"No War on the West Front" is well-known, and I have read novels and movies recently. Obviously, the novel's anti-war theme is deeper, and its faithful restoration and profound reflection on the war are beyond the paper. No wonder it has become an immortal work of anti-war themes.
1929, "No War on the West Front" by German writer Remak was serialized in newspapers. After the book was published, 1.2 million copies were sold in Germany in the first year, and after it was translated into other languages, it sold well all over the world. In 1930, the film of the same name was released, winning the third Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director, and is considered one of the "greatest American films."
Famousness has come, and disaster has also come. The Nazis believe that novels and movies have insulted the national style and soldiers. The movies have been banned, and Remak's works have been banned and burned by the Nazis. In 1938, Remak was expelled from Germany and went into exile in Switzerland and later immigrated to the United States.
"No War on the West Front" comes from Remake's personal experience. In 1916, 18-year-old Remake interrupted his studies and enlisted in the army. Like many German youth at that time, under the agitation of nationalism and patriotic propaganda, he rushed to the front line of " First Battle " with all his passion and was injured.
The German Western Front during World War I was the notorious "slaughterhouse", and the novel truly presents political hypocrisy and ruthlessness of war. In the face of cruel reality such as plasma, residual limbs, poison gas, and death, the ideal of heroism, the belief in "defending the country", the understanding of the world and the pursuit of life collapsed completely.
Remak claims to be a "unfantasy idealist". He projected his memories of war and inner feelings into all kinds of characters in the novel. This work is more like a symbol and a call for peace.
As he said in his novel dedication: "This book is neither a condemnation nor a confession. It is just an attempt to describe such a generation. Even though they avoided shells, they were still destroyed by the war."
Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970)
The confusing generation
0The protagonist of the novel Paul and his classmates were only 18 years old. He was inspired by his class teacher Cantorek and led to sign up for the army. Bem refused to join the army together, and was later convinced, otherwise he would not be able to bear the weight.
After joining the army, Cantorek wrote to them, calling them "young men of steel".
This is the "lost generation" in World War I, and it is also the generation destroyed by the war. We are used to seeing heroes in war, but in novels, there is no heroic sentiment, no sacrifice for justice, only the cruelty of war, the numbness after experiencing life and death, and the despair after disillusionment of ideals.
"No War on the West Front" movie (1930). The pictures below are all from the movie stills
"Meat Grinder" Western Front
As we all know, World War I is an important stage in the history of weapons development. In order to adapt to the war, countries have continuously developed new weapons, such as aircraft, tanks, , long-range cannons, submarines, poison gas, flamethrower , etc., and developed new weapons for only one purpose: to eliminate the enemy.
In the first battle, about 65 million people participated in the battle, and more than 10 million people died, of which more than 2 million people died and disappeared in Germany. The numbers are cold, and behind these numbers are fresh lives and incomplete families. The process of reading novels in
is like using "first vision" to restore the horror and absurdity of war.
- The unexpected "double meal"
The novel quickly brought you into the real scene of the war: Paul was ordered to go to the front line to change defense fourteen days ago. The war was quite calm at that time. The quartermaster prepared a normal quantity of supplies for them to come back for 150 people to eat. Unexpectedly, on the last day, the British artillery launched a fierce bombardment, and countless shells fell on the position, leaving only 80 of them back.
We are lying nine kilometers behind the front line. We were replaced yesterday; now our stomachs are filled with white bean roast beef, full and satisfied. Everyone can even get a full lunch box to keep until the night; otherwise, everyone gets double sausage and bread—a good enough.This situation has not been encountered for a long time: the Huofu, who looks like a cow and has a tomato-like head, personally greets us with more food. He raises the spoon and greets everyone walking over, and gives each of them a large spoonful full of them. He was desperate because he didn't know how to dismiss his mobile battle kitchen meal.
- inherited leather boots
KMurrich was pierced on his thigh and amputated, and Paul and his friends went to the field hospital to visit him. Miller took a fancy to his boots, which were beautiful leather boots made of soft leather, and he obviously didn't need them now.
