Storm of Steel

Interesting to pair this film with reading Ernst Junger's "Storm of Steel" (German soldier perspective).

A runner from a Württemberg regiment reported to me to guide my platoon to the famous town of Combles, where we were to be held in reserve for the time being. He was the first German soldier I saw in a steel helmet, and he straightaway struck me as a denizen of a new and far harsher world. Sitting next to him in a roadside ditch, I questioned him avidly about the state of the position, and got from him a grey tale of days hunkered in craters, with no outside contact or communications lines, of incessant attacks, fields of corpses and crazy thirst, of the wounded left to die, and more of the same. The impassive features under the rim of the steel helmet and the monotonous voice accompanied by the noise of the battle made a ghostly impression on us. A few days had put their stamp on the runner, who was to escort us into the realm of flame, setting him inexpressibly apart from us.

“If a man falls, he is left to die. No one can help. No one knows if he’ll return alive. Every day we’re attacked, but they won’t get through. Everyone knows this is about life and death.”

Nothing was left in his voice but equanimity, apathy; fire had burned everything else out of it. It’s men like that you need for fighting.