This book is neither an accusation nor a confession. This is only an attempt to tell about the generation that was destroyed by the war, about those who became its victims, even if they escaped from the shells.

Erich Maria Remarque IM WESTEN NICHTS NEUES

Translation from German by Yu.N. Afonkina

Serial design by A.A. Kudryavtseva

Computer design A.V. Vinogradova

Reprinted with permission from The Estate of the Late Paulette Remarque and Mohrbooks AG Literary Agency and Synopsis.

The exclusive rights to publish the book in Russian belong to AST Publishers. Any use of the material in this book, in whole or in part, without the permission of the copyright holder is prohibited.

© The Estate of the Late Paulette Remarque, 1929

© Translation. Yu.N. Afonkin, heirs, 2014

© Russian edition AST Publishers, 2014

We are standing nine kilometers from the front line. Yesterday we were replaced; Now our stomachs are full of beans and meat, and we all walk around full and satisfied. Even for dinner, everyone got a full pot; On top of that, we get a double portion of bread and sausage - in a word, we live well. This hasn’t happened to us for a long time: our kitchen god with his crimson, like a tomato, bald head himself offers us more food; he waves the ladle, inviting passers-by, and pours out hefty portions to them. He still won’t empty his “squeaker,” and this drives him into despair. Tjaden and Müller obtained several basins from somewhere and filled them to the brim - in reserve. Tjaden did it out of gluttony, Müller out of caution. Where everything that Tjaden eats goes is a mystery to all of us. He still remains as skinny as a herring.

But the most important thing is that the smoke was also given out in double portions. Each person had ten cigars, twenty cigarettes and two bars of chewing tobacco. Overall, pretty decent. I exchanged Katchinsky’s cigarettes for my tobacco, so now I have forty in total. You can last one day.

But, strictly speaking, we are not entitled to all this at all. The management is not capable of such generosity. We were just lucky.

Two weeks ago we were sent to the front line to relieve another unit. It was quite calm in our area, so by the day of our return the captain received allowances according to the usual distribution and ordered to cook for a company of one hundred and fifty people. But just on the last day, the British suddenly brought up their heavy “meat grinders”, most unpleasant things, and beat them on our trenches for so long that we suffered heavy losses, and only eighty people returned from the front line.

We arrived at the rear at night and immediately stretched out on our bunks to first get a good night's sleep; Katchinsky is right: the war would not be so bad if only one could sleep more. You never get much sleep on the front line, and two weeks drag on for a long time.

When the first of us began to crawl out of the barracks, it was already midday. Half an hour later, we grabbed our pots and gathered at the “squeaker” dear to our hearts, which smelled of something rich and tasty. Of course, the first in line were those who always had the biggest appetite: short Albert Kropp, the brightest head in our company and, probably for this reason, only recently promoted to corporal; Muller the Fifth, who still carries textbooks with him and dreams of passing preferential exams: under hurricane fire, he crams the laws of physics; Leer, who wears a thick beard and has a weakness for girls from brothels for officers: he swears that there is an order in the army obliging these girls to wear silk underwear, and to take a bath before receiving visitors with the rank of captain and above; the fourth is me, Paul Bäumer. All four were nineteen years old, all four went to the front from the same class.

Immediately behind us are our friends: Tjaden, a mechanic, a frail young man of the same age as us, the most gluttonous soldier in the company - for food he sits down thin and slender, and after eating, he stands up pot-bellied, like a sucked bug; Haye Westhus, also our age, a peat worker who can freely take a loaf of bread in his hand and ask: “Well, guess what’s in my fist?”; Detering, a peasant who thinks only about his farm and his wife; and, finally, Stanislav Katchinsky, the soul of our squad, a man with character, smart and cunning - he is forty years old, he has a sallow face, blue eyes, sloping shoulders and an extraordinary sense of smell about when the shelling will begin, where you can get food and how It's best to hide from your superiors.

Our section headed the line that formed near the kitchen. We began to get impatient as the unsuspecting cook was still waiting for something.

Finally Katchinsky shouted to him:

- Well, open up your glutton, Heinrich! And so you can see that the beans are cooked!

