An unnamed narrator recalls how he met the mysterious Jacques Austerlitz in Belgium, where they talk about architecture in particular the hubristic grandiosity of public buildings, and the extravagant but useless defensive fortifications once beloved of European rulers.
As the reader is reminded, Austerlitz was Fred Astaire's real name as well as a famous Napoleonic battle, and the experiences of Austerlitz the man merge with other traumas in European history, and with the thoughts of Mr Sebald's hypersensitive narrator.