By the end of 1914 the war entered a stalemate. Both sides became mired in two main, stationary fronts—the western front, primarily in northeastern France, and the eastern front, mainly in western Russia. At the fronts, the troops fought each other from numerous parallel lines of interconnected trenches. Each side laid siege to the other's system of trenches and endeavored to break through their lines. The frustration between the world powers is reflected in Junger's personal account of the war. The Storm of Steel provides a prolific account of a soldier's life. This account gives the feeling of detachment. Something needed to survive the war experience. "It has always been my ideal in war to eliminate all feelings…" Throughout the novel Junger describes the scenery. His emotions and psychological state can be determined through the method of description. Feelings and emotions are left out. One time in the novel he discusses a sensation that stayed with him throughout the war. "It was a weird sensation to look into those dead and questioning eyes. It gave me a shudder that all through the war I never quite lost." The dead and questioning eyes seem to mirror the overall feeling of those young men participating in the war. All seemed to question what they were seeing. The horrors and atrocities appeared to be superhuman. The questions led to the feeling of being dead.

Ernst never glorified war. He treated it with an inhuman fashion. At times I felt detached from the book and the experience. Then I realized that the detachment I was feeling was the detachment the soldiers were feeling. Junger stated that he "made up his mind to omit all comments from this book…" This shows that he made up his mind to omit all emotion from the war. One would...