thing 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. Pauls 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 Pauls arms after being carried to safety. They all shared the common bond of everyday hell. The soldiers risked their lives everyday for one another. The battlefield became home. This is the only place he feels he was accepted and understood. Like Paul, many of the soldiers questioned whythey were fighting. They were breaking every moral they had ever been taught solelybecause it was what their countries and elders said was right. Paul began to realize thatthe real enemy wasnt the soldiers from different countries that were just like him, but theleaders of the countries who sold there youth into eternal hell. When Paul kills his firstperson in hand to hand combat, the French Gerard Duval, he starts to see that the soldiersare the ones with the bonds, all of them. They are killing people just like themselves. Pauleventually gets wounded and arranges to stay in a hospital with his friend Kroop who isnow an amputee. All the young men, German, American, French, or any other nationalityhad joined the war under the assumption that it would be a marvelous adventure. Instead,the war destroyed their lives. All Quiet on the Western Front is a definite tragedy. The reader can see early on that the novel is anti-war. People often say Remarque wrote this book solely to shock the public. People didnt want to think about the real truth, the real horrors of what really happened to their children, friends, and fellow citizens in war. This feeling was international. Although Remarque was German the idea of what the war had really done to t...
