Storm of Steel

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1920

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Chapter 13Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 13 Summary: “Regniéville”

Near Regniéville, Jünger finds himself in the trenches again, where he contends with lice and poor food. When on reserve, Jünger enjoys himself in a blockhouse hidden deep in the woods, where he comes up “with just the right peaceful sort of drink: a fifty-fifty mixture of red wine and advocaat in a big-bellied glass” (182).

Soon Jünger strikes up a friendship with an older NCO (non-commissioned officer) named Kloppmann, and they go out at night in an attempt to take French prisoners, until they are fired upon and must turn back. A few days later Jünger is put in charge of a patrol designed to take French prisoners. For 10 days, Jünger’s hand-picked men practice throwing hand-grenades and rehearsing the raid, but when they finally reach the French trenches, they become confused. The first trenches are empty. Hand-grenades explode to their left, where one part of the patrol has gone, but Jünger pushes deeper into the trenches, becoming more confused: “After running down a series of cross and parallel trenches, no one knew where we were, or where the German lines were” (187). To salvage the mission, Jünger attempts to take a French machine gun, but is forced to retreat. As dawn breaks, Jünger and his men race across the open fields, with French fire following them. His raid is a disaster: “Of the fourteen who had set out, only four returned” (189). But Jünger explains the raid in the best light to his colonel, von Oppen, and he and his men are given Iron Crosses and two weeks furlough. The next day, Jünger buries the fallen men at a cemetery at Thiaucourt, where men are also buried from 1870, when Germany invaded France.

Chapter 13 Analysis

Jünger’s raid, like the firefight in “Against Indian Opposition,” shows the chaotic confusion of battle. Although Jünger and his men spend 10 days rehearsing the raid, they become confused in a matter of minutes: “It was only thinking about it later that I understood our subsequent course. Without realizing it, we had turned into a third communication trench” (187). As Jünger and his men continue looking for prisoners—the French seemed to have vacated the trenches shortly before—they become more confused: “Gradually we were getting flustered. The needles of our luminous compasses danced in our unsteady hands, and as we scanned the heavens for the Pole Star, all our school lore suddenly left us” (187). Two things become clear in this quote. The first is that the men are scared. Their hands are shaking. The second is that this fear causes them to forget something as simple, to a soldier, as finding his way by the North Star (Pole Star). Even veterans, men who have experienced battle numerous times, in the dark and cold, with the threat of death right before them, can become confused, which is why Jünger’s commanders are understanding at the failure of the raid.