STORM OF STEEL

Storm of Steel is one of the greatest works to emerge from the catastrophe of the First World War. A memoir of astonishing power, savagery and ashen lyricism, it illuminates like no other book the horrors but also the fascination of total war, presenting the conflict through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier. Jünger served in the German front line, fighting both the British and the French, for most of the war. Young, tough, patriotic but also disturbingly self-aware, he exalted in the war which he saw not just as a great national struggle but – more importantly – as a unique personal struggle. Leading raiding parties, defending trenches against murderous British incursions, simply enduring as shells tore his comrades apart, Jünger keeps testing himself, braced for the death that will mark his failure. Published shortly after the war’s end, Storm of Steel was a worldwide bestseller and can now be rediscovered through Michael Hofmann’s startling new translation. As an account of the terrors of the Western Front but also of the sickening allure that made men keep fighting on for four long years, Storm of Steel has no equal.