All Quiet on the Western Front

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All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque was born on June 22, 1898, in Germany. In 1916 , when he was 18, Remarque was drafted into the German army to fight in WWI. He was wounded several times and in 1929 he published All Quiet on the Western Front. Remarque stripped all romanticism from the war experience in this anti-war novel. His novel instantly became an international success to almost everyone. Everyone except the Nazi party. After the publication of All Quiet on the Western Front, the Nazis accused Remarque of being unpatriotic. Remarque did not retaliate to the Nazi’s attacks because of fear of the rising Nazi control in Germany. Despite the Nazi hostility towards him, Remarque published a sequel to his first novel, titled The Road Back. This novel told of the post-war experience of German citizens. In 1933, the Nazis banned many books including Remarque's two novels and held a bonfire to burn copies of the books. Two years later Remarque had his German citizenship taken away. In exile, Remarque traveled to the United States were he eventually obtained citizenship. Even though he seemed to have escaped the wrath of Nazi hate in WWII his sister was beheaded by the Nazis because of their hatred toward him.

The novel All Quiet on the Western Front is a moving novel about a group of soldiers,particularly one named Paul Baumer, in World War I. Paul is the narrator who gives thebitter view against the romantic ideals of war. Paul describes the horrors he sees allaround him. The reader sees how people he was close to get killed. The first painful andgraphic death of Joseph Behm kills all the initial thought of romanticized war and makesthe soldiers despise and mistrust there elders that had so confidently sold them on theidea of war. With this first loss everyone realized that the war would change life forever.You observe Paul, who basically represents any common solider, start to realize things he used to cherish now and from this point forward mean nothing to him. War becomes theonly life they know. To add to the inner conflict most of these soldiers seemed trapped in a period between childhood and manhood. The only thing that kept Paul going throughout the war was the comradeship of the other soldiers. Very soon soldiers start to die. Paul’s friend Leer dies from a thigh wound and even at the end of the war Katczinsky, the forty year old who Paul bonds with dies in Paul’s arms after being carried to safety.

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