The cook shook his head sleepily:

- Let everyone gather first.

Tjaden grinned:

- And we are all here!

The cook still didn't notice anything:

- Hold your pocket wider! Where are the others?

- They are not on your payroll today! Some are in the infirmary, and some are in the ground!

Upon learning of what had happened, the kitchen god was struck down. He was even shaken:

- And I cooked for a hundred and fifty people!

Kropp poked him in the side with his fist.

“That means we’ll eat our fill at least once.” Come on, start the distribution!

At that moment, a sudden thought struck Tjaden. His face, sharp as a mouse, lit up, his eyes squinted slyly, his cheekbones began to play, and he came closer:

- Heinrich, my friend, so you got bread for a hundred and fifty people?

The dumbfounded cook nodded absently.

Tjaden grabbed him by the chest:

- And sausage too?

The cook nodded again with his head as purple as a tomato. Tjaden's jaw dropped:

- And tobacco?

- Well, yes, that's it.

Tjaden turned to us, his face beaming:

- Damn it, that's lucky! After all, now everything will go to us! It will be - just wait! – that’s right, exactly two servings per nose!

But then the Tomato came to life again and said:

- It won’t work that way.

Now we, too, shook off our sleep and squeezed closer.

- Hey, carrot, why won’t it work? – asked Katchinsky.

- Yes, because eighty is not one hundred and fifty!

“But we’ll show you how to do it,” Muller grumbled.

“You’ll get the soup, so be it, but I’ll give you bread and sausage only for eighty,” Tomato continued to persist.

Katchinsky lost his temper:

“I wish I could send you to the front line just once!” You received food not for eighty people, but for the second company, that’s it. And you will give them away! The second company is us.

We took Pomodoro into circulation. Everyone disliked him: more than once, through his fault, lunch or dinner ended up in our trenches cold, very late, since even with the most insignificant fire he did not dare to move closer with his cauldron and our food bearers had to crawl much further than their brothers from other mouths. Here is Bulke from the first company, he was much better. Even though he was fat as a hamster, if necessary, he dragged his kitchen almost to the very front.

We were in a very belligerent mood, and, probably, things would have come to a fight if the company commander had not appeared at the scene. Having learned what we were arguing about, he only said:

- Yes, yesterday we had big losses...

Then he looked into the cauldron:

– And the beans seem to be quite good.

The tomato nodded:

- With lard and beef.

The lieutenant looked at us. He understood what we were thinking. In general, he understood a lot - after all, he himself came from our midst: he came to the company as a non-commissioned officer. He lifted the lid of the cauldron again and sniffed. As he left, he said:

- Bring me a plate too. And distribute portions for everyone. Why should good things disappear?

In the preface of the novel he writes: “This book is not an accusation or a confession. This is just an attempt to tell about the generation that was destroyed by the war, about those who became its victims, even if they escaped from the shells.” The title of the work is taken from German reports on the progress of military operations during the First World War, that is, on Western Front.

About the book and author

In his book, Remarque describes a man at war. He reveals to us this important and difficult topic, which has been touched upon many times in classical literature. The writer brought his tragic experience " lost generation” and suggested looking at the war through the eyes of a soldier.

The book brought the author worldwide fame. She opened the initial stage of the long-term success of Remarque's novels. Reading a writer’s works is like turning over pages from the history of the twentieth century. His trench truth has stood the test of time and withstood two wars; his thoughts are still a lesson for future generations of readers.

The plot of "All Quiet on the Western Front"

The main characters of the novel are young guys who just yesterday were sitting at school desks. They, like Remarque himself, went to war as volunteers. The boys fell for the bait of school propaganda, but upon arrival at the front everything fell into place, and the war seemed more like an opportunity to serve the homeland, and was the most ordinary massacre, where there is no place for humanity and heroism. The main task is not so much to live and fight, but to escape from a bullet, to survive in any situation.

Remarque does not try to justify all the horrors of war. He just draws for us real life soldier. Even the smallest details like pain, death, blood, dirt do not escape us. The war is before us through our eyes common man, for whom all ideals collapse in the face of death.

