Introduction
During World War I, Germany soldiers were exposed to mental and physical trauma. The horrifying life of the soldiers and brutality they experienced in the war change their lives to a point that; when they went back home after war, they felt alienated from the life they used to live before. Many of the soldiers were killed, and those who survived felt the consequences of the war which led to horrifying life they were living.
Soldiers who survived the war felt that their place with other civilians was not the same; the war alienated them from their fellow townsmen. Though Paul felt that there have not been changes in his hometown since he left for war, he felt he was in a different place, away from the place he used t know. There was absolute disconnection between him and the people of the town. He did not want to have a word with his father about experiences in his war; Paul called his father stupid and distressing, because his father could not understand that such things cannot be talked by man. Paul feels comfortable when he joins his comrades and vows not to ever go home (Kirk 12). Paul realizes their living has no basis; he says “we have become a waste land”.
German soldiers who participated in the war lost their identity in the society. Men who had families lost their functions as fathers to their children and husband to their wives. Young men who left school to join the army were termed “lost generation”. Paul and his classmates had their lives interrupted when they entered the war; they had nothing for themselves apart from war. They had little food to eat and sometimes forced to steal to survive. Kat and Paul had to bribe wagon driver so the driver can take them to a house they earlier heard geese cackle, they narrowly escape from the owner (Kirk 27). Paul was figuring the life they were living in, “death is walking from within. It already has command in the eyes”.
The soldiers also suffered trauma from the activities they were doing during the war. The killings and suffering German soldiers went through in the west front exposed them to physical and mental stress. Upon joining of his comrades on his way from home, Paul voluntarily agrees to go on a patrol; in that juncture he kills a man for the first time. Paul stood and watched the man for hours endure pain before the man dies. Paul become so devastated and asks the dead man for forgiveness before telling his friends how he was feeling after killing the man. Others comforted him while assuring him that it was the act of war because they were at it. Paul and Albert are wounded while guarding a village; Paul called it “good job” as they were enjoying themselves while evacuating villagers. The “good job” found Paul and Albert hospitalized in a catholic hospital (Kirk 59). Paul says, “For the soldiers, life is no more than the constant avoidance of death”.
Germany soldiers lost of hope and meaning of life even though the war was coming to an end. Paul commented that peace was coming soon, but he felt that their generation as soldiers in the front was different from that of the people they left in their hometown. Desire to return home overcomes him after inhaling poisoned gas, on recuperating he fears to go home because he did not have goals to peruse when he gets back (Kirk 111). Paul lost hope; he said “. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear”.
Conclusion
German soldiers experience in the war front left many of them dead, and those few who remained felt different from other people. They saw themselves as the lost generation who cannot be understood by the people from their township.
Work cited
Van, Kirk S. Cliffsnotes on Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 1999.
