World War I was a historical turning point in numerous ways, but one of the most notable is the transformations in the conduct of warfare. Because Storm of Steel is a straightforward recounting of Ernst Jünger’s wartime experiences, he does not reflect at length on these historical trends. However, their broad outlines can be traced from Jünger’s personal narrative. They include such things as the abandonment of pitched battles, the use of gas attacks, the destruction of civilian property, and the increased use of large machinery, like tanks and planes. By describing such turning points in the context of personal narrative, Jünger suggests that the changing nature of warfare is not abstract, but something that impacts the individual soldier and, increasingly, the world beyond the battlefield, in ominous ways.
Jünger observed some shifts in warfare firsthand, experiencing them as “new worlds” with personal impacts on the individual soldier. When a general prepares Jünger and his men for a massive offensive on the Western Front, they get their “first inkling of what was to be the Battle of the Somme. It marked the end of the first and mildest part of the war; thereafter, it was like embarking on a different one altogether. What we had, admittedly almost unbeknown to ourselves, been through had been the attempt to win a war by old-fashioned pitched battles […] What confronted us now was a war of materiel of the most gigantic proportions. This war in turn was replaced towards the end of 1917 by mechanized warfare, though that was not given time fully to develop.” In other words, the war is shifting from battle in which two sides encounter one another face to face, to war waged through the mobilization of massive amounts of weapons and ammunition (materiel), to battle that’s conducted largely through mechanized means like artillery, tanks, and airplanes.
Before the Battle of the Somme, when Jünger chats with the first German soldier he’s ever seen in a steel helmet, “he straightaway struck me as the denizen of a new and far harsher world. […] [I] got from him a grey tale of days hunkered in craters, with no outside contact or communications lines, of incessant attacks, fields of corpses and crazy thirst, of the wounded left to die, and more of the same. […] A few days had put their stamp on [him], who was to escort us into the realm of flame, setting him inexpressibly apart from us.” The man’s account is a prophesy of the grim realities of trench warfare, with its isolating and gruesome deprivations. It’s a further indication of the shift from “old-fashioned pitched battles” to battle in which soldiers lob bombs and grenades across great distances, rarely seeing each other face to face.
Another ominous development is the emergence of chemical warfare. Jünger recalls suffering the effects of phosgene gas: “With weeping eyes, I stumbled back to the Vaux woods, plunging from one crater into the next, as I was unable to see anything through the misted visor of my gas mask. […] Each time I blundered into sentries or troops who had lost their way, I had the icy sensation of conversing not with people, but with demons. We were all roving around in an enormous dump somewhere off the edge of the charted world.” The eerie sensation of navigating in a gas mask, made necessary by the horrifying norms of modern warfare, is like stumbling into a new world where even brothers-in-arms feel like strangers to each other.
Other shifts in warfare aren’t experienced firsthand, but Jünger describes certain things he witnesses as hints of greater transformations to come—things that will spill out of the experience of the soldier and into the civilian world. Later in the war, as Jünger surveys the destruction in civilian villages, he remarks, “As far back as the Siegfried Line, every village was reduced to rubble […] As I say, the scenes were reminiscent of a madhouse […] They were also, we could see right away, bad for the men’s morale and honour. Here, for the first time, I witnessed wanton destruction that I was later in life to see to excess; this is something that is unhealthily bound up with the economic thinking of our age, but it does more harm than good to the destroyer, and dishonours the soldier.” This is as close as Jünger gets in his memoir to offering commentary on society at large. Here, he criticizes what he sees as disreputable, pointless looting and destruction. He doesn’t elaborate on what he means by “the economic thinking of our age,” but his comments suggest that war has come to be regarded as a total, zero-sum experience that impacts civilian as well as soldier, and, in the process, harms the psyche of the offending soldier as well as the civilian.
