ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT by Erich Maria Remarque

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I have purchased this title to read for my personal enjoyment.

German teenager Paul Baumer tells his first person tale of enlisting into the German army with classmates and fighting on the western front in WW1. Baumer’s account, which is loosely auto-biographical based on the author’s own army service, is most memorable in a couple of ways. First, the moving emotional transformation of young soldiers during the war years from patriotic, energetic and optimistic to beaten, fatalistic and disillusioned. Second, the author’s use of short, declarative sentences paints intense images of battlefield death and misery that will not soon be forgotten. This title is familiar to millions from high school English class, when instructors offered their subtle insights to teach us that war is not to be glorified. The book was condemned and outlawed by the Nazis as inconsistent with the German spirit. No doubt it was antithetical to Nazi thinking and, for that reason alone, should continue to be read by generation after generation.