Why should you read All Quiet on the Western Front?

Let us immediately note that this is not the Remarque that you may be familiar with from books such as, and. First of all, this is a war novel, which describes the tragedy of war. It lacks simplicity and grandeur, characteristic of creativity Remark.

Remarque's attitude towards war is a little wiser and deeper than that of many party theorists: for him, war is horror, disgust, fear. However, he also recognizes its fatal nature, that it will forever remain in the history of mankind, since it managed to take root in past centuries.

Main themes:

• partnership;
• the meaninglessness of war;
• destructive power of ideology.

Start online and you will understand how people who lived at that time felt. In those terrible years, the war not only divided peoples, it severed the internal connection between parents and their children. While the former made speeches and wrote articles about heroism, the latter went through the pangs of fear and died from wounds.

Im Westen nichts Neues
Cover of the first edition of the novel All Quiet on the Western Front
	Erich Maria Remarque
Genre :
Original language:	German
Original published:

"All Quiet on the Western Front"(German) Im Westen nichts Neues) - famous novel Erich Maria Remarque, published in 1929. In the preface the author says: “This book is neither an accusation nor a confession. This is only an attempt to tell about the generation that was destroyed by the war, about those who became its victims, even if they escaped from the shells.”

The anti-war novel tells about all the experiences seen at the front by the young soldier Paul Bäumer, as well as his front-line comrades in the First World War. Like Ernest Hemingway, Remarque used the concept of “lost generation” to describe young people who, due to mental trauma they received in the war, were unable to find employment in civil life. Remarque's work thus stood in sharp contradiction with the right-wing conservative military literature, which prevailed during the era of the Weimar Republic, which, as a rule, tried to justify the war lost by Germany and glorify its soldiers.

Remarque describes the events of the war from the perspective of a simple soldier.

History of creation

The writer offered his manuscript “All Quiet on the Western Front” to the most authoritative and famous publisher in the Weimar Republic, Samuel Fischer. Fisher confirmed the high literary quality of the text, but refused publication on the grounds that in 1928 no one would want to read a book about the First World War. Fischer later admitted that this was one of the most significant mistakes of his career.

Following the advice of his friend, Remarque brought the text of the novel to the publishing house Haus Ullstein, where, by order of the company's management, it was accepted for publication. On August 29, 1928, a contract was signed. But the publisher was also not entirely sure that such a specific novel about the First World War would be a success. The contract contained a clause according to which, if the novel was not successful, the author must work off the costs of publication as a journalist. To be on the safe side, the publishing house provided advance copies of the novel to various categories of readers, including veterans of the First World War. As a result of critical comments from readers and literary scholars, Remarque is urged to revise the text, especially some particularly critical statements about the war. Serious adjustments to the novel made by the author are indicated by a copy of the manuscript that was in New Yorker. For example, in latest edition The following text is missing:

We killed people and made war; we cannot forget about this, because we are at an age when thoughts and actions had the strongest connection with each other. We are not hypocrites, we are not timid, we are not burghers, we keep our eyes open and do not close our eyes. We don’t justify anything by necessity, idea, Motherland - we fought people and killed them, people we didn’t know and who did nothing to us; what will happen when we return to our previous relationships and confront people who interfere with us and hinder us?<…>What should we do with the goals that are offered to us? Only memories and my vacation days convinced me that the dual, artificial, invented order called “society” cannot calm us down and will not give us anything. We will remain isolated and we will grow, we will try; some will be quiet, while others will not want to part with their weapons.

