GermanGerman CultureCulture NewsNews Cornell University Institute for German Cultural Studies Spring 2006 Vol. XIV No. II In This Issue: Conferences Conservative Thought in West Germany Conservative Thought in West Germany Graduate Student After 1940: Conference: Pop Colloquium Series Martin Heidegger Carl Schmitt Ernst Jünger Epic, Document, and the Verbal World Picture Our question here, which I think defines not only Peter and me, but many of the speakers at this conference as belonging to one and the same gen- Klezmerizing the Holocaust eration, is simply this: What do we know about Heidegger’s, Jünger’s, and Schmitt’s thought before, during, and after the Second World War? What did Theatre Scandals as they think about the crimes of the Nazi regime? How did they judge their Cultural Dreamwork own political past? And how did they cope with both the occupation after Robert Walser’s ’45, and the new political realities in Germany under the conditions of the Digressive Tactics and Cold War? These questions seem all the more important as Heidegger’s, the Narrativity of Antin- arrative Jünger’s, and Schmitt’s thought keeps haunting us at a time of new global conflicts and wars. Schiller im Streit und —Wolf Kittler Widerstreit Constantin Goschler of German “success story” cism of the “licensed public Ottomar Domnick’s the Ruhr-University Bo- referred to as the “Umkehr,” sphere,” and their refusal ‘Other’ Cinema of the Adenauer Era chum opened the confer- in which liberalism seemed to fill out the denazification ence with his talk entitled to rise from the ashes of the questionnaire. Goschler Also “Intellectual Constellations Third Reich. In what Gos- then explored German Recent Dissertations in the Early Federal Re- chler referred to as a “dou- conservative thought in the public.” Goschler proposed ble-faced discourse,” these ensuing decades. In conclu- Neighbors and other to answer two main ques- three thinkers assembled ad- sion, he directed attention Creatures tions: In what manner did herents of their self-cultivat- away from the idea of these conservative intellectuals ed elitist positions in closed three thinkers as keys to the adapt to post-war Germany, circles, even while publicly “dirty little secrets” of Ger- German Culture News and how and to what extent adapting to the new political man conservative thought, Cornell University IGCS did they shape the intel- atmosphere. However, after suggesting that one study 726 University Avenue Ithaca, NY 14850 lectual constellation of the German military defeat and them with the aim of better Federal Republic? Focusing in the political climate of understanding intellectual phone: 607/255-8408 on Heidegger, Schmitt, and the “Umkehr,” they owed constellations in Germany email: [email protected] Jünger’s attitudes towards much of their influence to and in the world today. liberalism, political science, their attitude of dissidence. Michael Geyer of the Peter U. Hohendahl, Director German guilt after the Holo- Goschler recalled Schmitt University of Chicago gave Robin Fostel, Editor & Designer caust, and Jews in Germany, and Jünger’s criticism of a talk entitled “Humanity Tim Haupt, Photographer & Goschler sought to locate Karl Jaspers’s willingness in an Age of Total Destruc- Graduate Student Coordinator these three thinkers in the to accept German guilt after tion: Jünger and Jünger, Casey Servais, Copy Editor framework of the post-1945 1945, their caustic criti- Heidegger and Arendt, Born within the time span of only one decade, between 1885 and 1895, Heidegger, Schmitt, and Jünger belong to a generation of intellectuals whose work is fundamentally marked by the experience of the First World War, the revolutions that followed in its wake, and the politi- cal situation of the first republic on German soil in the 1920s. Jünger, the decorated war hero, established a reputation as an acclaimed author, based on his experiences in the trenches of the first technological war in history. Schmitt, the scholar of jurisprudence, started his career with fierce attacks on the legal status of the Weimar Republic constitution. And Heidegger, the thinker, included in his book, Being and Time, a clear reference to the infantry tactics of the German offensive in the spring of 1918, “running-forward-into-death”. All three had ties to the National-Socialist movement, and each of them had to bear the con- sequences of this political choice after the German defeat in 1945. Jünger was offered a po- sition as head of the Nazi Writer’s Union, but refused. His novel On the Marble Cliffs has been read as an—albeit veiled and ambivalent—attack on the Nazi regime. Like many Germans, both Schmitt and Heidegger joined the party on May 1, 1933, after the so called Enabling Act, which abolished the democratic nature of the state. Although they both withdrew from politics after growing tensions with the party, they never univocally