Ernst Junger's Storm Of Steel

Ernst Junger wrote a book called Storm of Steel. The book was published in Germany in 1920. A few years later, he completely rewrote the book. It was, in its “new” life, published again in 1963 and then was printed a further time by Penguin Modern Classics in 2003. This book is a piece of non-fiction, a flat-out emotionally neutral slice of life memoir about Junger’s experiences in World War I. Junger relates it all dispassionately, almost as if he is a camera or other recording device. He reports without apology and devoid of explanation or interpretation, without defense of “his” side of it and without attacking the “enemy.” There is no “deep hidden symbolism” to his writing. Junger does not convict nor does he glorify war. He simply relates his experiences. This might not seem so strange when one realizes Junger was already, or was made by, the …show more content…
Junger is assigned to the 9th Company. He talks about when he and several others who have not been in war before had an image in their mind of how the conflict was going to go. Although he does not use emotion, himself, in his writing, he depicts his fellow soldiers and himself as having a “romantic” notion of the world of war. His mind was changed when his company was sent to first trench, where they experienced a fight. When Junger describes the fighting, it is detailed to a point of where he describes what happened to men when they got shot or when bomb would land next to a solder. In the book, Junger talks about how he and several other solders got hand-picked by Lt. Hoppe to attend military schooling to learn everything on the war and its jobs. They were then sent back to the trenches again. He describes the life in the trenches. How weather impacts life there, bombing, shooting, duties, and spending time in his dugout where he would write in his war