Eight and a half million people dead and another 20 million injured, it was a disaster unparalleled in human history. There was nothing great about this "Great War" except for the death and destruction. Erich Maria Remarque's novel, All Quiet on the Western Front describes the pointlessness and brutality of this war from a German foot soldier's perspective. When the book was first published in January 1929 in Germany it sold one million copies in its first year. The next year it was turned into an Oscar-winning Hollywood movie. The title of the book itself, All Quiet on the Western Front, has become a popular phrase in today's terminology, meaning lack of action. Hitler banned this book in the beginning of World War II and it was also banned in numerous countries such as Austria, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and New Zealand. The movie's premiere in Germany was disrupted by Nazi soldiers carrying mice and stink bombs; they called it a "Jewish hate film" and a "lie slandering German soldiers." The movie was not seen again in Germany until 1952.
[...] So it is perhaps fortunate for Paul that he was killed on the quietest of days when the headline read Quiet on the Western Front” then be forced to live, the only one out of his group of friends. The peacetime would have ruined him. The obvious theme that runs throughout this book is the nonsense of war. The others include war's effect on soldiers, invention of new machinery such as the machine gun, poison gas, guns, and tanks which helped make war even more impersonal; the invention of this technology, in Remarque's eyes, only helped the death and destruction that was happening to Paul, his friends, and all other soldiers who were fighting in the war. [...]
[...] All Quiet on the Western Front Some say that no war was as violent and pointless as the First World War. With eight and a half million people dead and another 20 million injured, it was a disaster unparalleled in human history. There was nothing great about this “Great except for the death and destruction. Erich Maria Remarque's novel, All Quiet on the Western Front describes the pointlessness and brutality of this war from a German foot soldier's perspective. When the book was first published in January 1929 in Germany it sold one million copies in its first year. [...]
[...] Remarque's novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, tells the story of Paul and his friends and their experiences on the battlefield on the Western front during World War I. It is not an adventure, for death is not an adventure, but a realization that they are fighting for nothing and no one and essentially killing themselves every time they kill an soldier. Paul comes to realize that they are all the same and that war is nonsense. Peacetime isn't even an option for the soldiers. [...]
[...] However, as the story goes on we see that Paul and the other characters have learned to adapt to their situation, even though they would never accept it. In one of the chapters Paul tells the story of his friend Kemmerich's boots. Kemmerich has had his leg amputated due to gangrene in the trenches and logically, their other friend Muller would like to ask for Kemmerich's boots, seeing as he will not need them again. This shows the dehumanization of life. [...]
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