"On the Western front Without Change" is the fourth novel by Erich Maria Remarque. This work brought the writer fame, money, world calling and at the same time deprived him of his homeland and put him in mortal danger.
Remarque completed the novel in 1928 and at first unsuccessfully tried to publish the work. Most of the leading German publishers felt that a World War I novel would not be popular with the modern reader. Finally, the work ventured to publish Haus Ullstein. The success caused by the novel anticipated the wildest expectations. In 1929 All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 500,000 copies and translated into 26 languages. It became the best-selling book in Germany.
The following year, the military bestseller was made into a film of the same name. The picture, released in the United States, was directed by Lewis Milestone. She has won two Oscars for best movie and directing. Later, in 1979, a TV version of the novel was released by director Delbert Mann. In December 2015, the next release of the film based on Remarque's cult novel is expected. The creator of the picture was Roger Donaldson, the role of Paul Bäumer was played by Daniel Radcliffe.
Outcast at home
Despite worldwide recognition, the novel was negatively received by Nazi Germany. The unsightly image of the war drawn by Remarque ran counter to what the Nazis represented in their official version. The writer was immediately called a traitor, a liar, a falsifier.
The Nazis even tried to find Jewish roots in the Remarque family. The most replicated "evidence" was the pseudonym of the writer. Erich Maria signed his debut works with the surname Kramer (Remarque vice versa). The authorities spread a rumor that this obviously Jewish surname is real.
Three years later, the volume All Quiet on the Western Front, along with other uncomfortable works, was betrayed by the so-called “satanic fire” of the Nazis, and the writer lost his German citizenship and left Germany forever. Physical reprisal against the universal favorite, fortunately, did not take place, but the Nazis took revenge on his sister Elfrida. During World War II, she was guillotined for being related to an enemy of the people.
Remarque did not know how to dissemble and could not remain silent. All the realities described in the novel correspond to the reality that the young soldier Erich Maria had to face during the First World War. Unlike the protagonist, Remarque was lucky to survive and bring his artistic memoirs to the reader. Let's remember the plot of the novel, which brought its creator the most honors and sorrows at the same time.
The height of the First World War. Germany is actively fighting with France, England, the USA and Russia. Western front. Young soldiers, yesterday's students are far from the feuds of the great powers, they are not led by political ambitions the mighty of the world of this, day after day they are just trying to survive.
Nineteen-year-old Paul Bäumer and his schoolmates, inspired by patriotic speeches class teacher Kantorek, signed up as a volunteer. The war was seen by young men in a romantic halo. Today, they are already well aware of her true face - hungry, bloody, dishonorable, deceitful and vicious. However, there is no turning back.
Paul leads his ingenuous military memoirs. His memoirs will not fall into the official chronicles, because they reflect the ugly truth. great war.
Side by side with Paul are fighting his comrades - Müller, Albert Kropp, Leer, Kemmerich, Josef Böhm.
Muller does not lose hope of getting an education. Even at the forefront, he does not part with physics textbooks and crams laws to the whistle of bullets and the roar of exploding shells.
Shorty Albert Kropp Paul calls "the brightest head." This smart fellow will always find a way out of a difficult situation and never lose his composure.
Leer is a real fashionista. He does not lose his luster even in a soldier's trench, wears a full beard to impress the fair sex - who can already be found on the front line.
Franz Kemmerich is not with his comrades now. Recently, he was seriously wounded in the leg and is now fighting for his life in a military infirmary.
And Josef Bem is no longer among the living. He was the only one who initially did not believe in the pretentious speeches of the teacher Kantorek. In order not to be a black sheep, Beem goes to the front along with his comrades and (here's the irony of fate!) Is among the first to die even before the start of the official draft.
In addition to school friends, Paul talks about comrades he met on the battlefield. This is Tjaden - the most voracious soldier in the company. It is especially difficult for him, because it is difficult with provisions at the front. Although Tjaden is very thin, he can eat for five. After Tjaden gets up after a hearty meal, he resembles a drunken bug.