He looks scary, his complexion is sallow and pale, and wrinkles appear on his face that he has never seen before. We are very familiar with wrinkles like this because we have seen them hundreds of times. In fact, it is not a wrinkle, but a sign. Under his skin, there was no pulsation of life. It had been squeezed to the edge of the body, and the god of death was pushing hard from the inside out, and it had already controlled the pair of eyes.
The next day, Paul witnessed Kerrich's death. Before his death, he asked Paul to give the leather boots to Miller. The health soldier quickly took him away because there were not enough beds.
Miller was later shot into the stomach by a flare at close range. Before he died, he gave his leather boots to Paul.
Paul promised Chaden that if he died, the pair of leather boots would be given to Chaden.
- The wrath of war horses
At night, they were sent to the fortifications of the frontier. After finishing the work, the shelling came and they crawled away as much as possible. The most unbearable thing is to hear the yell of the war horse, a violent groan of pain full of terror.
We sat down and covered our ears, but this terrible cry, moan and wail still came in and penetrated from all directions. We can almost bear anything, but here we sweat. We really want to stand up and run away. No matter where we run, we can as long as we can no longer hear the clamor. But this is not a man, but a horse.
- poison gas
They encountered fierce artillery fire, including terrible poison gas bombs, after passing the Hunter Cemetery. Paul quickly put on his gas mask, jumped into the crater, and breathed as lightly as possible.
The first few minutes of wearing a gas mask determine life and death: is it sealed so that poisonous gas cannot penetrate? I have seen a terrible scene in a field hospital. It is very difficult for patients who have been gased to breathe for several days, and they cough out the burned lungs one by one.
- Lice, mouse
There are too many lice on the body, and it is difficult to strangle them one by one. Chaden thought of a solution: fix the shoe polish box, light a candle under the lid, throw the lice into this "frying pan", and solve it with a crackling sound. They gathered in a circle to catch lice.
There are many mice in the trenches, only fat. They not only steal things to eat, but also attack cats and dogs and eat dead bodies. They beat the mice with shovels and shoveled the dead mice outside the trenches. When there were plenty of bullets, they also competed to shoot mice with guns.
- New recruits
They hid in the trenches and listened to the endless sound of artillery fire. Veterans were able to distinguish shells of various calibers. A recruit had a phobia attack on trenches and felt that he would suffocate in the trenches and insisted on going outside. At this time, there was nothing else to do, so I could only beat him up and restore his sanity.
Days pass by day, and attack and counterattack alternate. They guided the recruits in various tricks to avoid death, but the attack began, and the recruits were excited and did things wrong again.
Although we urgently need reinforcements, we do almost more to the recruits than they do to us. In this area under fierce attack, they are helpless and fall like flies.
- Kill
Close-up fight, gun stab is not easy to use.
The sharp shovel is a lighter and more useful weapon. It can not only poke directly under the chin of others, but also the most important thing is to use it to strike, which has a greater impact; especially if it slashes between the shoulders and neck of others, it will be easy to split the chest at once. The gun stab often gets stuck when stabbing in. The person who uses the gun stab must kick the person's stomach hard to pull it out; and in this short period of time, he is prone to being stabbed by others. In addition, gun stabs often break when stabbing.
- Powers of War
Paul was training in a field camp, and there was a large Russian POW camp next to the barracks. At night, prisoners of war came to the barracks to do transactions, and they exchanged everything they had for bread. Paul knew nothing about them except knowing that they were prisoners.
A command makes these silent figures our enemies; a command may also make them our friends. On a certain table, a few people whom none of us knew signed a document, so for many years, things that have been despised and severely punished by the people of the world have become our highest goal.
The bloody nature of war
The classmates who joined the army died, were injured, fled, and went to a mental hospital.
Strangely enough, Bem was one of the first dead. He ate bullets in his eyes during a charge, and we thought he was dead and left him on the battlefield. In fact, we couldn't get him back, because we also ran back in a hurry. That afternoon, we suddenly heard him shouting and saw him crawling around outside the front line. It turned out that he just lost consciousness at that time. Because he could not see anything and was in a mad pain, he could not use the cover, so before people could run over to rescue him, he was shot and killed by the enemy troops there.
