The war was everything. After an inspiring patriotic speech by Kantorek, their teacher, Paul and his classmates joined the German army to help fight in the war that would later be named World War One. Like most eighteen-year-old, they thought it was their duty to join the war, yet now at nineteen years old, Paul and his classmates are not so sure. Fighting at the French front, they experience small rations of food, daily bombing, and watching their fellow comrades die. Twenty were in their class that enlisted, and from that twenty, seven are dead, four wounded, one in the mad house, but three became lieutenant. All because of Kantorek’s love for their nation. With mottos like this running through their ranks: “We Germans fear God and none else …show more content…
Going from the point of view of a soldier on the front lines during world war one, Erich Maria Remarque, puts his own war experiences in writing. As a soldier himself, Remarque fought for the German side and was wounded five times during his time on the front. What makes this story unique and powerful, for people on the west, is that this book took place from a German point of view, thus, the enemy of the Triple Entente. This books, when it was first published in 1929, both in English and German, made the western world population realize that the Germans were not the enemies, and that the felt similar loses to that of their soldiers. Remarque really put a lot of emotion into this story of Paul, a child in some way, who had to learn about the horror of war first hand. For a read, this book is not always the best. Dry at some parts, Remarque does a great job into explaining the scene, but there are a lot of characters given by name, who never come up after that particular scene. Ramarque does an amazing job at one liner quotes to really drive home his opinions on the war, like this one: “The war has ruined us for everything” (87). Overall, a must for those into war novels and history, but highly recommend for everyone to really understand the horrors of a war, and why we should avoid them at all