“All Quiet on the Western Front” Reflects the Postwar Mind

All Quiet on the Western Front is often praised for the way it faithfully captures not only the physical experi­ence of war, but the psychological bent of the young sol­diers who were caught up in its futile and alienating brutality. Modris Eksteins, professor of history at the University of Toronto, Canada, argues in the following viewpoint that it is more accurate to say that Remarque captured the postwar mind. After all, when Remarque wrote the novel, the war had been over for ten years. Remarque and other writers of his generation were fi­nally able to come to terms with the trauma the war had caused them, and Remarque, like a number of other writers, wrote the novel during this post-trauma time, not during the war. Consequently, it reflects post­war values, including the belief that World War I con­tributed immensely to the rootlessness of many of the people who survived it. Modris Eksteins has written extensively about Germany’s Weimar Republic and on war and its impact on civilization.

by Modris Eksteins
February 7, 2018

The simplicity and power of the theme—war as a demeaning and wholly destructive, indeed nihilistic, force—are made starkly effective by a style that is basic, even brutal. Brief scenes and short crisp sentences, in the first person and in the present tense, create an inescapable and gripping immediacy. There is no delicacy. The language is frequently rough, the images often gruesome. The novel has a consis­tency of style and purpose that Remarque’s earlier work had lacked and that little of his subsequent work would achieve.