ABSTRACT
This chapter centers on the question of how the mysterious gestalt in Junger's work can be understood. It concentrates on The Worker, from 1932. The chapter examines Junger's experience of the First World War, in which he sees the demise of the ideals of the Enlightenment of man as animal rationale and the completely meaningless world of nihilism that remains after this demise. It deals with the incommensurability of the First World War: the world and the human encounter that go with it appear now totally mobilized. The chapter deals with the occasion that moved Junger to a concept of a gestalt: the Battle of Langemarck, in which he experienced a gestalt-switch. It asks what a gestalt actually is. It will be argued that it centers on the ontologically different unity that gives the world meaning.