Near the war’s end, Jünger examines a new tank and gets the sense of being on the cusp of something new, foreign, and sinister: “To be in the narrow turret of such a tank, going forward, with its tangle of rods and wires and poles, must have been extremely unpleasant as these colossuses, in efforts to outmaneuver the artillery, were forced to zigzag over the country like huge helpless beetles. I felt keen sympathy for the men in those fiery furnaces. Also, the countryside was dotted about with the skeletal wreckage of downed aeroplanes, an indication that machines were playing an ever-greater part on the battlefield.” These glimpses were likewise prophetic, signaling realities that were only stirring to life in World War I but would come to dominate in the World War II, 20 years later.
It's worth noting that Jünger revised Storm of Steel many times over the years, and that the final edition was revised in 1961—long after the changes foreseen in Jünger’s narrative had come to pass. It’s entirely possible that Jünger inserts comments about mechanized warfare, for instance, with the full awareness of hindsight. Still, the memoir offers a unique perspective on such changes because they’re discussed in the context of an individual soldier’s experience, not as part of a disinterested historical analysis.
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Modern Warfare Quotes in Storm of Steel
The desolation and the profound silence, sporadically broken by the crump of shells, were heightened by the sorry impression of devastation. Ripped haversacks, broken rifles, scraps of cloth, counterpointed grotesquely with children’s toys, shell fuses, deep craters from explosions, bottles, harvest implements, shredded books, battered household gear, holes whose gaping darkness betrayed the presence of basements, where the bodies of the unlucky inhabitants of the houses were gnawed by the particularly assiduous swarms of rats; […] trenches dug through the ravaged gardens, in among sprouting bulbs of onions, wormwood, rhubarb, narcissus, buried under weeds; on the neighbouring fields grain barns, through whose roofs the grain was already sprouting; all that, with a half-buried communication trench running through it, and all suffused with the smell of burning and decay. Sad thoughts are apt to sneak up on the warrior in such a locale, when he thinks of those who only recently led their lives in tranquillity.
Throughout the war, it was always my endeavour to view my opponent without animus, and to form an opinion of him as a man on the basis of the courage he showed. I would always try and seek him out in combat and kill him, and I expected nothing else from him. But never did I entertain mean thoughts of him. When prisoners fell into my hands, later on, I felt responsible for their safety, and would always do everything in my power for them.
These moments of nocturnal prowling leave an indelible impression. Eyes and ears are tensed to the maximum, the rustling approach of strange feet in the tall grass is an unutterably menacing thing. Your breath comes in shallow bursts; you have to force yourself to stifle any panting or wheezing. There is a little mechanical click as the safety-catch of your pistol is taken off; the sound cuts straight through your nerves. Your teeth are grinding on the fuse-pin of the hand-grenade. The encounter will be short and murderous. You tremble with two contradictory impulses: the heightened awareness of the huntsman, and the terror of the quarry. You are a world to yourself, saturated with the appalling aura of the savage landscape.
He was the first German soldier I saw in a steel helmet, and he straightaway struck me as the denizen of a new and far harsher world. […] The impassive features under the rim of the steel helmet and the monotonous voice accompanied by the noise of the battle made a ghostly impression on us. A few days had put their stamp on the runner, who was to escort us into the realm of flame, setting him inexpressibly apart from us.
“If a man falls, he’s left to lie. No one can help. No one knows if he’ll return alive. Every day we’re attacked, but they won’t get through. Everyone knows this is about life and death.”
Nothing was left in this voice but equanimity, apathy; fire had burned everything else out of it. It’s men like that that you need for fighting.
Over the ruins, as over all the most dangerous parts of the terrain, lay a heavy smell of death, because the fire was so intense that no one could bother with the corpses. You really did have to run for your life in these places, and when I caught the smell of it as I ran, I was hardly surprised - it belonged to there. Moreover, this heavy sweetish atmosphere was not merely disgusting; it also, in association with the piercing fogs of gunpowder, brought about an almost visionary excitement, that otherwise only the extreme nearness of death is able to produce.
