The Machine in the early works of Ernst Jünger

This thesis deals with the concept of the machine in the works of the German writer Ernst Jünger (1895-1998). It analyses the author's opinions about the machine and technology expressed in his essays, as well as the way how Ernst Jünger depicts the machine in his war memoirs. Due to the considerable amount of the author's publications, only his early work is taken into consideration. This creative period begins 1918 with Jüngers return from the front-line service and ends, from the specific perspective of the chosen subject, 1932 with the publication of the essay The Worker. The mentioned essay represents together with a shorter paper titled Total Mobilization (1930) a separate chapter in the author's understanding of technology and is therefore given adequate space in the present thesis. The writer's concepts of machine and technology, which have been published prior to the Worker, are largely observed in the light of this later development of his ideas. In the final chapter it is attempted to show how the structure of the author's front-line experience is reflected in some of his ideas concerning the problem of modern technology