Haye Westhus is a real giant. He can squeeze a loaf of bread in his hand and ask “what is in my fist?” Haye is far from being the smartest, but he is unsophisticated and very strong.
Detering spends his days reminiscing about home and family. He hates war with all his heart and dreams that this torture will end as soon as possible.
Stanislav Katchinsky, aka Kat, is a senior mentor for recruits. He is forty years old. Paul calls him a real "clever and cunning". The young men learn from Kata the soldier's self-control and the skill of fighting not with the help of blind force, but with the help of intelligence and ingenuity.
Company commander Bertinck is a role model. Soldiers idolize their leader. He is a model of true soldier's prowess and fearlessness. During the fight Bertinck never sits undercover and always risks his life side by side with his subordinates.
The day of our acquaintance with Paul and his company comrades was, to some extent, happy for the soldiers. On the eve of the company suffered heavy losses, its strength was reduced by almost half. However, in the old fashioned manner, provisions were issued for one hundred and fifty people. Paul and his friends are triumphant - now they will get a double portion of lunch, and most importantly - tobacco.
A cook named Tomato resists giving out more than the prescribed amount. An argument ensues between the hungry soldiers and the head of the kitchen. They have long disliked the cowardly Tomato, who, with the most trifling fire, does not risk rolling his kitchen to the front line. So the warriors sit hungry for a long time. Dinner arrives cold and very late.
The dispute is resolved with the appearance of Commander Bertinka. He says that there is nothing good to waste, and orders to give out a double portion to his wards.
Having had their fill, the soldiers go to the meadow, where the latrines are located. Comfortably seated in open booths (during service, these are the most comfortable places for leisure), friends begin to play cards and indulge in memories of the past, forgotten somewhere on the ruins of peacetime, life.
There was a place in these memoirs for the teacher Kantorek, who agitated young pupils to sign up as volunteers. He was a "stern little man in a gray frock coat" with a sharp, mouse-like face. He began each lesson with a fiery speech, an appeal, an appeal to conscience and patriotic feelings. I must say that the speaker from Kantorek was excellent - in the end, the whole class went to military administration right from the school desks.
“These educators,” Bäumer concludes bitterly, “always have high feelings. They carry them at the ready in their vest pocket and give them out as needed by the lesson. But we didn’t think about it then.”
The friends go to a field hospital where their comrade Franz Kemmerich is staying. His condition is much worse than Paul and his friends could imagine. Both of Franz's legs were amputated, but his health is rapidly deteriorating. Kemmerich is worried about the new English boots, which he will no longer need, and the commemorative watch that was stolen from the wounded man. Franz dies in the arms of his comrades. Taking new English boots, saddened, they return to the barracks.
During their absence, newcomers appeared in the company - after all, the dead must be replaced by the living. The newcomers talk about the misfortunes they experienced, the famine and the rutabaga “diet” that the leadership arranged for them. Kat feeds the newbies the beans they won back from Tomato.
When everyone goes to dig trenches, Paul Bäumer talks about the behavior of a soldier on the front line, his instinctive connection with mother earth. How do you want to hide in her warm arms from annoying bullets, dig deeper from fragments of flying shells, wait out a terrible enemy attack in her!
And fight again. The dead are counted in the company, and Paul and his friends keep their own register - seven classmates are killed, four are in the infirmary, one is in a lunatic asylum.
After a short respite, the soldiers begin preparations for the offensive. They are drilled by the squad leader Himmelshtos, a tyrant everyone hates.
The theme of wandering and persecution in the novel by Erich Maria Remarque “Night in Lisbon” is very close to the author himself, who had to leave his homeland because of his rejection of fascism.
You can read another novel by Remarque "The Black Obelisk", the difference of which is a very deep and intricate plot that sheds light on the events in Germany after the First World War.
And again, the calculations of the dead after the offensive - out of 150 people in the company, only 32 remained. The soldiers are close to insanity. Each of them is tormented by nightmares. Nerves give up. It is hard to believe in the prospect of reaching the end of the war, I want only one thing - to die without torment.
