We had a conversation with Ömer Fikret Oyal, one of the most prominent living figures in contemporary Turkish literature, about Ernst Jünger. For anyone looking to read something in Turkish on Jünger, there are two particularly insightful and must-read articles he has written. I would also like to extend my heartfelt thanks to him for graciously accepting my interview request despite his busy schedule.
Ernst Jünger is regarded as one of the greatest intellectual figures of our age. How did your interest in Jünger begin? Why did his world of ideas and works influence you so much?
While reading about Germany’s recent history, I would occasionally come across Jünger’s name, but my real interest in him began through Heidegger. In other words, it was Heidegger’s texts on Jünger, especially his comments on Der Arbeiter, that drew me in. Since both of them were primarily concerned with technology’s influence and role in the future of humanity, their interaction feels quite natural. Even though they only truly met face-to-face in 1948, they were figures of the same era and shared the same general outlook. Here, we should mention a pattern that started to emerge or intensified around the eve of World War I: A critical perspective on modernism and technology. You can see this critique on both the right and, in the special case of the Frankfurt School, on the left. The phenomenon under discussion was largely the same, but of course not the reasons behind it or the proposed solutions. As the world was being radically reconfigured—indeed becoming unrecognizable—the question of how to understand these changes was a matter of debate, in a way that bears some resemblance to our present day. In every murky process, there is a search for patterns, a reexamination of the past, and an attempt to position the present within this framework.
However, especially in his Waldgänger period, Jünger argued that one could stand against the overpowering nature of technology, that one could build shelters—if only internal ones—against the global system. In contrast, Heidegger claimed that technology is inherently part of human essence and thus cannot be resisted. I think Heidegger is right in this regard.
Returning to Jünger, the phase that interests me more is the one that begins around Über die Linie and continues with Der Waldgang. It’s the third phase of his life: the period during which he directly addresses technology and explores how one might live shielded from it.
I can say that I’m particularly influenced by the objectivity of the language in his works and by his meta-historical perspective. In fact, an objective use of language and a meta-historical view are necessarily neighbors. When you approach events from a vantage point of hundreds of years in scope, the style of writing becomes cold and detached. I generally try to avoid any kind of emotional analysis in my books because I believe emotionality conceals real problems and makes it difficult—if not impossible—to look at ourselves from the outside. As a nation, we tend to see the world solely through the lens of our own emotional states, and we consider emotionality to be an important component of our identity. However, that often ends up as nothing more than the rebellious reaction of an adolescent who believes that everything is happening exclusively to them and that everyone is against them. That’s why I greatly value an objective tone, distance from oneself, and analysis. We’re once again seeing an uptick in meta-historical interpretation today, which I think is a direct result of the uncertainty of our times. Of course, one can ask whether there has ever been a historical period whose trajectory was certain. Perhaps only from the 18th to the 20th century, with Western dominance of the world, can we talk about a belief that the world was moving in a particular direction—that there was an Enlightenment and a general progression. Looking at just a century or two underscores the pitfalls of making sweeping conclusions about long stretches of time. In any case, that belief no longer applies today.
What do you think Jünger wanted to convey with his concepts of Arbeiter (worker), Waldgänger (forest walker), and Krieger (warrior)? How do these concepts parallel the transformations in Jünger’s life?
It’s useful to examine the warrior and the worker phases together. The soldier and the worker belong to each other and appear as a continuation of the same process. The former soldier, reflecting on the trenches of World War I and its aftermath, describes the “worker” who has merged with technology and practically become its hands and feet. In this context, the worker and soldier mix together. In that sense, these two phases in Jünger’s work are actually a continuum, and perhaps Der Arbeiter, published in 1932, was the logical outcome of the warrior figure. The book was also of pivotal importance to the Conservative Revolutionary movement. It makes sense that someone who fought in the trenches would be fascinated by technology and attempt to construct a global system from that vantage point. Here, Nietzsche’s will to power merges with technology in a poetic style.
Jünger experienced the warrior figure firsthand in war. It was the sum of his own experiences and the issues of that period. The political activities and stances during the Weimar era are all part of that phase. In Der Arbeiter, Germany is entering a new stage—more directly, the Nazi regime was on the horizon; the book was published a year before the Nazis took power. However, the Nazis didn’t like the hints of Bolshevism they perceived in the book, and on top of that, it contains no direct reference to the new era being ushered in. There isn’t even the slightest mention of the Nazi Party or Hitler. Jünger effectively ignored the party that was on the brink of taking power and its leader. There is also a tension in Der Arbeiter that oscillates between being enchanted by technology and resisting it. In the end, the critique of technology almost results in a “technological human.” Both the Nazi and Soviet regimes would, in their own ways, implement the predictions in the book. Perhaps we should see today’s posthumanism and robot-human debates in this context as well. Ultimately, we can caricature the warrior and the worker as heroic realism figures, while the forest walker represents a stoic humanist figure.
