Im Westen Nichts Neues by Erich Remarque

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Im Westen Nichts Neues byErich Remarque

• By Travis Roberts

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Remarques Life

• Erich Paul Remarque was born on June 22nd ,
  1898 in Osnabrück Germany (Lower Saxony). He
  would later change his middle name to Maria to
  honor his late mother.

• In 1912 he entered the Katholische Präparande
  for preparation to become an elementary school
  teacher.

Remarque as a boy with his two sisters

• He was drafted into the German army on November
  21st, 1916, two years after the First World War
  began.

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Off to War

• Remarque was shipped to the Western front on
  June 12, 1917. His time there was brief however
  as he was soon wounded in Several places by shell
  fragments from English artillery on July 31, 1917.

• He was not cleared for active duty again until
  October 1918, and he would never return to the
  front due to the wars ending one month later.

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Aftermath

• Remarque would be disturbed by his war
  experience, and the experience of all the worlds
  youth who fought in the war, for the rest of this
  life.

• He finally records his thoughts on the Great War
  in Im Westen Nichts Neues (All Quiet on the
  Western Front) published in 1929. While the book
  is fiction, it is based on some events in his
  life and the lives of others.

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Betrayed Youth

• A constant theme in Remarques book is that the
  youth of Germany (and the world) had been
  betrayed by teachers, parents, and other leaders
  who told them war was a great patriotic
  adventure.

Das erste Trommelfeuer zeigte uns unseren
Irrtum, und unter ihm sturtze die Weltanschauung
zusammen, die sie uns gelehrt hatten. (The first
bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it
the world as they had taught it to us broke in
pieces.) -Im Westen Nichts Neues
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Causes of WWI

• The causes of WWI go all the way back to the
  unification of Germany under Bismarck in 1871.

• Europe experienced an arms race and several
  complex alliance systems from the late 1800s
  until the wars outbreak in 1914.

• Intense nationalistic feelings also played a
  role, many peoples now wanted independent
  countries for their respective ethnic groups.

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The Spark

• The spark that finally ignited Europe into war
  was the assassination of Arch Duke Franz
  Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian
  throne, by a Serbian nationalist

• After Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia in
  1914, the alliance systems of the past few
  decades would slowly bring the entire continent
  of Europe into conflict.

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The First Months

• WWI was supposed to be a quick war, everyone
  thought it would be over by Christmas. Initially
  the war moved quickly with both sides making
  gains, but by November a stalemate had set in.

• The first trenches on the Western Front are
  begun at Ypres in November 1914, this was the
  beginning of what would become a new breed of
  horrific warfare.

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Life in the Trenches

• The trenches were dark, damp and cold. The men
  had no way to clean themselves so they were often
  lice infested. Rats were also a problem, eating
  food stores and bothering the soldiers.

Sie scheinen recht hungrig zu sein. Bei fast
allen haben sie das Brot angefressen. Kropp hat
es unter seinem Kopf fest in die Zeltbahn
gewickelt, doch er kann nicht schlafen weil sie
ihm über das Gesicht laufen, um heranzugelangen.

- Im Westen Nichts Neues
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Trench Warfare

• Along with Trench warfare came new inventions
  with incredible destructive capability. Machine
  guns and barb wire emplacements were used en
  masse. Extremely long range artillery, tanks,
  poison gas and aero planes were also employed for
  the first time in WWI.

• These new weapons however, did not make the war
  end quicker, they simply made the death toll rise
  higher.

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Poison Gas

• Chemical weapons, in the form of Poison gases,
  were first used in 1915 by the Germans at Second
  Ypres.

Ich kenne die furchtbaren Bilder aus dem
Lazarett Gasranke, die in tagelangem Würgen die
verbrannten Lungen stückweise auskotzen. (I
remember the awful sites in the hospital the gas
patients who in day long suffocation cough up
their burnt lungs in clots)
-Im
Westen Nichts Neues
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Major Battles and Losses

• First Battle of Ypres 238, 155 Killed
• Second Battle of Ypres - 104,000 Killed
• Battle of Verdun 750,000 Killed
• Battle of the Somme 1,070,000 Killed
• Arras Casualty rate per day 4,070
• Third Battle of Ypres 550,000 Killed

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A Soldiers View

• We see men living with their skulls blown open
  we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off,
  they stagger on their splintered stumps into the
  next shell hole..we see men without mouths,
  without jaws, without faces we find one man who
  has held the artery of his arm in his teeth for
  two hours in order not to bleed to death. The sun
  goes down, night comes, the shells whine, life is
  at an end.
• -Im Westen Nichts Neues

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Detachment
Vergehen Wochen Monate Jahre? Es sind nur
Tage. Wir sehen die Zeit neben uns schwinden in
den farblosen Gesichtern der Sterbenden, wir
löffeln Nahrung in uns hinein, wir laufen, wir
werfen, wir schießen, wir töten, wir liegen
herum, wir sind schwach und stumpf (How long has
it been? Weeks-months-years? Only days. We see
time pass in the colorless faces of the dying, we
cram food into us, we run, we throw, we shoot, we
kill, we lie about, we are feeble and spent)
-Im Westen Nichts Neues
The thousand yard stare
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Nature and War
Einen ganzen Vormittag spielen zwei
Schmetterlinge vor unserm Graben. Es sind
Zitronenfalter, ihre gelben Flügel haben rote
Punkte. Was mag sie nur hierher verschlagen
haben weit und breit ist keine Pflanze und keine
Blume. Sie ruhen sich auf den Zähnen eines
Schädels aus. (One morning two butterflies play
in front of our trench. They are brimstone
butterflies, with red spots on their yellow
wings. What can they be looking for here? There
is not a plant nor a flower for miles. They
settle on the teeth of a skull)

-Im Westen Nichts Neues
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War Ends
After a large German advance was halted and
pushed back, Germany was forced to broker piece
on November 11th, 1918. The war had finally ended
at the cost of 9 million soldiers.
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 war.

-Im Westen Nichts Neues
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Lost Generation

• Remarque kills his main character at the end of
  Im Westen Nichts Neues. On a day in October 1918
  that was so Quiet the army confined itself to one
  sentence Im Westen sei nichts Neues zu Melden
  or All Quiet on the Western Front.

• Pauls death is symbolic of the destruction of
  an entire generation both physically and mentally.

• When Pauls body is found Remarque writes, sein
  Gesicht hatte einen so gefaßten Ausdruck, als
  wäre er beinahe zufrieden damit, daß es so
  gekommen war.
• (his face had an expression of calm, as though
  almost glad the end had come)

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Bibliography
Duffy, Michael. First World War
http//www.firstworldwar.com/index.htm (2003)
Glibert, Julie. Opposite Attraction New
York, 1995
Groves, Paul. W.O.M.D.A http//www.hcu.ox.ac.
uk/jtap/ (2003)
Remarque, Erich. All Quiet on the Western Front
Ballantine Books, 1996
Wagener, Hans. Understanding Erich Remarque
University of South Carolina, 1991
Westwall, Ian. World War I Day by Day Brown
Partworks Limited, 2000
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Special Thanks toFrau PNatassia!