Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Storm of Steel, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Manliness and Duty
Modern Warfare
Suffering and Death
Foreigners, Enemies, and Empathy
The Complex Reality of War
Summary
Analysis
In December 1914, Ernst Jünger and his fellow soldiers get out of a train in Bazancourt, a town in Champagne, France. They are filled with amazement as they listen to the sounds of the warfront. Coming from various civilian backgrounds, the young men have bonded during their training. Having grown up relatively sheltered, they are “enraptured by war” and ready for danger. They expect the war to be “manly” and to give them the “extraordinary” experience they crave.
World War I broke out in late July of 1914, and Jünger—an adventure-seeking youth who’d earlier run away to join the French foreign legion—enlisted immediately after Germany entered the war. In contrast to their later attitudes on the front lines, the new recruits are idealistic, looking at war as a game that will give them the chance for personal glory.
Themes
The group marches to the village of Orainville, the base for the 73rd Rifles. The dilapidated village is mostly made up of bearded, idle veterans. After a night in a barn, Jünger is assigned to the 9th Company.
The 73rd Rifles was an infantry regiment of the Hanoverian 19th Division. Jünger remains with this group for the duration of the war. The young men’s eager idealism contrasts with the battle-hardened veterans.
Themes
During breakfast, the soldiers hear explosions in the distance, and everyone rushes outside. Jünger doesn’t understand why other men are ducking while running. Then he sees a contorted figure wailing for help as he is carried into the Red Cross building. It turns out that a shell burst has caused 13 fatalities. The event makes a strong impression on Jünger. He even has auditory hallucinations, causing him to mistake the sound of a passing cart for the sound of another incoming shell.
Jünger’s inexperience is evident in his puzzlement about everyday life at the front. He doesn’t understand the ever-present danger, and he’s shocked by the grim realities of death—even a chance shell burst can cause terrible suffering. The close proximity of death quickly shatters Jünger’s idealism.
Themes
Jünger soon learns that his habit of jumpiness will stay with him throughout the war. Even the sound of a dropped book or a random shout can be heart-stopping. Any unusual occurrence causes Death to “leap […] with hand upraised.”
Now that Jünger has been initiated into the horrors of the front, Death’s hovering, unpredictable presence will haunt him, showing that war changes one’s psyche as well as one’s external circumstances.
Themes
Get the entire Storm of Steel LitChart as a printable PDF.
That evening, the company marches through isolated woods to their battle station, a forester’s house, where they’re divided into platoons. Then they load their guns and march to the front. Jünger recalls the dark, single-file journey as being marked by a “strange mood of melancholy exaltation.” At last they drop into a communication trench, where Jünger accompanies an older soldier to a sentry post, watching the front until dawn.
In modern military hierarchy, platoons are usually made up of around a couple dozen soldiers; a few platoons, in turn, make up a company (with a few companies making up a battalion and several of those, in turn, a regiment of perhaps a couple thousand soldiers). Though Jünger has been shorn of his youthful optimism, as a part of one of these platoons, he still feels a certain thrill in finally reaching the front lines.
Themes
This is only the beginning of a demanding routine in which the men of the platoon seldom get to sleep for more than two hours per night. Once the January rains set in, the long hours of sentry duty become a torment. During the day, the men catch what rest they can, in between duties like trench repairs and running for food or coffee. Most of the young men “ha[ve] only a nodding acquaintance with real work,” so the demands of platoon life hit them especially hard. In addition, the veterans give the newcomers a hard time.
Like Jünger, many of the new recruits come from relatively privileged backgrounds that have ill prepared them for the rigors of life in the trenches. Exposure to the elements, sleeplessness, and constant physical demands add to the psychological and social pressures confronting them.
Themes
Within a short time of joining the regiment, the men become disillusioned. There’s none of the danger they’d hoped for—just dirty work, boredom, and little sleep. They look forward to an attack, but the front is at a standstill, as men on both sides lie low in increasingly elaborate defensive trenches.
The monotony and strain of life in the trenches, again, defies romanticized images of warfare. Later, the men might wish for such boredom, but in its early stages, the war was largely fought from such entrenched positions, with little ground gained or ceded on either side.
Themes
In 1915, trench warfare is still a novelty. Much energy is poured into keeping watch, digging, and repairing trenches, but much of this proves later to be unnecessary. Jünger argues that the size of the trenches isn’t what’s important, it’s “the courage and condition of the men behind them.” In fact, the depth of these early trenches might have caused the men to become defensive and overcautious in their mindset.
Because Jünger fights in the war nearly from its beginning to its end, his narrative provides insight into the developments in modern warfare. At this stage, the prevailing wisdom is that sheltering in defensive trenches is the key to victory. With hindsight, however, Jünger suggests that this attitude impeded success in the long run.
Themes
Jünger tells of an incident that almost brought his career to an end in January 1915. One day, while on outdoor sentry duty, he wrapped a blanket around his head—against regulations—and set his rifle down in a bush. When he reached for his rifle upon hearing a noise, he discovered that it was missing. The duty officer had taken it away. As punishment, the officer sent Jünger on watch closer to the French lines, armed only with a pickaxe. But he survived, and on February 4, the regiment marched back to Bazancourt, relieved of their position in the trenches.
Jünger’s incident, while not without its humorous aspect, shows that protocol was taken seriously—a momentary lapse could have deadly consequences, which is why the officer sends Jünger on his memorable, poorly-defended patrol.
Themes
