Remarque is remarkably suited to be a spokesperson for this generation who bore the guilt and trauma of the first World War. He enlisted in the German army at the age of 18 and fought on the Western Front. He was injured several times, endured shelling, poisonous gas, hunger, and poor-quality medical treatment at the front. He was one of the countless men who lost their innocence in the nightmarish world of trench warfare, mustard gas, and liquid fire. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque describes a soldiers life as “Shells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks—shattering, corroding, death. Dysentery, influenza, typhus—scalding, choking death. Trenches, hospitals, the common grave—there are no other possibilities.” As Gertrude Stein commented to a wounded Ernest Hemingway, they were a “lost generation.”

Remarque’s books, including All Quiet on the Western Front were banned in Germany and were among the books consigned to be publicly burnt in 1933 by the Nazis. Remarque was accused of pacifism and in 1938, Remarque lost his citizenship. He moved to Switzerland and eventually immigrated to the United States where he became a citizen in 1947.

What was Remarque’s purpose in writing All Quiet on the Western Front? His own statement of purpose is disarmingly simple:

This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.

The story is told by Paul Bäumer as it happened to him. Through Paul’s eyes we see the horrors of war and the pain of sacrifice. We also see a surprising glimmer of light in the darkness at the front line: camaraderie. There is grace and kindness in the face of hard, cold anguish as the men realize their humanity and recognize their reliance on each other. Paul’s friends become the prop that keeps him alive. “It is a great brotherhood,” says Paul, “which adds something of the good-fellowship of the folk-song, of the feeling of solidarity of convicts, and of the desperate loyalty to one another of men condemned to death, to a condition of life arising out of the midst of danger, out of the tension and forlornness of death…If one wants to appraise it, it is at once heroic and banal.”

In the early chapters of the book, we see Paul and his young friends standing together against authority in defiance. They realize that the training camp drills are meaningless exercises, but it causes them to form a tight bond with each other. It is this bond that keeps them alive at the front. Like true brothers, they bicker and argue, but they always show a united front to the world. One of their antagonists is Corporal Himmelstoss. He is a ridiculous human being who is cruel to the soldiers, but has no understanding of the war. He has never been to the front and, therefore, receives no respect from Paul and his comrades. Himmelstoss gets two of Paul’s comrades in trouble and they are sentenced to be locked up for the night. Paul and their leader, Katczinsky, or “Kat” as he is referred to, steal geese to cook for their friends. They spend the evening eating with the prisoners and playing cards with them. They are comrades and friends through all circumstances.

Kat, at 40 years old, is the oldest and the wisest of the group. His opinion is respected and his abilities are admired. Kat is cool-headed, patient, and fatherly to Paul and his friends. He once survived two days behind the Russian front before making his way back to his unit. Kat is a father-figure and mentor to Paul, teaching, feeding, and even comforting Paul through nightmares. One of the most beautiful scenes of humanity is the scene of Paul and Kat roasting the stolen geese. Paul reflects, “We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don’t talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communication with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death…now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, we are so intimate that we do not even speak.” Watching and listening to Kat’s voice bring peace and reassurance to the young soldier.

Another amazing scene is when Paul goes on patrol close to the enemy lines. He loses his direction and becomes lost in the mess of shell holes that cover the earth. He wages a “wild and senseless fight” to get out of the and keep moving, to find his comrades. “I press myself down on the earth, I cannot go forward, I make up my mind to stay lying there.” Afraid he’ll die, Paul despairs until he hears his friends voices. “At once new warmth flows through me. These voices, these quiet words, these footsteps in the trench behind me recall me at a bound from the terrible loneliness and fear of death by which I had been almost destroyed. They are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my comrades. I am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the darkness… these voices, these words that have saved me and will stand by me.”

Through all of the horror and the hopelessness, these men hold each other up. As the days go on, one by one, Paul’s comrades are killed. In one bombardment, Paul is amazed at the decimation of his company. He says, “I recognize Kat and Albert, we stand together, lean against each other, and look at one another. And we hear the number of our company called again and again… when we came up we were one hundred and fifty strong… A line, a short line trudges off into the morning. Thirty-two men.” These comrades were Paul’s source of strength and the purpose of his hope. Eventually, only Paul and Kat remain. In the end, Kat is wounded in the leg and cannot walk. With no stretchers to take him to the aid station, Paul carries him on his back. On the way, Paul considers shooting himself in the foot so that he can remain with Kat. With son-like devotion, he doggedly carries Kat all way to the aid station where he collapses in exhaustion. “My legs and my hands tremble… My lips tremble as I try to think. But I smile—Kat is saved.” Then Paul is coldly informed by an orderly that he could have saved himself the trouble; Kat is already dead. On the way to the station, a splinter of shrapnel caught Kat in the head. He died silently on Paul’s back. There is brutal irony in the orderly’s question if they are related. Kat, closer than a father, is dead and Paul must respond, “No, we are not related.” The final brace holding up Paul has been removed, leaving Paul friendless, defenseless.

Paul is killed on a quiet, peaceful day in October when there is nothing to report on the western front—just a week or so before the armistice. Knowing that Paul can never truly go home again, knowing that he cannot start a new occupation when all he has known is to survive and to kill, knowing that he is utterly alone and weak without his comrades, it is no surprise that Paul’s death is described as calm, “as though almost glad the end had come.”

Amy Arden is the Dusty Shelf editor.