For a 3- to 4-minute overview of All Quiet on the Western Front, listen now to the CramCast.
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. Again and again, Remarque would return to scenes of the war and to postwar Germany for subjects of his novels. The world would read his words and understand the questions of his generation, and the critics would treat his book kindly. Modern readers return again and again to his words because their powerful message delineates a dehumanization vastly surpassed by modern technological warfare.
An interview from the state archives in Osnabruck gives the reader some understanding of Remarque's reasons for writing All Quiet on the Western Front. The author states:
"It was through . . . deliberate acts of self-analysis that I found my way back to my war experiences. I could observe a similar phenomenon in many of my friends and acquaintances. The shadow of war hung over us, especially when we tried to shut our minds to it. The very day this thought struck me, I put pen to paper, without much in the way of prior thought."
