I feel Jünger feeling proud of what his countrymen had done. When I think about Jünger looking out on the devastated French countryside I do not picture him feeling sad or burdened. According to Jünger all nations were fighting for their Vaterland. Jünger’s people were fighting to prove that their nation had a right to exist that they were no longer the weak divided nation of years past, but a united people striving for one great cause. The British were fighting to protect the neutrality of a smaller state and to declare to the entire world that they were still the greatest empire on the earth. The French were fighting to protect their borders from the German invaders who wished to destroy the French countryside. When one thinks about it every soldier in world war one was fighting for something greater than himself. Each one fulfilled his own resolve.” This resolve in Jünger’s eye was the love for one’s nation the love for one’s Vaterland. To Jünger, “ not one of that countless number who fell in our attacks fell for nothing. War has hardened him against emotions towards another man, yet he continues to fight. However, after the first scenes of death and destruction Jünger becomes numb to the carnage around him. When Jünger does finally get war it frightens him. At first he doesn’t get war, only manual labour. In the beginning of the book, Jünger portrays himself as a new soldier aching for battle. In Ernst Jünger’s book, “Storm of Steel” Jünger describes through the retelling of his experiences in the first world war why his people sacrificed and why Germany’s sons didn’t die in vain. People are asking, “Why did we fight? Why did our sons die? Why?”. The new Weimar Republic is unstable and lacks the lustre of the former Reich. Lost not just the war, but also her young men, her soldiers, her pride. The year is 1920 in the former German Reich.

Jünger's storm of steel