Hai's back was blown open and his injuries were severely injured; Lyle was torn apart by shrapnel, and his blood flowed very quickly, and he collapsed like a streamer after a few minutes; Detrinsen's illness broke out and was arrested by the military and police as a deserter.
Carter, who had been with Paul for three years, was broken his shin. Paul carried him to the emergency room, avoiding shell attacks. After finally walking to the health station, the health soldier said, "You didn't have to do this, he was dead." It turned out that there was a shrapnel in Carter's head halfway, and Paul was completely unaware of it. It's very small stray bullet fragments, but enough to be fatal.
We see the person whose skull was blown away is still alive; we see soldiers with two feet broken running, and they stagger into the nearest pit with their broken legs; a second-class private climbed two kilometers with his hands and dragged his broken knee forward; the other private walked towards the emergency department, and his intestines slipped from his stomach to his two holding hands; we also saw some people without mouth, chin, and face; we found that someone had a tight grip on one of his arms with his teeth for two hours to avoid dying from excessive bleeding. The sun rises and darkness comes. grenade keeps roaring, and life has reached its end.
Paul was also injured. When evacuating a village, artillery fire came. Crop was hit in the knee. Paul helped him run all the way. The two finally arrived at a small cover. At this time, Paul realized that his pants were covered in blood and his arms were also covered in blood.
His leg could no longer move, and both of us were amazed how we could have successfully come here. It was just fear that caused; even if both of our feet were knocked out by guns, we would come over—we could run with our silences.
Next, Paul and Crop were sent to the Catholic hospital in Cologne for treatment. Paul had surgery, his arm was cured and his legs slowly recovered; Crop's entire leg was cut off.
On the floor below us, there are patients with gunshot wounds in the abdomen and spine, shots in the head and amputated both arms. On the right side are gunshot wounds in jaw bones, gunshot wounds in poisonous gas, and gunshot wounds in nose, ears and neck. On the left side are people with blind eyes, gunshot wounds in the lungs, gunshot wounds in the pelvis, gunshot wounds in the joints, gunshot wounds in the kidneys, gunshot wounds in the testicles, and gunshot wounds in the stomach. Only here people can see that a person can be shot everywhere.
"The Confused Generation" awakening
The novel meticulously describes the mentality of the "Confused Generation" at that time, and they have an awakened understanding of war.
Paul realized the changes brought to him during a short vacation. He was no longer used to wearing casual clothes, unable to talk about war with his family, disliked everyone's inquiries and talks on paper, and could not integrate into normal life.
- encouraged
Paul and his classmates were encouraged by the teacher to join the army. At the age of eighteen, they trust teachers and authority.
However, the first dead we see shattered our belief. We must realize that our generation is more honest than their generation; what they surpass is nothing more than empty words and clever sleekness. The first raindrop artillery fire pointed out the mistakes we made. Under the fire, the worldview they taught us collapsed.
- Power
Before they went to the front line, they received ten weeks of military training. The squad leader is Himmel Stouss, who likes to torture soldiers in the training ground. Himmelstous was a postman before, a humble person. How could he become a sadist when he became a sergeant? Carter said it was the nature of power.
This is self-evident, because people were originally a livestock, but later, maybe like buttered slices of meat-cup bread, he was coated with some hypocritical oil paint. The foundation of the army is that one person can always give orders to another. The reason it is bad is that everyone has so much power that a sergeant can torture a soldier, a lieutenant can torture a sergeant, a captain can torture a lieutenant, and can torture until the tortured goes crazy. Just because they know they can do this, because they immediately become accustomed to it.
- review
Paul went back to meet with his brothers after his vacation, and everyone rushed to do cleaning and hygiene work, and welcoming inspections in all aspects. Finally, news came that the emperor was coming to inspect, so there were so many inspections.
8 full days, everyone thought they were staying in the recruit camp, so there were so many things and training. Everyone feels unhappy and irritable because we feel that excessive cleaning and sanitation work is meaningless, and the inspection of the marching process is even more boring. It is such a thing that makes soldiers more annoyed than trenches.
