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Speaker Name: Christoph Weber (Professor of German, University of North Texas)

Abstract: In his diary Strahlungen (Illuminations), published in 1949, which is based on the journals written during the Second World War and the immediate postwar years, the German author Ernst Jünger (1895–1998) chronicled the devastations caused by the Allied bombing campaign against Nazi Germany and occupied France. While stationed as a German officer in Paris between 1941–1944, Jünger witnessed the struggles of the civilian population caught between the Nazi occupiers and the Allied air raids targeting the industrial sites in the Parisian outskirts. The infamous May 1944 diary entry in which Jünger watches the bombing of Paris on a hotel rooftop with a glass of Burgundy in his hand has been discussed at length by scholars such as Tobias Wimbauer and Helmuth Kiesel. However, the so-called “Burgunderszene” is only one of many diary entries in which Jünger testified to the escalating bombing raids on German and French targets. Thus far, no cohesive study exists on Jünger’s treatment of the bombing war. Among the catastrophic events he documented are the firestorm bombing of Hamburg in July 1943, the massive air raid on Paris in September 1943, and the destruction of his hometown Hanover in October 1943. The comparison of the different versions of the journal entries and editions of Jünger's Strahlungen provide insights into the step-by-step stylization of the city bombardments as awe-inspiring spectacles of war.