50 pages • 1 hour read
Ernst JungerStorm of Steel
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1920A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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The Iron Cross
Twice Jünger is awarded the Iron Cross, and once, at the end, the Pour le Mérite, or Order of Merit. The Iron Cross was established in 1813, by King Wilhelm III of Prussia, and symbolizes bravery in battle. Jünger’s first Iron Cross is awarded, along with other medals his men receive, for his deeds in the assault on the woods of St-Pierre-Vaast. The second comes after his raid on British trenches near Regniéville, and Jünger’s Order of Merit was awarded after his final assault.
When Jünger receives his first Iron Cross, Colonel von Oppen tells him that since he has a habit of being wounded, here is “a little plaster” (119), a joke meaning he can use the medal to stop his wounds. Since all three medals are awarded after Jünger is wounded, they symbolize, for Jünger, his wounds, but they also symbolize his will to fight on. Jünger rarely expounds on his personal feelings, and there is no direct mention of how he feels when he receives his medals. Just before his final wounding, he realizes he is missing one and stops, in the midst of enemy fire, to find it. This shows that the medals then symbolize what he believes being a soldier means: bravery in the face of danger, a desire to continue despite insurmountable odds, and willingness to be wounded for the cause of country.
Food and Alcohol
Jünger often mentions food and alcohol. One of the first images of the book is a field-kitchen, smelling of pea soup, where men are jingling their mess-tins as they wait to eat. When Jünger is sent to an officer course, he relates how the men bond over strong beer; other times soldiers sift through ruins looking for bread or wine. They fortify themselves with alcohol when the bombs grow too near, or drink to honor the passing of a friend.
Food, to a soldier, is comfort—as is alcohol: “While we were eating, a shell landed on the house, and three others came down near by, without us lifting our heads” (103). Here, they need the comfort of food and are willing to ignore the danger around them to enjoy it. Another time Jünger writes: “In the neglected garden, the berries were ripe, and tasted all the sweeter because of the bullets flying around us as we ate them” (89). Food is sustenance, and sustenance is life, which means that to eat is to be alive, in the midst of so much death.
Artillery
The artillery falls from the first page of the book to near the end. In the first paragraph Jünger writes: “The white ball of a shrapnel shell melted far off, suffusing the grey December sky” (5). It’s literally the first thing Jünger sees as he arrives at the war. Near the end, as Jünger is being carried off the battlefield, bullets “whistle” (9) all around him.
In between these two instances are a hundred others:“The shelter was shaking and trembling like a ship in a storm, while all around came the sounds of crashing walls and the splintering of the houses near by” (137). Jünger hears the artillery so often that he ignores it, such as when a soldier new to the unit remarks that Jünger doesn’t even take cover when bombs come near, to which a seasoned soldier says that he will if they come close. Jünger later says he can tell by the sound whether they will hit close or not, a sure sign that he has spent much time under fire.
The artillery can be seen everywhere, such as in the destroyed villages and the wastelands where the corpses have not been removed. It’s a part of every battle, either heavy artillery from massive guns or from mortars and small hand-grenades. Jünger even gets to where he can sleep through artillery attacks, which means that he hears them so often he knows that any moment he might be hit. And so, he is resigned to accept the possibility of the strike. The artillery represents the worst of war: the uncertainty, the fear, and the chance of sudden death falling from the sky.