Original text(German)

Wir haben Menschen getötet und Krieg geführt; Das ist für uns nicht zu vergessen, denn wir sind in dem Alter, wo Gedanke und Tat wohl die stärkste Beziehung zueinander haben. Wir sind nicht verlogen, nicht ängstlich, nicht bürgerglich, wir sehen mit beiden Augen und schließen sie nicht. Wir entschuldigen nichts mit Notwendigkeit, mit Ideen, mit Staatsgründen, wir haben Menschen bekämpft und getötet, die wir nicht kannten, die uns nichts taten; was wird geschehen, wenn wir zurückkommen in frühere Verhältnisse und Menschen gegenüberstehen, die uns hemmen, hinder und stützen wollen?<…>Was wollen wir mit diesen Zielen anfangen, die man uns bietet? Nur die Erinnerung und meine Urlaubstage haben mich schon überzeugt, daß die halbe, geflickte, künstliche Ordnung, die man Gesellschaft nennt, uns nicht beschwichtigen und umgreifen kann. Wir werden isoliert bleiben und aufwachsen, wir werden uns Mühe geben, manche werden still werden und manche die Waffen nicht weglegen wollen.

Translation by Mikhail Matveev

Finally, in the fall of 1928, final version manuscripts. November 8, 1928, on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the armistice, Berlin newspaper "Vossische Zeitung", part of the Haus Ullstein concern, publishes a “preliminary text” of the novel. The author of “All Quiet on the Western Front” appears to the reader as an ordinary soldier, without any literary experience, who describes his experiences of the war in order to “speak out” and free himself from mental trauma. introduction for publication was as follows:

Vossische Zeitung feels “obligated” to open this “authentic”, free and thus “genuine” documentary account of the war.

Original text(German)

Die Vossische Zeitung fühle sich „verpflichtet“, diesen „authentischen“, tendenzlosen und damit „wahren“ dokumentarischen über den Krieg zu veröffentlichen.

Translation by Mikhail Matveev

This is how the legend about the origin of the novel’s text and its author arose. On November 10, 1928, excerpts of the novel began to be published in the newspaper. The success exceeded the wildest expectations of the Haus Ullstein concern - the newspaper's circulation increased several times, people came to the editorial office great amount letters from readers admiring this “unvarnished portrayal of war.”

At the time of the book's release on January 29, 1929, there were approximately 30,000 pre-orders, which forced the concern to print the novel in several printing houses at once. All Quiet on the Western Front became Germany's best-selling book of all time. As of May 7, 1929, 500 thousand copies of the book had been published. The book version of the novel was published in 1929, after which it was translated into 26 languages, including Russian, in the same year. The most famous translation into Russian is by Yuri Afonkin.

Main characters

Paul Beumer - main character, on whose behalf the story is told. At the age of 19, Paul was voluntarily drafted (like his entire class) into the German army and sent to the Western Front, where he had to face the harsh realities of military life. Killed in October 1918.

Albert Kropp- Paul’s classmate, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “short Albert Kropp is the brightest head in our company.” Lost my leg. Was sent to the rear.

Muller the Fifth- Paul’s classmate, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “... still carries textbooks with him and dreams of passing preferential exams; under hurricane fire he crams the laws of physics.” He was killed by a flare that hit him in the stomach.

Leer- Paul’s classmate, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “wears a thick beard and has a weakness for girls.” The same fragment that tore off Bertinka’s chin rips open Leer’s thigh. Dies from loss of blood.

Franz Kemmerich- Paul’s classmate, who served with him in the same company. At the very beginning of the novel, he is seriously injured, leading to the amputation of his leg. A few days after the operation, Kemmerich dies.

Joseph Boehm- Beumer's classmate. Bem was the only one from the class who did not want to volunteer for the army, despite Kantorek's patriotic speeches. However, under the influence of his class teacher and loved ones, he enlisted in the army. Bem was one of the first to die, two months before the official draft deadline.

Stanislav Katchinsky (Kat)- served with Beumer in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “the soul of our squad, a man with character, smart and cunning - he is forty years old, he has a sallow face, blue eyes, sloping shoulders and an extraordinary nose for when the shelling will begin, where he can to get hold of food and how best to hide from the authorities.” Using the example of Katchinsky, the difference between adult soldiers who have a large life experience, and young soldiers for whom war is their whole life. He was wounded in the leg, shattering the tibia. Paul managed to take him to the orderlies, but on the way Kat was wounded in the head and died.

