Storm of Steel

Ernst Jünger's first-person memoir of his service as a German officer on the Western Front, December 1914 to August 1918, drawn from his wartime diary. It follows his rise from private to lieutenant through major engagements including the Somme, Arras, Ypres, and Cambrai, rendered in unsentimental, closely observed detail — trench life, artillery barrages, and hand-to-hand combat. Jünger was wounded fourteen times over the course of the war. First published in 1920 and revised repeatedly over the following decades, the book is known for its detached tone: it offers no explicit political commentary, and readers across the political spectrum have read it variously as affirmative, neutral, or anti-war.