Paul is given a short vacation. He visits his native places, his family, meets with neighbors, acquaintances. Civilians now seem to him strangers, narrow-minded. They talk about the justice of the war in pubs, develop whole strategies on how to beat the Frenchman more cleverly and have no idea what is happening there on the battlefield.
Returning to the company, Paul repeatedly gets to the front line, each time he manages to avoid death. The comrades die one by one: the wise man Muller was killed by a lighting rocket, Leer, the strong man Westhus and commander Bertinck did not live to see the victory. Boymer carries the wounded Katchinsky from the battlefield on his own shoulders, but cruel fate is adamant - on the way to the hospital, a stray bullet hits Katya in the head. He dies in the hands of military paramedics.
The trench memoirs of Paul Bäumer break off in 1918, on the day of his death. Tens of thousands of dead, rivers of grief, tears and blood, but the official chronicles dryly broadcast - "All Quiet on the Western Front."
The story is told on behalf of Paul Bäumer, a German youth who, with six of his classmates, volunteered for the war. This happened under the influence of the patriotic speeches of their teacher Kantorek. But already in educational part, young people realized that reality is different from school sermons. Meager food, drill from morning to evening, and especially the bullying of Corporal Himmelstos, dispelled the last romantic ideas about the war.
The story begins with the fact that Paul and his comrades were incredibly lucky. They were taken to rest in the rear and given double rations of food, cigarettes and dry rations. This "luck" was due to a simple fact. The company stood in a quiet area, but in the last two days the enemy decided to make a strong artillery preparation, and out of 150 people in the company, 80 remained. And food was received for everyone, and the cook cooked for the whole company. Soldiers at the front learned to appreciate and use such small momentary joys to the fullest.
Paul and his comrade Müller visit their colleague Kimmerich in the hospital. They understand that a wounded soldier will not last long, and Kimmerich's boots become Muller's main concern. When he dies a few days later, Paul takes the shoes and gives them to Müller. This moment characterizes the relationship of soldiers in the war. There is nothing to help the dead, but the living need comfortable shoes. Soldiers at the front live simple lives and simple thoughts. If you think deeply, you can easily die or even easier to go crazy. This idea is one of the main ones in the novel.
What follows is a description of the battles and the behavior of soldiers on the front line during many days of artillery shelling. People can hardly keep their minds in line, one young soldier goes crazy. But as soon as the shelling stops and the enemy goes on the attack, the soldiers begin to act. But they act like automata, without thinking or thinking. They shoot back, throw grenades, retreat, go on a counterattack. And only having invaded other people's trenches, the German soldiers show ingenuity. Looking for and collecting food. Because in 1918 Germany is already experiencing hunger. And even the soldiers on the front line are malnourished.
This is manifested in the fact that having received a vacation and having arrived home, Paul Bäumer feeds his sick mother, father and sister with a soldier's ration.
On vacation, he goes to visit his friend Mittelstedt, and discovers that their teacher Kantorek has joined the militia, and is being trained under him. Mittelstedt does not miss the opportunity to amuse himself and his friend with the drill of the hated teacher. But this is the only joy of the holiday.
With unhappy thoughts, Paul returns to the front. Here he learns that there are even fewer of his comrades left, mostly youngsters who have not been fired on in the trenches. At the end of the book, Bäumer is trying to get his best friend Katchinsky, who is wounded in the leg, out of the shelling. But he reported the dead man, a fragment hit him in the head. Paul Bäumer himself was killed in mid-October 1918. And on November 11, a truce was declared on the Western Front and world slaughter ended.
Remarque's book shows all the senselessness and ruthlessness of war, teaches us to understand that wars are fought for the interests of those who profit from them.
Picture or drawing All Quiet on the Western Front
Other retellings and reviews for the reader's diary
- Summary Artists Garshin
At the beginning of the work, the narrator is an optimistic engineer named Dedov, who says goodbye to his profession. The reason for this event was the death of his aunt, who left some of the property as an inheritance.
