Description: One of the most powerful accounts of combat ever written, The Storm of Steel is Ernst Jünger's searing chronicle of his service as a German infantry officer on the Western Front during the First World War. Based on the 1929 translation that first brought Jünger's memoir to the English-speaking world, this edition preserves the clarity and force of the original work. From the blood and mud-churned trenches of Flanders to the shattered ruins of the Somme, Jünger records not only the horror and chaos of mechanized warfare, but also its strange and terrible beauty. Refusing both sentimentalism and apology, he offers a deeply personal witness to the existential furnace of total war that is unlike anything else in 20th-century literature.
Brief description: Ernst Jünger (March 29, 1895-February 17, 1998) was a highly decorated German soldier, author, poet and philosopher. He received both the Iron Cross 1st Class and the Pour le Mérite, one of the highest orders of merit in the Kingdom of Prussia, for his actions during World War I. Jünger later served in the German Army in an administrative role in Paris during World War II. Although The Storm of Steel is his most famous book, which he often revisited, he produced other notable works in Eumeswil, On Pain, and The Worker, among many others. Jünger was an atheist for most of his life, though during his later years he converted to Catholicism.