Jünger consistently forces us to confront the logical ramifications of technology, which is why he introduces futuristic technological devices—devices that did not yet exist in his time—into almost all of his novels. Nearly all the devices he depicts in his stories exist today. Incidentally, his novels were always written to discuss a particular idea or a particular situation. All the characters are archetypal and lack depth; what matters is which ideas and tendencies they represent. Returning to our main subject, Heidegger initially believed that the Nazis would inaugurate a new era, but later realized that they were merely part of the existing technological dominance. In that sense, Americanism, Nazism, and Communism were different faces of the same overarching power. After severing ties with the Nazi Party, Heidegger spent the war years teaching classes on Nietzsche. Jünger ultimately arrived at the same conclusion.
The period or archetype that begins with Der Waldgang reflects Jünger’s predominant attitude after World War II: the belief that Americanism, technology, and industrialization would drive the world to catastrophe, rendering humanity unrecognizable, and that a near-guerilla warfare against the system is necessary—one must remain inside the system but be an “anarch,” a stranger to it. Here, it’s important to differentiate “anarch” from “anarchist.” The “anarch” is entirely individual, and his stance against the system is entirely internal. This figure also suits Jünger’s personality quite well. In all his texts from this period, Jünger discusses forms of opposition on the fringe of the system, both in his novels and essays. Whether that opposition is realistic is another matter, but I would say that this phase of Jünger’s thinking is thoroughly contemporary, even ahead of its time, in wrestling with the very issues that our world faces today. That’s what makes him so interesting. Everything we are debating—or should be debating—in the 21st century arises in these works.
Today, some see Jünger as a nihilistic aesthete, while others view him as a conservative revolutionary. Which side would you take?
Let me start with the term “conservative revolutionary.” After World War I, this designation referred to nationalist circles (opposed to the Weimar Republic) in Germany, distinct from the Nazis. They were all over the ideological spectrum, from left to right, operating in different groupings amid the era’s complex atmosphere. Although they had various tendencies and networks, collectively they were labeled “conservative revolutionaries” because they wanted a revolution against the new regime—against liberalism—but they also had no intention (or ability) to fully restore the past. This sets them apart from straightforward conservatives. It was not a mass movement either. In Armin Mohler’s words, it was a modern critique of modernity (and even postmodernity) using modernity’s own tools. That environment didn’t label itself “conservative revolutionary,” though; the expression appears in a dissertation Mohler wrote after the war about these groups. Some claim that Hofmannsthal coined the term in 1927. In any event, there was no unifying manifesto or text. They were very fluid in character, influenced by German Romanticism, Nietzsche, and his philosophy of history. Indeed, Nietzsche is centrally important to Spengler, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, and Jünger alike.
Jünger wrote extensively in newspapers and magazines affiliated with these groups up until around 1930. After his book Das abenteuerliche Herz (1929) ushered him into a new phase, his writings gradually decreased in 1932–1933. Regardless of terminology, these circles opposed the notion that history has a purpose, they were anti-modernist, anti-Weimar democracy, opposed to homogenization and uniformity—thus also opposed to totalitarian regimes—and emphasized the value of the individual. Jünger held a great deal of prestige in these circles. A few years later, when he wrote Der Arbeiter, he effectively dismissed the individual altogether, then in the Der Waldgäng period he came back to the individual at an even deeper level. Meanwhile, Jünger never fully embraced suggestions about building a direct political movement. To be frank, even though he claimed that there was a deep consistency beneath his work, he wasn’t doctrinaire in his consistency. He was never a man of organizations or a figure with firmly defined doctrines. Armin Mohler, the coiner of the term “Conservative Revolution” and Jünger’s secretary between 1949 and 1953, continued his political and intellectual activities across Europe, linking the conservative revolutionary groups to Alain de Benoist’s circle in France.
As for the label “nihilism,” Jünger never saw himself as a nihilist. Indeed, in his view, technology itself was the original source and propagator of nihilism. Clearly, he had a pessimistic worldview; in fact, 19th-century European conservative thought was imbued with a general pessimism. This was based on the perception that the world and Europe were heading in a negative direction. Think of Spengler’s The Decline of the West, which posits a pattern in the past and present, predicting that Western civilization would collapse within a few centuries, just like many before it. This book deeply influenced the conservative minds of that period. Both Jünger and Spengler were significantly Nietzschean, a point worth reiterating. Jünger’s view of history was shaped by it as well. The belief that history is not heading toward a goal, that there is no real “progress,” leads to an acceptance of either perpetual conflict between opposing forces or some cyclical conception of history. That is diametrically opposed to the idea of progress or improvement, so dominant since the Enlightenment. This faith in progress—that the world is inevitably moving toward something better—has been ingrained in even those who oppose modernity. We almost adopt it as an instinct.
