On this Day the great war ended on the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. A war that had no right to consume the whole world into war but it did and it radically changed the political and economic climate of the world. It set the seeds for world war 2 to start and brought the collapse of three empires which we still are dealing with the fallout today.  The book All quiet on the western front is one of the greatest books written of all time and it has had many movies since the book was first published in 1929 the latest edition was made by Edward Berger and it is the first all quiet on the western front to be in german out of the past two which were both released in English.

The movie follows a group of four friends who enlisted in the war because their entire class went off to fight, some even faking their age. They believe that the war would be over in a couple of months even though the war has been going on for three years already and that the war is a gentleman’s war which it is not. There have been lies from their teachers and the government. It shows what the war was really like and the ceasefire that ended the fighting. The main character out of the four friends is paul Baumer and when they make it into the trenches they meet veterans Kat and Tjaden who show them h

ow to survive the trenches. It also shows the real story of Matthias Erzberger who spoke against world war I and signed the armistice between Germany and the allied powers. The rest of the movie follows what happened to this group of friends in the last three days of the war.

Some history about the book and the other movies that were made. When the first movie came out in 1930 and was produced in Hollywood even though it was the point of view of the enemy of the allies it was popular with veterans of the first world war it didn’t matter if you were french, german or American the book showed what soldiers experienced and the movie to a great extent showed the people what war was really like. After the war, the public lost interest in what the war was like and it was kinda a social taboo to talk about it back then. The book was banned by nazi german because Hitler hated the anti-war message the book had and it was burned in book burnings. 

The writer is named Erich Maria Remarque he was drafted in world war 1 as a german combat engineer and was wounded multiple times the last time at Passchendaele also known as the third battle of Ypres a battle characterized by the mud soldiers would often drown in and the destroyed city of Ypres and surrounding forest of Passchendaele. He lived in Germany until he was condemnation by the nazi party for being unpatriotic and moved to Switzerland and later the united states where he made many more movies and wrote many more books. 

This movie just left me thinking for 30 minutes after I watched it just captures the brutal and blunt experience of the soldiers that fought in the great war. The story is just compelling and you can stop relating to those charters. It is an incredible perspective of a soldier and the toll war takes on a human being. But I hope with this article people will watch the new Netflix movie or read classic novels which you can pick up at the school library.