Tjaden- one of Bäumer’s non-school friends, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “a mechanic, a frail young man of the same age as us, the most gluttonous soldier in the company - he sits down for food thin and slender, and after eating, he stands up pot-bellied like a sucked bug.” Has urinary system disorders, which is why he sometimes pees in his sleep. His fate is not exactly known. Most likely, he survived the war and married the daughter of the owner of a horse meat store. But he may have died shortly before the end of the war.

Haye Westhus- one of Bäumer’s friends, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “our peer, a peat worker, who can freely take a loaf of bread in his hand and ask, “Well, guess what’s in my fist?” Tall, strong, not particularly smart, but a young man with a good sense of humor was carried out from under the fire with a torn back.

Detering- one of Bäumer’s non-school friends, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “a peasant who thinks only about his farm and his wife.” Deserted to Germany. Was caught. Further fate unknown.

Kantorek - classroom teacher Paul, Leer, Müller, Kropp, Kemmerich and Boehm. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “strict small man in a gray frock coat, with a face like a mouse.” Kantorek was an ardent supporter of the war and encouraged all his students to volunteer for the war. Later he volunteered himself. Further fate is unknown.

Bertink- Paul's company commander. Treats his subordinates well and is loved by them. Paul describes him as follows: “a real front-line soldier, one of those officers who are always ahead of any obstacle.” While saving the company from a flamethrower, he received a through wound in the chest. My chin was torn off by a shrapnel. Dies in the same battle.

Himmelstoss- commander of the department in which Bäumer and his friends underwent military training. Paul describes him as follows: “He was reputed to be the most ferocious tyrant in our barracks and was proud of it. A small, stocky man who had served for twelve years, with a bright red, curled mustache, a former postman.” He was especially cruel to Kropp, Tjaden, Bäumer and Westhus. Later he was sent to the front to Paul's company, where he tried to make amends.

Joseph Hamacher- one of the patients of the Catholic hospital in which Paul Beumer and Albert Kropp were temporarily housed. He is well versed in the work of the hospital, and, in addition, has “absolution of sins.” This certificate, issued to him after being shot in the head, confirms that at times he is insane. However, Hamacher is psychologically completely healthy, and uses the evidence to his advantage.

Film adaptations

• The work has been filmed several times.
• American film No change on the Western Front() director Lewis Milestone received an Oscar.
• In 1979, director Delbert Mann made a television version of the film. No change on the Western Front.
• In 1983 famous singer Elton John wrote an anti-war song of the same name that relates to the film.
• Film .

Soviet writer Nikolai Brykin wrote a novel about the First World War (1975), entitled " Changes on the Eastern Front».

Links

• Im Westen nichts Neues on German in the philologist's library E-Lingvo.net
• All Quiet on the Western Front in the Maxim Moshkov Library

Erich Maria Remarque
Novels	Dream Gam Shelter Station on the horizon No change on the Western Front The Return of Three Comrades Love Thy Neighbor Arc de Triomphe The Spark of Life A Time to Live and a Time to Die The Black Obelisk Life on Borrow A Night in Lisbon Shadows in Paradise
Stories	The Enemy Silence Around Verdun Karl Breger in Fleury Joseph's Wife Annette's Love Story The Strange Fate of Johann Bartok
Collections of stories, essays, letters, plays	The last act Last stop Be vigilant The eye as an active tempter Significant and minor ironic moments in my life. Interview with yourself Episodes at the desk Tell me that you love me...
Film adaptations	Flotsam All Quiet on the Western Front The Way Back Three Comrades This is how our night ends Another love Triumphal Arch Iron curtain The last act A time to love and a time to die From the ashes The longest day Night in Lisbon Bobby Deerfield Quiet on the Western Front Arc de Triomphe The Black Obelisk Blood and Iron: the History of the German war machine Flowers from the winners The Third Reich in color All Quiet on the Western Front

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See what “All Quiet on the Western Front” is in other dictionaries: No change on the Western Front - From German: Im Westen nichts Neues. Russian translation (translator Yu. N. Lfonkina) of the title of the novel German writer Erich Maria Remarque (1898 1970) about the First World War. This phrase was often found in German reports from the theater of war...

