When Erich Maria Remarque was mustered out of the Great War in 1918 on a medical discharge, he returned home to a life devoid of hope and changed forever. His earlier dreams had included becoming a concert pianist, but, because of war wounds, that ambition was no longer a possibility. During the time he had been in combat, his mother had died and now he had time to mourn and regret. Remarque, like many of his lost generation, suffered postwar trauma and disillusionment. This one huge and overwhelming event in his life — World War I — would haunt him forever and influence practically everything he would write...
The record of several schoolmates who represent a generation destroyed by the dehumanization of World War I's trench warfare, All Quiet on the Western Front tells of their enlistment in the army at the urging of their teacher, Kantorek, whose wisdom they trusted. Paul Bäumer, a sensitive teenager, serves as central intelligence, the prototypical young infantryman whose youth is snatched away by the brutality of war.
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