distanced themselves from their involvement with the National Socialist movement. After 1945, Jünger was banned briefly from publishing, but was quickly rehabilitated. Schmitt was captured by the Americans, spending a year in an internment camp, but returned to the typical life of a private scholar. Heidegger lost his venia legendi, the right to lecture, but the decision was rescinded in 1951. All three thinkers had a wide following after World War Two. When Jünger died in 1998, at age 102, he was a celebrated author, decorated by Helmut Kohl with the Bundesverdienstkreuz. Schmitt’s students had a decisive influence not only on the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany, but also (through his student Leo Strauss) on legal theory in the U.S.—some have argued not only in the lofty realm of theory, but also in the very politics of the current Bush ad- ministration, in its claim, for instance, that the President is not bound by the Constitution in times of war. Heidegger, finally, looms large in the Humanities because of the imprint of his work on the writings of such authors as Foucault and Derrida. —Wolf Kittler Schmitt and Anders on human capability to anni- inherent in the metalinguis- Jünger’s total mobilization Omnicide.” Geyer first hilate and the desire to do tics of analytic philosophy against an old world order launched an extensive dis- so. He concluded that the (which for Heidegger was is connected to the end of cussion of Friedrich Georg conservatives’ challenge not at all distinct from the metaphysics; it is in fact the Jünger’s book Perfektion of accounting for this gap formulaic thought of rock- last stage of the forgetting der Technik, written before between technology and etry). Such a technological of Being. Heidegger saw World War II but not pub- political judgment remained understanding of language communism and fascism lished until after it. In this unmet. —G.G. did, however, stand in op- as lining up to destroy the text, Jünger rejects an un- Saturday afternoon’s position to the movement world and criticized Jünger critical acceptance of tech- talks commenced with homeward. Jäger concluded not only for his exaggerated nology, describing technol- Christian Jäger (Humboldt his remarks on Heidegger’s pathos, but, more signifi- ogy as “rapacious” and as University), whose paper geopolitical turn by com- cantly, for his participation a “violent act of consump- was entitled “Adjusting menting that the turn con- in this destructive process. tion.” According to Jünger, (to) the Federal Republic: stitutes a merely apparent In keeping with this view, this rapacious progress of The Geopolitical Turn in shift: Throughout the devel- Heidegger found Der Arbe- technology follows the Heidegger’s Aesthetics opments described, Hei- iter to be an exceptionally law of entropy: The more after 1945.” In the years degger’s thought retained accurate description of con- advanced the technology, leading up to World War the same basic structural temporary history, although the greater the destruction II, Heidegger discussed elements, a fact that raises he also found that it offered it allows, setting in motion the role of the poet as that important questions about little or nothing other than “an unbounded calculus of a demigod who set the the nature of the post-war this mere description of the of destruction.” Ever more borders of the “Heimat” as Federal Republic in which surface of events. Jünger’s total war negates the idea a “Führer.” In this respect, this thought fit just as well participation in history of war gains, promotes a poets were like rivers in that as it had in the climate of constituted not so much a constant sense of insecurity, they demarcated a “Leben- pre-war Germany. moment of mastery and cre- and thus induces states of sraum” as a space for Being Wolf Kittler (Cornell ation as a form of enslave- fevered action unaccompa- and thereby participated in University), in his talk ment. Indeed, Heidegger’s nied by thought. the creation of a dwelling. entitled “From Gestalt to “Question Concerning Geyer then drew at- This view altered as the Gestell: Martin Heidegger Technology” can be read as tention to the parallels disappointed philosopher reads Ernst Jünger,” dis- an attempt to overcome the between Jünger’s text and turned away from National cussed the possibility of notion of the worker as an Heidegger’s “Die Frage Socialism and commented reinterpreting Heidegger’s agent of modern technol- nach der Technik,” in on an altered state of affairs later work in light of the ogy. In contrast to such a which Heidegger famously in which the poet has lost newly published volume conception, Heidegger’s equates mechanized agri- his prophetic function and in his collected works that proposes his own notion of culture with the destruction is no longer understood at consists of his notes on the man as a guardian of Being.