Dictionary of popular words and expressions In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, one of the most characteristic works

Erich Maria Remarque

literature of the “lost generation”, Remarque depicted everyday life at the front, which preserved for the soldiers only elementary forms of solidarity, uniting them in the face of death.

No change on the Western Front

This book is neither an accusation nor a confession. This is only an attempt to tell about the generation that was destroyed by the war, about those who became its victims, even if they escaped from the shells.

We are standing nine kilometers from the front line. Yesterday we were replaced; Now our stomachs are full of beans and meat, and we all walk around full and satisfied. Even for dinner, everyone got a full pot; In addition, we get a double portion of bread and sausage - in a word, we live well. This hasn’t happened to us for a long time: our kitchen god with his crimson, like a tomato, bald head himself offers us more food; he waves the ladle, inviting passers-by, and pours out hefty portions to them. He still won’t empty his “squeaker,” and this drives him into despair. Tjaden and Müller obtained several basins from somewhere and filled them to the brim - in reserve. Tjaden did it out of gluttony, Müller out of caution. Where everything that Tjaden eats goes is a mystery to all of us. He still remains as skinny as a herring.

But the most important thing is that the smoke was also given out in double portions. Each person had ten cigars, twenty cigarettes and two bars of chewing tobacco. Overall, pretty decent. I exchanged Katchinsky’s cigarettes for my tobacco, so now I have forty in total. You can last one day.

But, strictly speaking, we are not entitled to all this at all. The management is not capable of such generosity. We were just lucky.

Two weeks ago we were sent to the front line to relieve another unit. It was quite calm in our area, so by the day of our return the captain received allowances according to the usual distribution and ordered to cook for a company of one hundred and fifty people. But just on the last day, the British suddenly brought up their heavy “meat grinders”, most unpleasant things, and beat them on our trenches for so long that we suffered heavy losses, and only eighty people returned from the front line.

We arrived at the rear at night and immediately stretched out on our bunks to first get a good night's sleep; Katchinsky is right: the war would not be so bad if only one could sleep more. You never get much sleep on the front line, and two weeks drag on for a long time.

When the first of us began to crawl out of the barracks, it was already midday. Half an hour later, we grabbed our pots and gathered at the “squeaker” dear to our hearts, which smelled of something rich and tasty. Of course, the first in line were those who always had the biggest appetite: short Albert Kropp, the brightest head in our company and, probably for this reason, only recently promoted to corporal; Muller the Fifth, who still carries textbooks with him and dreams of passing preferential exams; under hurricane fire he crams the laws of physics; Leer, who wears a full beard and has a weakness for girls from brothels for officers; he swears that there is an army order obliging these girls to wear silk underwear, and to take a bath before receiving visitors with the rank of captain and above; the fourth is me, Paul Bäumer. All four were nineteen years old, all four went to the front from the same class.

Immediately behind us are our friends: Tjaden, a mechanic, a frail young man of the same age as us, the most gluttonous soldier in the company - for food he sits thin and slender, and after eating, he stands up pot-bellied, like a sucked bug; Haye Westhus, also our age, a peat worker who can freely take a loaf of bread in his hand and ask: “Well, guess what’s in my fist?”; Detering, a peasant who thinks only about his farm and his wife; and, finally, Stanislav Katchinsky, the soul of our squad, a man with character, smart and cunning - he is forty years old, he has a sallow face, blue eyes, sloping shoulders, and an extraordinary sense of smell about when the shelling will begin, where he can get hold of food and What's the best way to hide from your boss?

Erich Maria Remarque is not just a name, it is an entire generation of writers of the 20th century. Enlisted in the ranks of "", the writer, probably like no one else in the world, drew a line of unprecedented width between peaceful life and war. Sadness and hopelessness caused by the war, like a red thread, run through all of Remarque’s works, and each of his A new book seems to be a continuation of the previous one, thereby blurring the line between them, but there is one work on which I would like to place special emphasis. This great novel"No change on the Western Front."

