// War Literature

Storm of steel deals with the horrifying accounts of WWI as told by a German soldier; through the stories/journal entries, which he shares we truly receive a glimpse at the horrors of war. While fighting in the war and staying in trenches, these soldiers received constant reminders of the frailty of life and were surrounded by death at every turn. “Another sat with the upper part of the body clapped down over the legs as though broken in the middle…the French must have carried on for months without burying their fallen comrades…white cartilage shone out from the red and blackened flesh.” These vivid descriptions serve as a reminder of the horrors they faced daily, of decomposing, dismembered bodies and the smells, which plagued the air. These are the conditions, which these men had to endure through every day. The writer even goes on to note that “this first glimpse of horrors…is a moment so important in the experience of war.” This is what he said the men desired, their upbringing consisted of just peace and they longed for destruction, which up until that point had only been satisfied through literature; but now they lived destruction. These glimpses are what lingered with the soldiers, not just the people they killed but also the images of the dead rotting bodies of men other soldiers killed; the images imprinted within their memories and the poor conditions they were forced to live in.

We also note how the writer has become desensitized by all which he has seen; “we all looked at these dead with dislocated limbs…as though we walked in a dream through a garden full of strange plants, and we could not realize at first what we had all around us.” The dead no longer invoked the same feelings within him as they would in a civilian. He had realized how accustomed he had become to them, that he no longer saw them for what they truly were, but rather just another piece of nature, like a “stone or a tree…” There are also, shockingly enough, many moments where the narrator is seen relaxing sipping his coffee or having a smoke, even though around him lay many dead and wounded. It makes me wonder how these men found possible to even try to relax when later on he explains, “shell followed shell…and still shell upon shell…We spent Christmas Eve in the line. The men stood in the mud and sang Christmas carols that were drowned by the enemy machine-guns” Those are not moments where a civilian can relax or bring themselves to sing holiday songs, even if the shells and gunfire were to stop; which shows how accustomed these soldiers had become to their surroundings and situations.

It also struck me how the writer goes on to later say, “They sobbed with rage. It is remarkable how little they grasp the war as an objective thing. They seem to regard the Englishmen who fired the fatal shot as a personal enemy. I can understand it…It has always been my ideal in war to eliminate all feelings of hatred and to treat my enemy as an enemy only in battle…” The man goes into war with set values that he hopes to upkeep and planned to not hold any hard feelings towards anyone on the enemy lines. He seemed to view it as they are doing their job by shooting at me, as I am doing mine by shooting at them. I do not really know whether to find this side of him honorable or just plain shocking? Shocking at the thought that someone could even separate those feelings in a time of war, I know if someone shot at me, I would definitely take it personal.

-Lizbeth