Storm of Steel

Merry Christmas!  I’ve already covered the Christmas Truce of 1914 in a prior blog, but I still believe World War I is an inexhaustible source of holiday blog material.  The ironic juxtaposition of trenches, poison gas, and pointless slaughter really fits in with Christmas.  Or Festivus.  Anyhow.

A few weeks back we met our old Paris buddy Jean in Virginia, and while browsing through Barnes & Noble with him I picked up this book by Ernst Junger.  It’s his memoirs of World War I in the Imperial German Army.  

Junger was actually in the French Foreign Legion immediately before the war and returned to Germany to fight.  He started out as a private and won a commission through Germany’s equivalent of Officer Candidate School.  He served  throughout the war, though wounded several times.   Immediately after the war he wrote this.   Oddly, he never joined the Nazi Party, though he and Hitler exchanged autographed copies of their books.  During WWII he served as a captain in the Wehrmacht in Paris, France, in a non-combatant role.   He lived all the way to 1998.

I recall an Internet article on WWI a few years ago, which served to dispel the notion that troops were in combat continuously throughout the war, and this is reflected in Junger’s story.  In fact, the troops were rotated from behind the lines, second line, and front line, and even front line service could be fairly quiet if there was no battle actually going on at the time.  The battles themselves were terrifying, and Junger was amazed to survive brutal bombardments and fairly accurate enemy fire.  Grenades were popular because they could be thrown around corners in traverses.  Gas warfare figures heavily in his story, and is yet another peculiar horror of this war, and mostly absent thereafter.  The nature of mobile warfare – tanks and motorized infantry, e.g. WWII – make slow-moving clouds of poison gas impractical once the trenches are left behind.

The majority of his opponents were British, and all of his service was on the Western Front.  He had a high opinion of their morale and skill.  On rare occasions Junger faced off against the French, and they were also deadly foes.   His quotes of French were correct (!).  Despite serving through November 1918, he makes no mention whatsoever of Americans, and only brief mentions of tanks, after battles with no direct experience in combat against them.  Although the cover illustration shows Germany’s A7V and a British Mark IV, he makes no specific reference to either and a brief reference to smaller, faster tanks, presumably the French Renault FT.   The book ends abruptly with the end of the war and he offers no opinion on the outcome.

The obvious comparison is with “All Quiet on the Western Front”.   That story, though, is fiction, whereas Junger’s account is first person non-fiction.  Remarque’s story is apolitical; the German soldiers show no particular love or loyalty to the Kaiser or even Germany, nor any hostility to him or to the opposing sides.  The general idea is that the war is a huge slaughter and an equally huge mistake on the part of everyone concerned – i.e. pretty much anti-war.  Both film adaptations were American, with US actors.  Storm of Steel has yet to come to the big screen, and after having read it from cover to cover, I suppose I can ascertain why.  

Junger makes only passing references to the Kaiser.  He won the Pour Le Merite, the “Blue Max”, Imperial Germany’s highest award.  Nowhere in the book does he express the opinion that the war is wrong or a mistake, or that Germany bears responsibility for it; the closest is a later, vague acknowledgement that things could be going better for his side.   There is really zero politics here and certainly NO anti-war sentiment.  Hell, Junger even makes jokes.  He respects the British and French as worthy opponents (no mention of Americans, Russians, Italians, Austrians, Turks, etc.).   For him, war was glorious, fun, and exciting.  This alone seems to turn off many readers, especially since he’s happy to describe the appalling casualties he witnesses, even on his own side, which he obviously saw more of.  This lack of passion or remorse hits many people the wrong way – how could you go through WWI and NOT become a pacifist?  Well, that was his take on the whole thing, and people are free to disagree with him.  Apparently his non-combat role in WWII was simply because of his age, not his inclination. 

Movie directors and producers being fairly liberal and anti-war, no one short of Mel Gibson could be expected to turn this book into a movie, though even so I’m puzzled even the Nazis didn’t tackle it.  Be that as it may, it serves as a good compliment to “All Quiet on the Western Front” and well worth reading in its own right.