Germany
Ernst Jünger
1895–1998 Lieutenant and stormtroop leader, 73rd Hanoverian Fusilier Regiment, 1914–1918
Born in Heidelberg in 1895, Ernst Jünger was a restless schoolboy who ran away to the French Foreign Legion in 1913 and was released through his father's efforts. On 1 August 1914 he volunteered and joined the 73rd Hanoverian Fusilier Regiment, reaching the Western Front in December. He rose to lieutenant and company commander, led patrols and stormtroops, and was hit 14 times in seven woundings, the last in August 1918. He won the Pour le Mérite as one of only 11 infantry company commanders to do so. His diaries became the memoir Storm of Steel (1920), praised for its unsparing precision and condemned by critics for heroizing war. Jünger died on 17 February 1998, aged 102, the last living holder of the military class of the Pour le Mérite.