Revised Review: Storm of Steel

A revised edition of a review written in 2022.

(This review was originally published in 2022 by myself. I read the Mystery Grove edition, which is the 1929 English translation).

First and foremost, Storm of Steel is a memoir, a lived experience. The bulk of the book focuses on the real actions of Ernst Jünger and the men he led. It is not primarily presented as a philosophical or a moral work, though at times it does seem to have a quasi-spiritual element (for instance, the description of the Verey-lights, the dreams, and the mystery of the ‘other’). This review is not going to focus on Jünger’s day to day actions or the battles themselves. I suggest you read the book itself for that. Instead, I want to focus on some of the key points from the book, especially his comments on war and finding meaning in the midst of it.

One of the first things you will notice throughout the memoir is his extraordinary luck; that is the only way to truly describe it. He was hit fourteen times and suffered twenty punctures. He was directly shot a total of six times. There are many instances throughout the book where Jünger either miraculously survives what should have, or even was to others, a deadly blast or situation. He also, multiple times, avoids a battle or a day in which he almost certainly would have died, as his comrades did. I cannot imagine reading this book and not seeing the hand of Divine Providence; nothing else can explain his survival.

Another thing you will notice when you read his descriptions of events is that he writes with a sense of cool detachment, even when speaking of the carnage, the friends he saw blasted into pieces beside him, and the way he killed others. Some may take away from this fact that he does not care or is not affected. This is entirely incorrect. If you pay close attention, you will notice that it is only through sheer strength of will that Jünger is capable of maintaining his composure. As we know, many soldiers who survived the First World War experienced severe shell shock. When you read of Jünger’s experiences, you must appreciate the fact he did not go mad (though he certainly got close at times, as he admits). As an officer, he could not afford to. He had men to lead. “You are the company commander, man!” he says to himself, after being nearly blown up and running away in one of the worst battles he describes (pg. 138).

Another compelling part of the book that helps explain how he was able to withstand the horrors of this war is his description of the feeling of being the “victim of a pitiless thirst for destruction” shortly after he describes a moment where he and his men had to sit in a ditch during artillery fire (pg. 101). He goes on to say, of those moments, “With horror you feel that all your intelligence, your capacities, your bodily and spiritual characteristics, have become utterly meaningless and absurd. While you think it, the lump of metal that will crush you to a shapeless nothing may have started on its course” (pg. 101). He further said of his command, “When God gives an office, He gives the understanding for it” (pg. 138). An interesting and very early reference to God. We can hardly draw any conclusions from this alone, but it is revealing.

This quote reveals a major theme that would characterize Jünger’s view of the War going forward, and frankly a simple fact that has to be recognized. No longer does the cunning or strength of a soldier matter in the face of modern war. Technological warfare has brought an end to the knight, to chivalry, to personal prowess on the field of battle. Of course, there are exceptions here and there. But Jünger would conclude from his time at war, as we will see, that the ideal soldier is no longer one who stands out as an excellent warrior, but one who fits into the machine best.

With that being said, he asks himself, “why don’t you jump up and rush into the night till you collapse in safety behind a bush like an exhausted animal? Why do you hang on there all the time, you and your braves? (pg. 101). To this he responds, “Unknown perhaps to yourself, there is some one within you who keeps you to your post by the power of two mighty spells: Duty and Honor. You know that this is your place in the battle, and that a whole people relies on you to do your job” (pg. 101). Can duty and honor continue to have meaning in modern warfare? Jünger seems to think so, at least he did when he wrote Storm of Steel. There are instances where he cries and and where his nerves were tested to their limits, and he makes it clear that many of the things he saw and experienced he would never forget. Yet, he never broke, and the reason he gives are the ideals of Duty and Honor. These ideals are also why Jünger manages to have respect for his enemy, especially those who pose the greatest risk to himself. In fact, this attitude is one that he would maintain throughout life. Later, Jünger would explain that an enemy can paradoxically provide positive contributions, and be an opportunity as a sort of via negativa.

Returning to the topic of ideals, it is important that we understand what Jünger valued and believed in during this time. In the last two pages of the book, Jünger describes how, during his stay at a war hospital in the final days of the war, “[He] was gripped by the sad and proud feeling of being more closely bound to [his] country because of the blood shed for her greatness” (pg. 175). Here we see that he takes pride in fighting for his country, and he believes it to be great. He then goes on to talk about how when he first entered the war, he thought it would merely be a “festival on which all the pride of youth was lavished” (pg. 175). Of course, it was far from it. It was suffering. It was mud-filled trenches and craters. It was rats. It was shrapnel. It was wounds. It was loss of friends, of comrades. It was nerve-wracking. It was torturous. It was brutal. During this time, he did not think “about the ideal [he] had to stand for” because there was no time to think. But because of these afflictions, “the idea of the Fatherland had been distilled…in a clearer and brighter essence. That was the final winnings in a game on which so often all had been staked: the nation was no longer for me an empty thought veiled in symbols; and how could it have been otherwise when I had seen so many die for its sake, and been schooled myself to stake my life for its credit every minute, day and night, without a thought?” (pg. 175).