The emperor arrived and awarded the Iron Cross Medal. After the inspection, almost all the newly received clothes were handed over and the worn items were taken back. The good clothes were only for inspection.
- Discussion
They talked about how a war happened.
Caden said that the mountains in Germany could not invade France's mountains, and he did not feel violated. Before coming to the front line, he had never seen a Frenchman, and I believe the same is true for the French. Everyone is ordinary people, why attack them? It's just that the government wants to fight.
Carter said war must be good for some people. The great emperor needed at least one war, and the general became famous through war.
Crop said that war is more like a fever, and no one wanted it, but it came all at once.
Paul said that the rumor-monger is the real criminal, and the captive's flyer actually said that they eat Belgian children.
This discussion certainly has no conclusion.
- Soldier mode
The more Paul saw deaths, the more he found that everyone had become the same soldier mode, and the difference caused by cultivation and education was almost erased. On the brink of death, life is limited to the most urgent things, and everything else is hibernating. They live a very superficial, closed and hard life, and their inner strength does not develop, but retreats.
It turns us into thinking animals in order to give us the weapons of instinct; it instills into us insensibleness so that we will not collapse in the face of fear; and when we have clear and conscious thoughts, fear may come to us; it evokes the consciousness of friendship in our hearts, so that we can avoid the abyss of loneliness; it gives us the indifference of the beast, so that we will feel every positive factor in any situation, and preserve it as a reserve to deal with the attack of nothingness.
Paul saw various tragic situations of the wounded in the field hospital, his body was broken and his life continued. He thought that this was his first career, and his job in the past few years was to kill people. What would it become in the future?
I am very young, only twenty years old now, but the life I know is nothing more than despair, fear of death and the most meaningless shallowness associated with the abyss of suffering. I see that the people of all nations are forced to be hostile to each other and kill each other silently, ignorantly, foolishly, obediently, innocently. I see the smartest minds in the world inventing weapons and creating public opinion in order to make this continue more cleverly and for a longer time. This is the same as me, as I am, and my generation has experienced this.
The autumn of 1918 is here, and there are not many veterans left, and only Paul is left in the class. Everyone is talking about peace and truce. Paul thought sadly that the previous generation had already started a family and had their own careers, and could return to the previous environment and forget about the war; the latter generation was completely unfamiliar with them and pushed them aside. He felt that his generation was redundant.
He was killed in October 1918. On that day, the entire front line was so calm and quiet, so the military command only wrote this sentence in the battle report: There is no war on the Western Front.
Peace, eternal cry
"There is no war on the Western Front", what a ironic sentence. This is not a sign of peace, but a complete destruction of the younger generation by the cruel war. On the quiet battlefield, millions of undead are silently accusing them.
Lin Yutang Comment on "No War on the Western Front" mentioned that the author Remake shows us not the hero, but "Qiu Ba". "He doesn't understand warfare and non-warism, nor does he have any romantic or classical colors, but what he wrote is a real page of historical facts in human history."
Indeed, the novel describes the daily life and feelings of several ordinary soldiers on the Western Front War. There are no bold words or gorgeous scenes. There are poisonous fog, smoke, broken limbs, blood flying everywhere, brain , and intestines, writing the cruelty of the war to the extreme. The weak individual is ruthlessly crushed by the war machine. How cruel it is.
The narrative perspective of ordinary soldiers is too clever. It comes from the front line of war, has an irrefutable sense of reality, and nakedly presents the extinction of human nature by war. No wonder it has become the benchmark of world anti-war literature.
Author Remake said: "I always thought that everyone was against war until I found out that there was really someone who supported war, especially those who didn't have to go to the battlefield by themselves." In a turbulent and fanatical era, ordinary life has nowhere to be settled. There is no romance in youth in the war. Only witnesses know so many specific details and write such delicate feelings.
"No War on the West Front", "This is a story told for a whole generation of victims", this is a story that allows you to see the truth of the war.
(The pictures in this article are from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author)