On the other hand, Jünger believed that nature would always find a way to restore itself despite the catastrophe that humans and technology would unleash. He was also something of a visionary, offering predictions about how the world might look in future stages of this disastrous trend. In that sense, he foresaw many of today’s issues. It’s quite striking how up-to-date his writings remain. Suddenly, while flipping through them, you find yourself reading about modern concerns like genetic and robotic technologies or ecology. In his work, questions about fate, European history, metahistory, mythology, and even the meaning of fortune-telling as a study of fate, all converge with these contemporary debates.
How do you think a Jüngerian framework might offer a reading of Turkey?
Turkey and Germany, both in the past and now, have very different debates and conditions. But problems related to modernization, neoliberalism, and globalization—plus the climate crisis—affect every country. A Jüngerian framework might make sense only if it is elevated to a metahistorical level above Turkey’s day-to-day agenda. Of course, we should also remember that the Jüngerian perspective never draws a direct political line. Especially after World War II, his was a very individual way of thinking and taking a stance. And in every sense of the word, he remained thoroughly European.
On the other hand, metahistorical thinking isn’t really prominent in Turkey. Of course, we could get into a whole separate debate about the philosophy of history—whether one can find patterns, rules, and laws in history—but let’s skip that. As a society, we are still discussing the last hundred years of our country’s history and clinging to various conspiracy theories. Our debates about what’s happening in the world tend to go nowhere in Turkey’s twisted environment of discourse. We have an entirely different climate of our own here, and we’re not in any position to dispassionately discuss things like globalization’s new challenges, environmental issues, technological destruction, or identity questions. Both the left and the right avoid asking certain fundamental but also “dangerous” questions, such as: Who are we? In what direction is history turning? Where is the essence of being human heading? What is our real issue with the West, or what should it be? What is our place in the world? How should we interact with technology? What is our envisioned future for both the world and our country? Or do we have no vision at all, just endless objections? I’m aware these questions might be a bit much for an interview, but metapolitics is built around answering such fundamental questions.
Especially after Der Waldgäng, Jünger tried to observe developments from the sidelines and create a stoic oasis for himself, staying offstage and minimizing his contact with the global system, embodying the “anarch” stance.
Throughout his long life, Jünger interacted with a wide variety of people and immersed himself in various intellectual circles. These relationships occupy a significant space in his diaries. As a thinker who befriended individuals ranging from Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi to Ernst Niekisch, what kind of a friend was Jünger? What sort of portrait emerges from his diaries?
Jünger’s diaries, published under the title Siebzig verweht beginning in the early 1980s, run to four volumes. Throughout these volumes, Jünger reflects sometimes on past eras, sometimes on future challenges or current debates. For example, the second volume focuses especially on re-evaluating the developments in Germany right before and during World War II. In the meantime, we find notes on visitors he received, books and letters sent to him (sometimes including copies of these letters), and impressions of his travels. In the second volume, for instance, he describes his impressions of Alanya–Antalya in 1972; at one point, he recalls a fellow officer who died of cholera near Antalya in 1918. On returning to Germany, he mentions wanting to study the conflict between Mustafa Kemal and Enver Pasha. In his diaries, countless names come up—both close friends and those who simply corresponded with him.
Jünger was a friend who kept people at a distance. He could show up at the Gestapo’s door to save Niekisch, for example, yet that didn’t stop him from being objective about the man in his writing. After World War II, especially in Wilflingen, he received many visitors. It’s well known that Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s visit caused quite a stir. Considering he was something of a recluse, he actually traveled a great deal in pursuit of insects, even into his later years, venturing all over the world. Up to the end of World War II, he was acquainted with many key figures on both the left and the right. Before the Nazi regime, there was a remarkably permeable intellectual environment in which everybody debated ideas together, sometimes at the same table. After World War II, the world seemed split between Americanism and Soviet rule. Even in the realm of ideas, you could sense that partition. When people felt a need for a third path—something other than liberalism or the right—Conservative Revolutionary circles returned to the spotlight. New anti-modernist milieus and groupings began to form, especially after ’68. In these new intellectual searches, Jünger became a focal point; many people felt compelled to connect with him. Given his opposition to modernity and technology and his almost legendary life, this attention is not surprising.
Meanwhile, there was some interface between Traditionalist currents, Julius Evola (closely linked to Mussolini), and Islam. So it must have surprised Jünger when Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi invited him to Islam. His interest in religion mostly centered on Catholicism, which began when he was a Wehrmacht officer in occupied France. We can’t fully delve into his ideas on religion here, but it’s fair to say his perspective was closely tied to mythology. He viewed mythological figures as archetypes that explain historical situations and human tragedy. His father was Protestant, his mother was Catholic. As is well known, he was buried according to Catholic rites, and it seems that he converted to Catholicism shortly before his death. However, one might say that his Catholicism was also shaped by local context.
In short, it’s perfectly understandable that all these circles wanted to be in touch with Jünger because, as the world grew increasingly incomprehensible, the demand for reliable signposts or figures of authority grew in tandem.