The lesson he learned, then, from the uncaring and machine-like warfare of the Great War, is that “life had no depth of meaning except when it is pledged for an ideal, and that there are ideals in comparison with which the life of an individual and even of a people has no weight” (pg. 175). In this case, the ideal was his country, his Fatherland, his Duty, his Honor. Despite the German defeat, Jünger felt that, “though the aim for which I fought as an individual, as an atom in the whole body of the army, was not to be achieved, though material force cast us, apparently, to the earth, yet we learned once and for all to stand for a cause and if necessary to fall as befitted men” (pg. 175). Jünger found meaning, purpose, and even a sense of pride in his role as an atom, as a cog in the machine, because ultimately he felt that machine was serving something great, a cause worth fighting for, perhaps even the machine itself!

To the great astonishment of we moderns, Jünger described his generation as “favoured” thanks to their being “hardened as scarcely another generation ever was in fire and flame,” which allowed them to “go into life as though from the anvil; into friendship, love, politics, professions, and into all that destiny had in store” (pg. 175). That is hardly how anyone would think to describe that generation. We reflexively see those who endured the two world wars as cursed; we pity them. Jünger does not want our pity.

For him, even the fallen had achieved a higher purpose. “We stood with our feet in mud and blood, yet our faces were turned to things of exalted worth. And not one of that countless number who fell in our attacks fell for nothing. Each one fulfilled his own resolve” (pg. 175). He then quotes John 12:24, wherein Jesus says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (KJV). The optimism! War took on a spiritual component for Jünger (recall also his comment about God and offices). It is shocking to the modern ear to hear a man speak of war in such a way, when we have been conditioned to think of war as something purely evil, something which has no value and which cannot do any good for any one any where. It is with this very attitude that Jünger takes issue. “To-day we cannot understand the martyrs who threw themselves into the arena in a transport that lifted them even before their deaths beyond humanity, beyond every phase of pain and fear. Their faith no longer exercises a compelling force” (pg. 175-176). Their faith in Fatherland, in God, in honor, in duty; none of it makes sense today.

When once it is no longer possible to understand how a man give his life for his country—and the time will come—then all is over that faith also, and the idea of the Fatherland is dead; and then, perhaps, we shall be envied, as we envy the saints their inward and irresistible strength. For all these great and solemn ideas bloom from a feeling that dwells in the blood and that cannot be forced. In the cold light of reason everything is a matter of expedience and sinks to the paltry and mean. It was our luck to live in the invisible rays of a feeling that filled the heart, and of this inestimable treasure we can never be deprived (pg. 176).

We live in the time Jünger predicts will come. We do not today really understand why a man would give his life for his country. It might register to the average person why someone in, say, Ukraine, might give up their life to defend their home. This is easily grasped. But what of the Russian? Can the modern mind comprehend it? Can the Last Man understand why the young Russian soldier would volunteer for a war in Ukraine where he knows he could die? Further, could the modern mind understand why an American might have volunteered to fight in Vietnam? Most soldiers who fought there weren’t drafted, by the way. In fact, only 25% were draftees. As recruitment numbers plummet for the U.S. Armed Forces for a variety of reasons that we need not discuss here, it is worth asking these questions.

It is also worth asking what people would die for besides their country or if they would die for anything at all. If your ideals are not worth that much, are they truly ideals? Or is “everything a matter of expedience” waiting to be discarded and forgotten when it becomes inconvenient? Are your ideals just petty political or religious stances (yes, petty religion exists) that would crumble under pressure? For many, I suspect their “ideals” are that, or less. As a result, the valiant and honorable soldier—whether he survived or was killed in battle—can truly be looked upon as a model. They knew they were valuable, they knew they were serving a purpose, and they were willing to fight and even die for their ideals and for what they loved.

War, for Jünger, is more than mere material destruction, and is instead a transformative and even uplifting and transcendent experience. Such words will certainly cause many to tremble, whether in fear or anger, but it is clearly true, because Ernst Jünger himself, like many great warriors before him, felt as much from his wartime experience. If this man, who was wounded fourteen times, who saw his friends evaporated right in front of him, who stood in the mud and the blood and was deafened by non-stop artillery, can find meaning and come closer to a clearer and brighter picture of his ideals through war, then maybe the nihilistic urge to declare all suffering meaningless (and hence all life) is truly an error.

These meditations do not only apply to war, as I believe is becoming clear. They apply to many parts of life. War just provided the catalyst for nihilism to take hold. One, and then another great conflagration seemed unfathomably empty and senseless to many, and all of life followed suit. Now, it is not just war and suffering which appears meaningless, but existence itself. Yet, if Jünger is right that even the First World War had profound meaning and that not a life was lost in vain, then that must be true even moreso for the rest of life’s struggles and activities. The meaning is there, we need only recognize it.

For those of us that are Christians, we ought to know that life does have meaning, and that everything we do matters. We are called to find meaning even in our comparatively insignificant day-to-day mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual sufferings. We are called to remember our Duty and our Honor, and our Mission. From a Christian perspective, we know we have many missions, both temporal and spiritual. We know that we are caught up in a great struggle between light and darkness. The role we play in this struggle is not just as an individual, but also as someone is a part of a great mass of people, the Church Militant; we play the role of that of a warrior, a combatant in the spiritual war that is waged with great loss of souls. Unlike temporal wars, however, we cannot be a casualty if we have faith in Christ and live a Christian life. Eternal victory has already been achieved, but battles still rage on, and the Devil now attempts to take as many souls to hell with him as he can. It is our job to not join the ranks of the enemy, but to hold our line and even add to its numbers.

In our own day it is so easy to give into the siren’s call of nihilism and throw in the towel. But we must, as Jünger did, maintain our composure, keep our ideals and our mission in mind, and continue fighting the good fight.