1941 The beginning of the Great Patriotic War. scary time For Russia. Panic seizes the inhabitants of the country, the army is not ready for a sudden attack of the fascist invaders. Through the eyes of Ivan Petrovich Sintsov
The height of the First World War. Germany is already at war against France, Russia, England and America, Paul Bäumer, on behalf of whom the story is being told, introduces his brother-soldiers. Schoolchildren, peasants, fishermen, artisans of different ages gathered here.
The company has lost almost half of its composition and is resting nine kilometers from the front line after meeting with English guns - "meat grinders".
Due to losses during the shelling, they get double portions of food and smoke. The soldiers sleep off, eat their fill, smoke and play cards. Müller, Kropp and Paul go to their wounded classmate. The four of them ended up in one company, persuaded by the "heartfelt voice" of the class teacher Kantorek. Josef Bem did not want to go to war, but, fearing "to cut off all paths for himself", he also signed up as a volunteer.
He was one of the first to be killed. From the wounds he received in the eyes, he could not find shelter, lost his bearings and was shot. And in a letter to Kropp, their former mentor Kantorek conveys his regards, calling them "iron guys". This is how thousands of Kantoreks fool the youth.
Another classmate, Kimmerich, is found in a field hospital with an amputated leg. Franz Kimmerich's mother asked Paul to look after him, "because he is just a child." But how to do it on the front line? One look at Franz is enough to understand that he is hopeless. While Franz was unconscious, his watch was stolen, his favorite watch he had received as a gift. True, there were excellent English boots made of leather to the knees, which he no longer needed. He dies in front of his comrades. Depressed, they return to the barracks with Franz's boots. On the way, Kropp has a tantrum.
In the barracks replenishment of recruits. The dead are replaced by the living. One of the recruits says that they were fed one swede. The getter Katchinsky (aka Kat) feeds the boy with beans and meat. Kropp offers his own version of the war: let the generals fight themselves, and the victor will declare his country the winner. And so others are fighting for them, who did not start the war and who do not need it at all.
A company with replenishment is sent to sapper work on the front line. An experienced Kat teaches recruits how to recognize shots and explosions and bury them. Listening to the "vague rumble of the front", he assumes that at night "they will be given a light."
Paul reflects on the behavior of the soldiers on the front line, how they are all instinctively connected to the ground, which you want to press yourself into when the shells whistle. She appears to the soldier as “a silent, reliable intercessor, with a groan and a cry, he confides his fear and his pain to her, and she accepts them ... in those moments when he clings to her, squeezing her long and tightly in his arms, when under fire the fear of death makes him burrow deep into her face and all his body, she is his only Friend, brother, his mother.
As Kath foresaw, the shelling highest density. Claps of chemical shells. Gongs and metal rattles proclaim: "Gas, Gas!" All hope for the tightness of the mask. "Soft jellyfish" fills all the funnels. We have to get up, but there is shelling.
Soldiers have dinner nine kilometers from the front line. They are given double portions of food and tobacco, since after the last attack, eighty people returned from the battlefield instead of one hundred and fifty. For the first time, the queue in front of the "squeaker" lined up at lunchtime, after a night's rest. In it were the main character - nineteen-year-old Paul Baumer with classmates: corporal Albert Kropp, who dreams of passing exams in physics - Muller the Fifth and a lover of girls from brothels for officers - Leer. Behind them were friends - the frail locksmith Tjaden, the peat worker Haye Westhus, the married peasant Detering, the forty-year-old cunning Stanislav Katchinsky. The cook, whom the soldiers nicknamed Tomato for his burgundy bald head, at first refused to give them a double portion, but was forced to surrender under the influence of the company commander.
After dinner, the soldiers receive letters and newspapers. They read them in a restroom set in a picturesque meadow. There they play cards and chat. The friends receive a written hello from their former class teacher Kantorek. Paul recalls how they signed up as volunteers under his influence. The only student who did not want to go to war, Josef Bem, was killed first. Young man wounded in the face, he lost consciousness and was presumed dead. When Joseph came to his senses on the battlefield, no one could help him.
