Abstract

Author of Nazi Paris, a Choice Academic Book of the Year, Allan Mitchell has researched a companion volume concerning the acclaimed and controversial German author Ernst Jünger who, if not the greatest German writer of the twentieth century, certainly was the most controversial. His service as a military officer during the occupation of Paris, where his principal duty was to mingle with French intellectuals such as Jean Cocteau and with visiting German celebrities like Martin Heidegger, was at the center of disputes concerning his career. Spending more than three years in the French capital, he regularly recorded in a journal revealing impressions of Parisian life and also managed to establish various meaningful social contacts, with the intriguing Sophie Ravoux for one. By focusing on this episode, the most important of Jünger’s adult life, the author brings to bear a wide reading of journals and correspondence to reveal Jünger’s professional and personal experience in wartime and thereafter. This new perspective on the war years adds significantly to our understanding of France's darkest hour.

“The debate about German occupation, French collaboration and resistance, and the relationship between the German military elite and the political leadership of the Nazis during the Second World War will continue, but this volume allows access to a unique and outstanding source, written by an equally remarkable and controversial writer at an extraordinary moment.”  ·  German History

“Mitchell’s concise, informative, and clearly written essay is a fine pendant to his Nazi Past, and provides a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a critical, yet deeply patriotic German writer.”  ·  French Review

“[This book] impresses with its thoroughness, insight, and balanced analysis.”  ·  H-Soz-u-Kult

Allan Mitchell† received his PhD from Harvard in 1961, then taught at Smith College (1961-1972) and the University of California, San Diego (1972-1992). His most recent books include The Great Train Race: Railways and the Franco-German Rivalry 1815–1914 (Berghahn Books, 2000); Rêves Parisiens: L’échec de projets de transport public en France au XIXème siècle (Ponts-et-Chaussées, Paris, 2005); A Stranger in Paris: Germany’s Role in Republican France, 1870–1940 (Berghahn Books, 2006); and Nazi Paris: The History of an Occupation, 1940–1944 (Berghahn Books, 2008).