The monstrous and shocking events that took place in the first half of the 20th century became a tangible impetus for the appearance of a number of works dedicated to anti-war movements and calls to lay down arms. Along with such high-profile novels as "" by Ernest Hemingway, "Death of a Hero" by Richard Aldington and many others, we have no right to ignore "All Quiet on the Western Front."

The history of the creation of the novel is very interesting. Being one of the first works by Remarque, “All Quiet on the Western Front” largely predetermined the further, including creative, fate of the writer. The fact is that Remarque published his anti-war novel in 1929 in Germany, a country that was in a kind of transitional stage between the two world wars. On the one hand, the country that lost the First World War, was defeated, was in a serious crisis, but on the other hand, revanchist ideas were glowing in the minds of the population, and therefore pro-war sentiments were revived with renewed vigor. Before the Nazis came to power, Remarque's novel gained universal recognition for its author, which, to a certain extent, became a real revelation. After the establishment of the Nazi regime, the writer’s work was banned, his book was publicly burned, and the writer himself was forced to leave the aisles of his beloved and once native land. The writer's departure allowed him some freethinking, which cannot be said about his sister, who remained in Germany. In 1943, she was sentenced to death for "unpatriotic statements."

Remarque said about his novel that this is not an attempt to justify himself to the public, that his book does not act as a confession to the millions of victims who died during the conflict. Thus, he is only trying to show the situation from the inside, as an eyewitness and direct participant in the hostilities. Everyone knows that the writer took part in hostilities, so he was familiar with all the horrors firsthand. This is probably why his book is filled with such realistic and sad events. Remarque's hero does not look like a typical American savior, a worn-out image of Superman. His hero does not kill enemies in droves, he does not rush into battle first with a sword drawn, on the contrary, he is a completely down-to-earth person with an instinct for self-preservation, who is essentially no different from hundreds and thousands of other soldiers of the same kind. Realism also lies in the fact that we do not see pictures that are pleasing to the eye happy ending or miraculous salvation acting characters. This ordinary story ordinary soldiers who fell into the meat grinder of war; there is no need to think anything out, it is enough to just tell without embellishment how everything really happened. And in this regard, for the reader who historically adheres to differences from the Germans political views, it will be doubly interesting to observe what the soldiers felt and how they lived on the other side of the barricades.

All Quiet on the Western Front is largely an autobiographical novel. The main character, on whose behalf the story is told, is named Paul. It is noteworthy that the writer’s birth name was Erich Paul Remarque, and later took the pseudonym Erich Maria Remarque. It is safe to say that Paul in “All Quiet on the Western Front” is Remarque himself, with the only difference being that the writer managed to return from the front alive. While still a schoolboy, Paul, along with his classmates, was overtaken by wartime, and as mentioned above, war sentiment reigned in the country and young man in the prime of life, it was not appropriate to sit at home, therefore, out of duty, everyone was supposed to go to the front along with other volunteers, otherwise constant sidelong glances from the outside would be ensured. Paul, side by side with his school friends, volunteers to join the army and sees with his own eyes all the fear and horror that is happening. Arriving at the front as a yellow-throated chick, after a short time, the surviving comrades meet the new arrivals already at the rank of experienced fighters, who have seen the death of their brothers-in-arms and the hardships of war. One by one, the war, like a sickle cutting off young ears of corn, mowed down former comrades. The scene of a dinner in a village burning from shelling looks like a real feast during the plague, and the height of all the recklessness and senselessness of the war was the episode in which Paul carries away his wounded comrade from under fire, but upon reaching a protected place, he turns out to be dead. Fate did not spare Paul himself!

We can debate for a very long time about who is right and who is wrong in that war; and whether we could have avoided it altogether. But it is worth understanding that each side fought for its own beliefs, even if it is difficult for us to understand, and most importantly, accept the ideals of the other side. But in that war the same ordinary soldiers fought, driven forward by obese generals. One of the characters in All Quiet on the Western Front, Kropp, said: “Let the generals fight themselves, and the winner will declare his country the winner.” And it’s true, it would be fun if kings, kings or generals fought themselves, risking life and health. Such wars hardly lasted long, if at all they lasted even one day!