Soldiers visit Kemmerich in the field hospital. Doctors amputated his leg. The patient worries about the stolen watch and does not suspect that he will soon die. Müller decides to wait for his death in order to take Kemmerich's high English boots.
Paul reflects on how hard it is for them, young people, in the war. Unlike older people, they have no life attachments - they have no profession, no wives, no children. Main character he recalls spending ten weeks studying the art of war: the commander of the ninth squad, non-commissioned officer Himmelstos, forced the soldiers to carry out unthinkable commands until their patience ran out and they poured full buckets from the lavatory on him. Constant drill made the young men ruthless and callous, but these qualities were useful to them in the trenches. The only good thing that the soldiers took out of the war was a sense of camaraderie.
Kemmerich realizes that he is dying. Paul tries to cheer up his friend. Kemmerich asks to give his shoes to Müller. He dies an hour later.
Replenishment from old-timers and very young people arrives in the company. Katchinsky shares beans with one of the new arrivals and hints that in the future he will only give them for cigars or tobacco. Friends recall the barracks time of study, follow the air battle, reflect on why the war made Himmelshtos out of a simple postman - a flayer. Tjaden brings the news that the non-commissioned officer in question is arriving at the front. Friends lie in wait for Himmelshtos coming from the tavern, throw a bed over him and beat him. The next morning, the heroes leave for the front.
On the front line, soldiers are sent to sapper work. They go to the first front line in the fog. The battlefield is littered with French missiles. After finishing the work, the soldiers doze off and wake up when the British begin to bombard their positions. A young recruit hides under Paul's armpit and puts it in his pants out of fear. Terrible cries of wounded horses can be heard from the soldiers. Animals are killed after collecting the victims of shelling people.
At three o'clock in the morning the soldiers leave the front line and come under heavy fire. They hide in the cemetery. Paul crawls into the shell hole and seeks cover behind the coffin. The British begin a gas attack. The projectile lifts a coffin into the air, which falls on the arm of one of the recruits. Paul and Katczynski want to kill young soldier, wounded in the thigh, in order to save him a painful death, but they do not have time to do this and go for a stretcher.
In the barracks, the soldiers dream about what they will do after the end of the war. Haye wants to spend a week in bed with a woman. The soldier does not intend to return to the peat bogs - he would like to be a non-commissioned officer and stay on long-term service. Tjaden insults Himmelstoss, who has approached his friends. When rivals disperse, the soldiers continue to dream of a peaceful life. Kropp believes that in the beginning you need to stay alive. Paul says that he would like to do something unthinkable. Meanwhile, Himmelstoss picks up the office and gets into a verbal skirmish with Kropp. The platoon commander, Lieutenant Bertinck writes Tjaden and Kropp a day of arrest.
Katchinsky and Paul are stealing geese from the poultry house of one of the regimental headquarters. In the shed, they roast one of the birds for a long time. Soldiers carry part of the roast to their arrested comrades.
The offensive begins. The authorities are preparing ... coffins for the fighters. The rats are coming to the front. They encroach on soldiers' bread. Soldiers arrange hunting for evil creatures. For several days, the fighters are waiting for the attack. After a night of shelling, the faces of the recruits turn green and they begin to vomit. The line of fire on the front line is so dense that food cannot be delivered to the soldiers. The rats are fleeing. Sitting in the dugout recruits begin to go crazy with fear. When the shelling ends, the French go on the attack. The Germans bombard them with grenades and retreat in short dashes. Then the counterattack begins. German soldiers reach the French positions. The authorities decide to return them back. The retreating take French stew and butter with them.
Paul, standing at his post, remembers summer evening in the cathedral, old poplars towering over the stream. The soldier thinks that, having returned to his native places, he will never be able to feel in them the love that he experienced before - the war made him indifferent to everything.
Day after day, attack - counterattack. The bodies of the dead are piled up in front of the trenches. One of the wounded has been screaming at the ground for several days, but no one can find him. On the front lines, butterflies fly in front of the soldiers. The rats don't bother them anymore - they eat corpses. The main losses fall on recruits who do not know how to fight.
