is composed of the shells of
fossilized extinct ammonites that lived
140 million years ago. A sedimentary rock
from the Jurassic, not much older than
that in picture 25, it shows a
snippet of the development of life,
important for the outlining of the history of the earth."
The caption seen here, taken from the volume "Trees" reads:
"Linden Upon a Pasture Near Geseke: 8
Meters Circumference. In our parts we
know two types of lindens. The one is
called the small-leafed linden and has
small leaves and copious blossoms, while
the exact opposite is the case with a
large-leafed linden. As a result, it blooms earlier than the
small-leafed linden. The large-leafed
linden, loving warmth and, therefore, not
native to Northern Germany, was chosen by man to be the tree at the center of
villages. It accompanied humans and their lots across many generations and, in the
summer, her fragrant branches shielded
light-hearted dances
as well as the harsh Vehmic courts
dealing with life and death."
Jünger, in addition to his soldierly and writerly fame, was also a respected naturalist and
entomologist. He left behind a collection of more than
40,000 beetles, now housed at his estate
in Wilflingen, Germany.
Along with one plant, there are 14 species, 4  subspecies, and one sub genus of animals
named after Jünger. The beetles seen here are from Jünger's collection. They were
given to Dr. Frank Krell by Jünger. Jünger
and Krell met when Dr. Krell was a
teenager. They kept up a correspondence
for several years before Jünger's death
in 1998, at the age of 102. Seen here is
some of the correspondence, as well as
Jünger's book about his coleopteral
pursuits. Subtile Jagen or "Subtle Hunts"
which is inscribed to Krell. The bulk of
the Ernst Jünger collection previously
belonged to Gerhard Loza who was a professor of German at CU-Boulder and
author of one of the first biographies
of Jünger. Many of the books in the
collection are inscribed to loser by
Jünger, including one seen here, which
reads: "to my Promahcus."
Thomas Hovick, another former professor
of German at CU, and an extensive reader
of the works of Ernst Jünger, arranged for
the purchase of the collection from Loza
in the 2000 aughts.
