Storm of Steel
by Ernst Jünger · first published 2004
69% recommend31% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Vivid first-person account of trench warfare from a German officer's view, valued for its intense descriptions of combat and terror; often paired with All Quiet on the Western Front as the German-side counterpart.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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I highly recommend "Storm of steel" by Ernst Jünger. He has incredible descriptions of the terror felt at the trenches. http://www.amazon.com/Storm-Steel-Penguin-Classics-J%C3%BCng...
on “A Soldier Explains What It Was Like in the World War I Trenches (1916)” ↗>Where does such suicidal bravery come from? If that is something you're interested in, you would probably enjoy reading Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel. Make sure to read the 1929 version. I believe there is only one english translation, by Basil Creighton. All the other editions available in the market are subsequent edits the author made, each one…
on “Killing it: From handaxes to spears, no difference in hunting (2020)” ↗…the world wars, and his (now public-domain) book "From London to Ladysmith by Way of Pretoria." ----- Alternatively, if you don't want a grand, sprawling epic with a cast of hundreds, please consider "Storm of Steel", by Ernst Junger, the Best First-Person Account of the First World War -- a good english translation has only been available quite recently, 2000 or 2004 if I recall correctly.
on “The book that inspired the birth of reddit” ↗…life. I watched a little bit of the Olympics (my wife made me) and while the ladies figure skating was ok, the rest, and especially the commercials, made me feel dumb. I had to go read a good book (Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger) to boost my mental processes back to normal. Stupid TV.
on “Netflix disables use of the Chrome developer console” ↗…take this opportunity to add a couple of absolute gems, which I love, and which I have read and re-read so many times that I've gone through 3 copies each? They are: 1. Dreadnought (by RKM) 2. Storm of Steel (by Earnst Junger) 3. (bonus) Josiah The Great: The True Story of The Man Who Would Be King For my money, Dreadnought is the Best Overall History Book, and Storm of Steel is the best First-Person…
on “The IPO is dying – Marc Andreessen explains why” ↗…I'm interested in: one comprehensive history of the major events and people of the period, and one personal story. (For instance, the late 1800s/early 1900s incl WW1, I have "Dreadnought" by RKM and "Storm of Steel" by Junger). For the time before and during the first Afghan War, I can highly recommend: 1) Maybe the best-researched, most vivid, and most comprehensive overall telling of the before, during and after…
on “Kilt for Hire” ↗Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger is a WW1 classic that unabashedly explores the primal excitement of war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_J%C3%BCnger
on “Why Men Love War (1984)” ↗…Miserables by Victor Hugo - We by Yevgeny Zamyatin - The Book Of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi - The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric - Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric - Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun - Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger - All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque - The Divine Comedy by Dante --- This list totals out at 311.14EUR and has 23 books. [0] - https://www.bookdepository.com/ [1] - https://www.betterworldbooks.com/
on “Ask HN: You've got $300 to fill an empty library. What do you choose?” ↗“Storm of Steel” by Ernst Jünger, for one view from the German side. It has been variously perceived as pro- and anti-war.
on “Why the US Navy Won't Blast the Iranians and 'Open' Strait of Hormuz” ↗Why does that seem unlikely? I just read Storm of Steel -- which is, by the way, The Best First-hand Account of World War One -- and it does seem like you can't go two pages without running into a dead horse. And from a numbers standpoint, if 6 million died…
on “Unfit for work” ↗I'd strongly recommend his war memoir "Storm of Steel", essentially the war viewed through the eyes of an Imperial German officer. It provides a stark contrast to "All Quiet on the Western Front" - a more well-known novel on WW1 from a German perspective.
on “Ernst Jünger’s Narratives of Complicity” ↗I highly recommend both "Storm of Steel" (best first-person view of the war) and "Dreadnought" (best telling of the majestic story of the runup to the war).
on “The Strange and Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit” ↗…it's gonna go a lot more smoothly if I read the cookbook. Another thing he misses; if a book makes you feel something, it's going to stick with you a lot more clearly than some recitation of dry facts. Storm of Steel sticks with me better than the official British History of the Great War. Similarly, "Darwinian Fairytales," which is absolutely hilarious in addition to being perfectly correct, sticks with me a lot…
on “Why books don't work (2019)” ↗…Review of Books this week? I feel like I'm missing some context like, "In this installment of Legends Reviewing Legends, Matterhorn author and NC recipient Karl Marlantes reviews the timeless classic 'Storm of Steel' by Ernst Junger". By the way if you liked Storm of Steel check out Black Edelweiss or for that matter Blood and Steel. One of the things that truly throws my head for a loop is the extent to which the…
on “The Born Soldier” ↗I added Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel and Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West -- not because I like them but rather because I was curious what would come up as result --, it showed me mostly religious books as suggestion (He Chose the…
on “Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber” ↗