Ernst Jünger

A remarkable character, Ernst Jünger joined the Wandervögel at the age of 16. He joined the French Foreign Legion the following year. In August 1914, he responded to the general mobilisation in Germany. A simple soldier, he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant and then lieutenant. Wounded fourteen times during the Great War, he was awarded the highest decoration of the German army, he and Erwin Rommel being its only recipients of lieutenant rank. Joining the nationalist movements with his brother between the wars, he published Storm of Steel and then Battle as an Inner Experience, which describe his experience of the war years. He distanced himself from the Nazis, in particular by opposing the execution of Jews. In 1939, he published On the Marble Cliffs, regarded both as his greatest work and an anti-Nazi parable, which is thought to have inspired the perpetrators of the failed attempt on Hitler’s life on 20 July 1944. After the Second World War, he stayed away from political life. He was awarded the Goethe Prize in 1982 and in 1984 he took part in the Verdun remembrance ceremonies, alongside François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl. In 1995 he was invited to the Élysée Palace by the President of France, for his centenary.