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117 ratings, 3.99 average rating, 27 reviews
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published
May 4th 2004
by Penguin Classics
binding
Paperback, 288 pages
isbn
0142437905
(isbn13: 9780142437902)
description
A memoir of astonishing power, savagery, and ashen lyricism, Storm of Steel illuminates not only the horrors but also the fascination of total ...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 196)
Read in March, 2008
Jünger's account of the brutal fighting on the western front in WWI makes an enlightening contrast with Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That. Graves's account is comic and ironic, while Jünger's writing is almost completely dispassionate, even while describing his friends being torn to shreds by British artillery and sniper fire--an example of the so-called Neue Sachlichkeit applied to trench warfare. It's hard not to see the difference as an expression of a difference in national...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommends it for:
war lit. fans; WWI buffs, historians
STORM OF STEEL offers WWI from a German soldier's point of view, but Erich Maria Remarque it ain't. All told, author Ernst Junger was shot multiple times, yet would live not only to write this book (and many others) but to celebrate his 103rd birthday (attended by an unusually patient Grim Reaper-in-Waiting). In the penultimate page of this book, he writes: "Leaving out trifles such as ricochets and grazes, I was hit at least fourteen times, these being five bullets, two shell splinters, ...more
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recommends it for:
Quimby Melton, Brian Blessinger
"Disturbingly self-aware." Killing did not trouble Junger too much - his ability to move through absolute carnage on an industrial scale cannot but fascinate. The first World War was the charnel house of charnel houses, a maw consuming men and nations whose aftershocks reverberate today not only in Berlin but even in Baghdad. Junger stands in vivid contrast to the ranks of writers who rejected the war and everything it stood for; he found it a positive experience and did not agonize ov...more
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This book is interesting to read, as I did, almost back-to-back with Barbusse's Le Feu. The experiences of the two authors are clearly very similar - you will find the same extremely disturbing imagery treated with what seems almost indifference, as exposure to horrors has worn away their susceptibility to shock. However, while Barbusse seems to refute the possibility of a 'right' or 'wrong' in the context of filth, decay and the unreasoning perpetuation of the conflict, Jünger takes most of th...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
WWI buffs, history-lovers
Ernst Junger's account as a lieutenant in the German Imperial Army is as mind-blowing for its depictions of almost daily death as it is for its lack of moralizing and sentimentality. Even more amazing is the picture he paints of the innocent victims of war almost as backdrops to the overwhelming historical events unfolding. The detail of troop movements is amazing and I found myself reading with one hand and "Google-Mapping" with the other hand to see just where all this carnage had ta...more
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Read in October, 2008
This book is the opposite of All Quiet on the Western Front. I do not say that lightly: this book is the reverse of that one, the mirror image, the answer to a call-- or, if publication dates are taken into consideration, the call for the answer. But in saying that I suggest that they influenced one another. Storm of Steel was certainly popular enough to be known by anyone writing about World War One during the interwar years, but it is its own thing: it is culled from journals, concerned with f...more
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Most readers are familiar with Erich Maria Remarque's classic "
All Quiet on the Western Front," a work of fiction based on Remarque's hellish experience in the trenches of the First World War. Junger's experiences act as the opposite side of the coin. Just like Remarque, Junger does not shy away from the grisly realities and macabre atmosphere of the Western Front. However, unlike Remarque, who obviously saw his war experience as a harrowing tragedy that scarred him for life, Jung...more
All Quiet on the Western Front," a work of fiction based on Remarque's hellish experience in the trenches of the First World War. Junger's experiences act as the opposite side of the coin. Just like Remarque, Junger does not shy away from the grisly realities and macabre atmosphere of the Western Front. However, unlike Remarque, who obviously saw his war experience as a harrowing tragedy that scarred him for life, Jung...more
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Started this on Veteran's/Armistice Day, to try and get some perspective on WWI. This relatively recent English translation is one of the best books about war that I've ever read: a clear-eyed, unsparing statement of the horror and the camraderie. Very highly recommended.
