Dramatizing only one enemy soldier by name and personality, Remarque concentrates on enemy fire as though it were a faceless, demonic machine, churning relentlessly through lines of men, flattening them in foxholes, skewering them with lethal projectiles from machine guns, rifles, grenades, and flamethrowers, and anonymously searing their lungs with gas. A far cry from the romanticized chivalric hero of Arthurian legends, the inexperienced young soldier, lacking epic stature, epitomizes a humanity that demands an end to international conflict acted out with heinous killing machines.
As Paul concludes, the level to which he and his comrades are reduced reminds him of Bushmen, the primitive forebears of the human race who should long before have educated future generations on the futility of war.
In Paul’s only face-to-face confrontation with the enemy, he rises above savagery through first-hand experience and compassion. He speaks the apology of humankind—words that beg pardon for citizenship in nations that choose to annihilate each other rather than to negotiate peacefully their differences. Tragically, men like the Russian prisoners, Paul, Tjaden, Kat, Lewandowski, and Gérard Duval come from ordinary working class families, not the privileged, noble houses of the Kaiser or Hindenburg, whom Paul and Albert blame for fostering such wasteful destruction, such blatant disregard for nature.
Sacrifice, exemplified by the jar of jam and potato-cakes from home, falls heavily on noncombatants like Paul’s mother and sister, who suffer rationing, but willingly pay the price if their self-denial means that Paul will know some bit of comfort in his mud-floored trench. Likewise, Marja abdicates the dignity of sexual relations exchanged in the privacy of her marital bed in order to snatch a few moments of intimacy with her husband, Johann, in a hospital ward. The nurse on the train, speaking for other noncombatants willing to share the privations of war, urges Paul to rest while he can and disregard the soiling of sheets, which she will gladly wash and iron in exchange for his brief enjoyment of a real bed.
