Carl-Goeran Heidegren, _Preussiska anarkister - Ernst Juenger och hans krets under Weimar- republikens krisaar (=Prussian Anarchists - Ernst Juenger and his circle during the Crisis Years of the Weimar Republic)_, (Series Moderna tyska taenkare = Modern German Thinkers), Esloev, Sweden: Brutus Oestlings Bokfoerlag Symposion, P.O.Box 148, S-241 22 ESLOEV, Sweden, 1997, 205 pages) _______________________________________________
Heidegren is a university lecturer at Lund University, Sweden, who has published several books on Hegel between 1984 and 1991. Spring 1994 he received a grant from the Swedish Institute to spend two months in Berlin to research this book. The era of the Weimar republic is one of the legendary periods in modern European history. From 1929-30 crisis was the outward sign of that republic. The Scandinavian interest in this period and Ernst Juenger's role was documented already in the Finnish book, _Der Neue Nationalismus in der Publizistik Ernst Juengers und des Kreises um ihn 1920 - 1933_, (Helsinki, Finland, 1975). Heidegren notes in the introduction that EJ was an "eyeman". Brother FG wrote somewhere that "EJ watched with red indian eyes. Lik a red indian on the war- path he used signs from the slightest traces that astounded me." Heidegren agrees with a number of Swedish observers that _On the Marble Cliffs_ was indeed a book of resistance against national socialist tyranny. In the book tyranny won and occupied the home territory of the two brothers but the struggle was not over as 'the highest in life' is at stake - 'freedom itself, the dignity of man'. In a final chapter the author also compares _Der Arbeiter_ with FGJ's _Die Perfektion der Technik_. EJ in the first book celebrates technology as the way in which the worker figure mobilises the world while FGJ regards the growing automatisation and the growing number of automats (automated producing systems, systems of electricity and water transportation, coffee machines and musical boxes) as changing not only the world but also man. The mobilisation of technology forces man into submission. FGJ notices that life in the big cities is transformed into a cult, a cult of increasing movement, the hunt for new experiences, the fear of boredom and unused time. Edmund Schultz (Edmond), FGJ, Friedrich Hielscher, Franz Schauwecker and Hugo Fischer are among those in the circle around EJ that are presented. As a bonus there is a chapter with an interesting analysis of _Der Arbeiter_. Heidegren's book is a useful introduction for the Swedish public and readers of Swedish around the world to EJ in Berlin and the people around him. But it is of course also a signal of growing interest in EJ hopefully not only in Sweden but in Denmark, Finland and Norway as well. Bertil Haggman Author Member, Swedish Author's Association [email protected]