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
Anyone
Unlike All Quiet on the Western Front, this book about the trench warfare in WWI comes off as very positive.
It is about Ernst Juenger as a soldier in the German Army, and his experiences. He is wounded multiple times, and sees all the horrors of war, and yet comes out of the war untouched by it's traumatizing effect. While he recognizes the actions as potentially mind-scarring events, and doesn't shy from the reality of them, Juenger still loves the war. He has a famous quote in the boo...more
It is about Ernst Juenger as a soldier in the German Army, and his experiences. He is wounded multiple times, and sees all the horrors of war, and yet comes out of the war untouched by it's traumatizing effect. While he recognizes the actions as potentially mind-scarring events, and doesn't shy from the reality of them, Juenger still loves the war. He has a famous quote in the boo...more
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This book is sort of a paradox -- the author recounts his true and hellish experiences during several years of senseless slaughter in the trenches of WWI, but war is still portrayed as a glorious adventure. The maiming and the dying go on for so many pages (well, for the length of the book), that the reader eventually becomes accustomed to it. In this aspect the author has succeeded in recreating the "horror" of war.
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Thsi is a real All quiet on the Western Front, a memoir by a german infantryman who fought for four years on the western front in battles of incredible ferocity. Never again would an entire generation go to war with such unabashed enthusiasm and patriotiotic zeal--and be slaughtered by their officers. Reading thsi book it is amazing that the author survived the war, let alone that he would live to the age of 98.
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Read in January, 2008
i would love to have read the original transcript of this book. junger mastery of description is stunning in the way he evokes the cold rush of blood thirst, the thrill of the hunt and the ironclad artillery of the british barrage hammering upon the german front. truly this book is amazing in showing the gruesome truth of modern warfare. detailing the depth of wars impact on the human psyche.
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recommends it for:
People who want to know the TRUTH about WWI
Don't believe what you read in history books. WWI was a pointless, devastating conflict that crippled an entire generation of young men.
Sure, okay.
But there was also glory. So much glory. A lot of first hand accounts lose track of that, not Junger's. He gets it all, the guts and the glory.
I'd also recommend The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, but everyone recommends that.
Sure, okay.
But there was also glory. So much glory. A lot of first hand accounts lose track of that, not Junger's. He gets it all, the guts and the glory.
I'd also recommend The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, but everyone recommends that.
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Read in April, 2008
Excellent, very eloquently written memoir of a german Lietenants experiences of trench warfare. It comes across as very matter of fact and almost as the author's simply curious observations of how people behave and react in an environment of chaos and death.
I've read a lot of war memoirs, and this is one of the best.
I've read a lot of war memoirs, and this is one of the best.
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Read in October, 2008
this book described events in WWI without political comment, blame or exagerration. It didn't matter that the writer was German, he wrote of his personal experiences and the horrors that would have been shared no matter the side. I've never felt a book has better allowed me into the head of the soldier.
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Well written book by a German soldier who served in the first world war, later serving in the second as well, but it certainly isn't the most historically accurate book on WWI. Definitely has some fabrications, otherwise I would've liked it a lot more, nevertheless this is still a very good book.
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Read in January, 2001
recommends it for:
Everyone
I read an earlier edition, which may have a different translation of the original text, but I found this book to be very exciting. It is Ernst Jünger's war diary - and Jünger led a very tumultuous, interesting life. Once I started the book, I couldn't put it down. I read it in about 2 days.
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Read in January, 2008
Fantastic and dismaying journal of a German shock trooper from the first world war. Very detailed in many aspects (planning, training, trench warfare, injuries, etc). Recommended highly for any person interested in the First World War.
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Compelling and frustratingly dispassionate memoirs from a German officer who saw a lot of action in some of the major battles of WW1. The context provided by the introduction concerning the author and his book is intriguing - don't miss it.
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
Steve Miller
An outstanding autobiography about the life of a soldier in the trenches of world warI. a good companion for All Quiet on the Western Front. It's a different point of view
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