In Chapter 5, Remarque takes the opportunity to contemplate the war and its effects on his generation. His treatment suggests that for every terrible event there is an opposite opportunity: The comradeship that reveals the humanity of these desperate men contrasts with the terrible inhumanity all around them.
Paul counts up the men in his class that enlisted together. Of the twenty, one is insane, seven are dead, and four are wounded. Before the war, these boys sat near him in class and learned about cohesion and mathematics, subjects that do not help them now to survive. As Paul says, "We remember mighty little of all that rubbish. Anyway, it has never been the slightest use to us." This leads him to consider what will happen after the conflict ends. He tells his friends:
. . . when I hear the word "peace-time," it goes to my head: and if it really came, I think I would do some unimaginable thing — something, you know, that it's worth having lain here in the muck for. But I can't even imagine anything. . . ."
He adds, to himself, "All at once everything seems to me confused and hopeless." And Albert replies, "The war has ruined us for everything."
With this hollow feeling, Remarque contrasts the comradeship of Kat and Paul. That evening in their shed, away from the deafening bombs and shrapnel and the grisly war deaths, they share a quiet moment of feasting and fellowship. Paul muses that they sit "opposite one another . . . two soldiers in shabby coats," and cook a goose in the darkness of the night. "We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have."
