EJ / BEST / NAZIS

[Jan Zimmermann <jan@Alameda.net>]

EJ and Werner Best

From: Andreas Heidelbauer <andreas.heidelbauer@student.uni-tuebingen.de>
>So why did Jünger have to meet "Best"?

EJ had not to meet Best. These meetings were private. Maybe EJ remebered
Best as the völkischen student who was engaged in the fighting against the
french occupation of the Rheinland in the twenties. Best was no world war
one-officer (born 1903), but maybe EJs sympathy for him is to unterstand if
you read sentences like this in "Der Krieg und das Recht": "Der Kampf ist
das Notwendige, Ewige, die Kampfziele sind zeitbedingt und wechseln.
Deshalb kann es auch auf den Erfolg des Kampfes nicht ankommen."

It is striking how many of the old "Nationalrevolutionäre" and other
members of the KR met in Paris during the war. Besides EJ there were
Ottfried Rademacher, Friedrich Hielscher, Toepfer - who supported Niekisch
from 1929 till 1934. Does anyone know more names ? EJ mentioned these old
connections in Strahlungen, 20.4.43.

>Personal friendships or protection from a nazi doesn´t mean WIDERSTAND!!!

I think so too. 

>> As I heard from a still living old man (no Nazi, but before and after 1933
>> nationalist and "Volkstumsaktivist"): Best was one of the "good" Nazis...
>There were no good nazis. Never!

It is not my intention to save any Nazi. This was only a little example for
the reasons why the NS-system worked: Besides the Nazis there were enough
conservative elites and "Konservative Revolutionäte" which picked up the
things they liked and fade out the things they disliked. And so the machine
began to run. But to save their souls after cooperating with the system
some of them divided the Nazis into "good" and "bad". 

>> If some of you are interested to discuss "Der Friede" I could organize to
>> send you some special prints of it. Please email me directly for your
>> adresses.
>What are "special prints"?

I mean "Privatdrucke". The Hamburg merchant Alfred Toepfer, who knew EJ
since 1934, was in Paris from 1940 till 1944. He took some part in EJS idea
for writing "Der Friede" (see Strahlungen, 26.7.43). 
Toepfer edited Privatdrucke of "Der Friede" two times after the war, in
1965 and, I think, the seventies (what says des Coudres?). I asked the
"Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S." in  Hamburg today, if they would spend
some copies, and they agreed.

Best regards,
Jan