50 pages • 1 hour read
Ernst JungerStorm of Steel
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1920A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapters 19-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 19-20 Summary: “My Last Assault” and “We Fight Our Way Through”
Following a brief period of training and rest in the rear, Jünger is sent back to an area near the village of Cambrai. He visits the Plancot family, who Jünger stayed with a year earlier. The village is in a dire state, with closed down shops and abandoned streets. Of the Plancots, Jünger writes: “I felt sorry for these old people with their worried expressions,” adding that the Plancots had “entertained [him] kindly” (276).
Soon enough comes the order to fight. Jünger speaks to his men, who all know the end is near: “Everyone knew we could no longer win. But we would stand firm” (277). Near the village of Favreuil, artillery fire begins, and, as his unit attempts to take the village, Jünger is hit. He goes down with a bullet through his chest.
When he wakes, his men are trying to save him, calling for medics and stretcher-bearers. But the British have surrounded them, and his men are continually falling under rifle fire: “A ring of British and Germans surrounded us and called on us to drop our weapons. It was pandemonium, as on a sinking ship. I called upon the men near me to fight. They shot at friend and foe” (285).
In an attempt to break through, Jünger’s men carry him forward, but several are shot, and he is dropped on the battlefield until they can regroup and get him. In a last desperate break through, Jünger’s men carry him to a dressing station, where his wound is treated, and he is driven to the hospital the next day. After recovering for a time in France, he is shipped by train to Germany, where he receives, from the Kaiser himself, the Pour le Mérite, or Order of Merit, one of the highest awards a man can receive.
Chapters 19-20 Analysis
The last two chapters of the book are similar, in one way, to the beginning chapter. As there is no exposition explaining how Jünger joined the army, why he became a soldier, or any of his motivations, political or otherwise, there is no ending to the book, either. There is a tiny bit of foreshadowing, such as when Jünger mentions that his men know they cannot win, that the enemy has more numbers and greater firepower, and when Jünger briefly mentions the more numerous airplanes and more agile tanks the enemy has, but the book ends with Jünger in the hospital, having received the “Pour le Mérite” from the Kaiser. There is no mention of how the war ends, what happens afterward, or whether he even fully recovers.
This shows that the core of the narrative is about a soldier’s life in wartime: the battles, the rest and recovery, the poor food and conditions. Jünger is trying to describe what it was like to live through the war. He eschews arguments of politics, he does not try to defend his actions, and he avoids any mention of right or wrong. His book is limited to the actions taken by the men in the field, by their bravery or cowardice, by their actions in and around battles. Like he does in the journal that he keeps, Jünger relates when and where battles occurred, where he was shipped for rest and recovery, men who died during battle, and firsthand accounts of the battles themselves: the fire and fear, the bullets and bombs, the death and destruction. The lack of commentary on politics and any attempt at persuasion shows that, for Jünger, actions speak louder than words, and he wants his readers to see his actions, unadulterated, so that they might understand what occurred.