During the next attack, Paul notices Himmelstoss, who is trying to sit out in a trench. The soldier forces his former boss to enter the battlefield with blows.
Old fighters teach the young the art of survival. Haye Westhus gets his back torn. Thirty-two men are returning from the front line.
In the rear, Himmelstos offers peace to his friends. He supplies them with food from the officers' canteen, arranges outfits for the kitchen. Paul and Kropp are looking at the poster of the front-line theater, which depicts a beautiful girl in a light dress and white shoes. At night, Paul, Kropp and Katchinsky cross to the other side of the river to the French women. They bring bread and liverwurst to hungry women and receive love in return.
Paul is given leave for seventeen days, then he must appear for courses in one of the rear camps. At home, the hero is met by the elder sister Erna. Paul from excitement can not hold back the tears. He finds his mother in bed. She has cancer. The father constantly asks the hero about the war. The German teacher invites Paul to a cafe, where one of the visitors tells the guy how to fight.
Paul sits in his room, looking at books and waiting for the joyful feeling of youth to return to him. Tired of futile expectations, the hero goes to the barracks to visit Mittelstedt. The latter commands the militia Kantorek, who once left him for the second year.
Paul shares his rations with his family - there is almost no food left in the rear. The hero tells Kemmerich's mother that her son died quickly, from a shot in the heart. Paul spends the night before leaving with his mother, who cannot move away from her son's bed. The hero regrets that he got a vacation.
Next to the military camp is a camp of Russian prisoners of war. Paul sympathizes with the good-natured peasants suffering from bloody diarrhea. He understands that the Germans and Russians became enemies on someone's orders, which could just as well turn them into friends. Before being sent to the front, Paul is visited by his father and sister. The hero's mother is admitted to the hospital for surgery.
At the front, Paul finds his friends alive. The Kaiser arranges a review of the troops. Soldiers discuss the causes of the war and come to the conclusion that they are out of the realm of life ordinary people. Paul, feeling uneasy because of his vacation, volunteers to go on a reconnaissance mission. During the attack, he pretends to be dead, injures an enemy soldier who has fallen into his funnel, and after a while helps him get drunk and bandage his wounds. At three o'clock the Frenchman dies. Paul realizes that he took the life of his brother and promises to send money to the family of the printer Gerard Duval, who was killed by him. In the evening, the hero breaks through to his own.
Soldiers guard the village. In it they find a piglet and officers' supplies of food. All day they cook and eat, all night they sit with their trousers down in front of the dugout. This goes on for three weeks. During the retreat, Kropp and Paul are wounded. A fragment is taken out of the last one's leg. Friends are sent home by ambulance train. On the way, Kropp's temperature rises. Paul gets off the train with him. Friends are in the hospital of a Catholic monastery. A local doctor puts experiments on curing flat feet on wounded soldiers. Kropp's leg is amputated. Paul starts walking. The wife comes to the sick Lewandowski. They make love right in the ward. In the summer, Paul is discharged. After a short vacation, he again goes to the front.
All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 1929. Many publishers doubted his success - he was too frank and uncharacteristic for the ideology that existed at that time in society to glorify Germany that lost the First World War. Erich Maria Remarque, who volunteered for the war in 1916, in his work acted not so much as an author, but as a merciless witness to what he saw on the European battlefields. Honestly, simply, without unnecessary emotions, but with merciless cruelty, the author described all the horrors of the war that irretrievably ruined his generation. “All Quiet on the Western Front” is not a novel about heroes, but about victims, to which Remarque lists both the dead and the young people who escaped the shells.
main characters works - yesterday's schoolchildren, like the author, who went to the front as volunteers (students of the same class - Paul Bäumer, Albert Kropp, Müller, Leer, Franz Kemmerich), and their older comrades-in-arms (locksmith Tjaden, peat worker Haye Westhus, peasant Detering, who knows how to get out of any situation Stanislav Katchinsky) - not so much live and fight as they try to escape from death. Young people who fell for the bait of teacher propaganda quickly realized that war is not an opportunity to valiantly serve their homeland, but the most ordinary massacre, in which there is nothing heroic and humane.