Here, and really only here, I was to observe that there is a quality of dread that feels as unfamiliar as a foreign country. In moments when I felt it, I experienced no fear as such but a kind of exalted, almost demoniacal lightness; often attended by fits of laughter I was unable to repress.
With weeping eyes, I stumbled back to the Vaux woods, plunging from one crater into the next, as I was unable to see anything through the misted visor of my gas mask. With the extent and inhospitableness of its spaces, it was a night of eerie solitude. Each time I blundered into sentries or troops who had lost their way, I had the icy sensation of conversing not with people, but with demons. We were all roving around in an enormous dump somewhere off the edge of the charted world.
As far back as the Siegfried Line, every village was reduced to rubble, every tree chopped down, every road undermined, every well poisoned, every basement blown up or booby-trapped, every rail unscrewed, every telephone wire rolled up, everything burnable burned; in a word, we were turning the country that our advancing opponents would occupy into a wasteland.
As I say, the scenes were reminiscent of a madhouse, and the effect of them was similar: half funny, half repellent. They were also, we could see right away, bad for the men’s morale and honour. Here, for the first time, I witnessed wanton destruction that I was later in life to see to excess; this is something that is unhealthily bound up with the economic thinking of our age, but it does more harm than good to the destroyer, and dishonours the soldier.
I had to leave the unlucky ones to the one surviving stretcher-bearer in order to lead the handful of unhurt men who had gathered around me from that dreadful place. Half an hour ago at the head of a full battle-strength company, I was now wandering around a labyrinth of trenches with a few, completely demoralized men. One baby-faced fellow, who was mocked a few days ago by his comrades, and on exercises had wept under the weight of the big munitions boxes, was now loyally carrying them on our heavy way, having picked them up unasked in the crater. Seeing that did for me. I threw myself to the ground, and sobbed hysterically, while my men stood grimly about.
Suddenly there was a deafening crash on the edge of the trench. I got a blow on the skull, and fell forward unconscious. When I came round, I was dangling head down over the breech of a heavy machine-gun, staring down at a pool of blood that was growing alarmingly fast on the floor of the trench. The blood was running down so unstoppably that I lost all hope. As my escort assured me he could see no brains, I took courage, picked myself up, and trotted on. That was what I got for being so foolish as to go into battle without a steel helmet. In spite of my twofold haemorrhage, I was terribly excited, and told everyone I passed in the trench that they should hurry to the line, and join the battle.
At such moments, there crept over me a mood I hadn’t known before. A profound reorientation, a reaction to so much time spent so intensely, on the edge. The seasons followed one another, it was winter and then it was summer again, but it was still war. I felt I had got tired, and used to the aspect of war, but it was from this familiarity that I observed what was in front of me in a new and subdued light. Things were less dazzlingly distinct. And I felt that the purpose with which I had gone out to fight had been used up, and no longer held. The war posed new, deeper puzzles. It was a strange time altogether.
To be in the narrow turret of such a tank, going forward, with its tangle of rods and wires and poles, must have been extremely unpleasant as these colossuses, in efforts to outmaneuver the artillery, were forced to zigzag over the country like huge helpless beetles. I felt keen sympathy for the men in those fiery furnaces. Also, the countryside was dotted about with the skeletal wreckage of downed aeroplanes, an indication that machines were playing an ever greater part on the battlefield.
During the endless hours flat on your back, you try to distract yourself to pass the time; once, I reckoned up my wounds. Leaving out trifles such as ricochets and grazes, I was hit at least fourteen times, these being five bullets, two shell splinters, one shrapnel ball, four hand-grenade splinters and two bullet splinters, which, with entry and exit wounds, left me an even twenty scars. In the course of this war, where so much of the firing was done blindly into empty space, I still managed to get myself targeted no fewer than eleven times. I felt every justification, therefore, in donning the gold wound-stripes, which arrived for me one day.
