Storm of Steel

“Daily Life in the Trenches” is made up of excerpts from Jünger’s diary. He tells the reader he has come to feel at home in the trenches, taking tea in the evening in his dugout, sitting by the woodstove “with a feeling of cosy seclusion” (52). He has learned to tune out the bombs and the tread of boots outside, and he has come to know every nook and cranny of his section. What follows, he says, is a “conscientious analysis” (52) of his days in the trenches, stretching from October to April.

Most of his diary entries have to do with either the morbid or the mundane:“7 October 1915. Standing at dawn on the fire-step opposite our dugout next to the sentry when a bullet ripped through his forage cap without harming a hair on his head” (52). He continues to describe grisly experiences with an emotional detachment: “24 November. A machine-gunner was gravely wounded in the head in our sector. Half an hour later, another man in our company had his cheek laid open by infantry fire” (55).

He writes of the muddy conditions of the trenches, how with the rain they turn into a quagmire. Other entries tell of events like hunting rats or pheasants, as well as how dangerous it is to even use the latrine.