The study is aimed at describing and interpreting smell as a sign of “one’s own” and “the other” in the context of war. The material for analysis consists of text fragments in Russian and German that contain references to olfactory processes; the factual material was extracted from works of fiction devoted to the events of the two world wars. The research vector was built taking into account that the semantic and symbolic connotations of smells are closely connected with the sociocultural context, and olfactory experience is subjective. It is proved that the smell in the discourse of war performs two key functions – an evaluative and a boundary function; the olfactory image of "one's own" and "someone else's" is formed under the influence of extralinguistic factors; the smell acts as an instrument of differentiation, less often as an instrument of unification and is endowed with additional cognitive-semiotic meanings. Three olfactory models are identified and analyzed: “one’s own smells — others’ smells,” “smells of foreign land,” and “smell as stigma.” It is concluded that in wartime conditions, the olfactory images of “one’s own” and “the other” are created through social, ethnocultural, and ideological comparisons; as a result, olfactory impressions reflect mental impressions.