The first shelling immediately put everything in its place - the authority of the teachers collapsed, pulling the worldview that they had instilled. On the battlefield, everything that the heroes were taught at school turned out to be unnecessary: the physical laws were replaced by the laws of life, which consist in the knowledge of "how to smoke in the rain and in the wind" and how best ... to kill - “a bayonet strike is best applied to the stomach, and not to the ribs, because the bayonet does not get stuck in the stomach”.
First World War divided not only peoples - it severed the internal connection between two generations: while "parents" still wrote articles and made speeches about heroism, "children" passed through infirmaries and the dying; while "parents" still put above all service to the state, "children" already knew that there is nothing stronger than the fear of death. According to Paul, the realization of this truth did not make any of them "neither a rebel, nor a deserter, nor a coward" but it gave them a terrible insight.
Internal changes in the heroes began to occur even at the stage of the barracks drill, which consisted of pointless trumps, standing at attention, stepping, taking guard, turning right and left, clicking heels and constant abuse and nitpicking. Preparation for war made young men "calous, distrustful, ruthless, vindictive, rude"- the war showed them that these were the qualities they needed in order to survive. Barracks studies developed in future soldiers "a strong, always ready to translate into action feeling of mutual solidarity" the war turned him into "only good" what she could give to mankind - "partnership" . That's just from the former classmates at the time of the beginning of the novel there were twelve people instead of twenty: seven had already been killed, four were injured, one was in a lunatic asylum, and at the time of its completion - no one. Remarque left everyone on the battlefield, including his main character, Paul Bäumer, whose philosophical reasoning constantly burst into the fabric of the narrative in order to explain to the reader the essence of what is happening, understandable only to a soldier.
The war for the heroes of "All Quiet on the Western Front" takes place in three art spaces: at the forefront, at the front and in the rear. The most terrible thing is where shells are constantly exploding, and attacks are replaced by counterattacks, where flares burst "a rain of white, green and red stars", and the wounded horses scream so terribly, as if the whole world is dying with them. There, in this "ominous whirlpool" that draws a person "paralyzing all resistance", the only "friend, brother and mother" for a soldier, the earth becomes, because it is in its folds, hollows and hollows that one can hide, obeying the only instinct possible on the battlefield - the instinct of the beast. Where life depends only on chance, and death lies in wait for a person at every step, everything is possible - hiding in bomb-torn coffins, killing your own to save them from torment, regretting the bread eaten by rats, listening to screaming in pain for several days in a row dying, who cannot be found on the battlefield.
The rear part of the front is the boundary space between military and civilian life: there is a place for simple human joys - reading newspapers, playing cards, talking with friends, but all this one way or another takes place under the sign of every soldier ingrained in the blood "coarseness". Sharing a bathroom, stealing groceries, waiting for comfortable boots that pass from hero to hero as they get hurt and die are completely natural things for those who are used to fighting for their existence.
The vacation given to Paul Beumer and his immersion in the space of peaceful existence finally convince the hero that people like him will never be able to go back. Eighteen-year-old guys, just getting acquainted with life and starting to love it, were forced to shoot at it and hit themselves right in the heart. For older people who have strong ties with the past (wives, children, professions, interests), war is a painful, but still temporary break in life, for young people it is a stormy stream that easily pulled them out of the shaky soil of parental love and children's rooms. with bookshelves and carried it to no one knows where.
The pointlessness of war, in which one person must kill another only because someone from above told them that they are enemies, forever cut off faith in human aspirations and progress in yesterday's schoolchildren. They believe only in war, so they have no place in peaceful life. They believe only in death, which sooner or later ends everything, so they have no place in life as such. The Lost Generation has nothing to talk about with their parents, those who know war according to rumors and newspapers; the "lost generation" will never pass on their sad experience to those who come after them. You can only learn what war is in the trenches; to tell the whole truth about it is possible only in a work of art.
