German soldiers fought the Führer’s ideological war. Hitler wanted the German race to take over the world. Heinrich Bölls book, And Where Were You, Adam?, describes several soldiers and their lives at the end of World War II. In the chaos of war, they found various reasons to capitulate with the Holocaust and other atrocities, but at the same time, tried to find some normalcy and sanity in an insane situation. Just as other warriors in other wars, they were humans who found themselves in an inhuman situation. They were concerned with the defense of their homeland, family, and future. They were not monsters, but men serving under monstrous leaders and nefarious conditions. Germans foot soldiers went to war for several reasons such as German pride, honor, and love of the fatherland. Personal recognition and medals were important to many. The fever of a new and stronger Germany swept up the soldiers and it was their duty to serve the Reich. They took an oath of allegiance to Hitler (Spielvogel 118). Nazis indoctrinated new recruits with their philosophy. Soldiers did not realize the wickedness that lay ahead. Once in the midst of war, however, Germans became disillusioned and frightened. Some thought of home and loved ones while other worried their link to past war crimes and rule violations. Many soldiers waited for the inevitable surrender and others committed suicide. The war took the lives of many brave Germans without the achievement of
The readers of the article “Liberating the First Nazi Camp,” an interview with Jim Martin, WWII veteran will begin to understand the personal hardships that service members experienced through the war. In the given article the reader can begin to see just how bad the conditions where for people that opposed the Third Reich, and where thrown into these concentration camps. The interview also show the haste that the Nazis would get into when the Allied forces, leaving helpless victims in the gas chambers, hastily executing them via machine gun, and even storing the remains in warehouse to be disposed of at a later time. The article also shows a more human side of the rough and tough solider who literally had to do this depressing job every single
Imagine you’re lying on the muddy, damp Earth and all around you can hear the screams of people you know dying. Shells explode, bullets race through the air, and poisonous gas seeps around you, all with the intent to harm you in some way. Yet, you willingly put yourself in that position day after day, year after year. The question surrounding this situation is, why? Who would be masochistic enough to choose to put their lives in danger and live in the most perilous environment possible? Two very different books give us insight into the thoughts of the soldiers who continuously put themselves in these environments. Your Death Would Be Mine by Martha Hanna and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque lets us into the minds of Paul Pireaud and Paul Baumer as they try to survive life as a soldier in the Great War. I argue that Pireaud and Baumer had very different reasons for continuing to fight despite having suffered beyond belief. In this paper I will analyze how the varying degrees of patriotism, brotherhood, family life at home, and age affected how these two men endured the treacherous life on the front of World War I.
It’s no surprise that soldiers will more-than-likely never come home the same. Those who have not served do not often think of the torment and negative consequences that the soldiers who make it out of war face. Erich Remarque was someone who was able to take the torment that he faced after his experience in World War I and shed light on the brutality of war. Remarque was able to illustrate the psychological problems that was experienced by men in battle with his best-selling novel All Quiet on the Western Front (Hunt). The symbolism used in the classic anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front is significant not only for showing citizens the negative attributes of war, but also the mental, physical, and emotional impact that the vicious war had on the soldiers.
There is no doubt that when war occurs, every single human being is affected by it even if it is just a little. In the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front” written by Erich Maria Remarque, a group of teenage men, who also appear to by classmates, are in the German army of World War I because they have chosen to leave their adolescence at home and school for grown up work at the army. Throughout this fictional novel, they face many challenges that result in them not seeing each other ever again because of death. War affects individuals by leaving behind necessities such as education or jobs, not being able to watch over others such as their health, and injuries that soldiers receive while they are at war.
Through the soldiers’ experiences, the narrator shows only the dark side of human nature. Discuss.
The psychologist Sigmund Freud once said, “Because every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise; it forces the individual into situations that shame his manhood, obliging him to murder fellow men, against his will.” He initially stated this when he was corresponding with Albert Einstein via letter. This quote is also a great explanation of the events that take place during war that people chose to not recognise. War is terrible, and no matter how hard we try, nothing will change that. Erich Maria Remarque shows us that soldiers have endured dreadfully throughout World War I in his book “All Quiet on the Western Front”. The character in the book, Paul Baumer, endures through the tragedies of war with some of his old schoolmates as well as new comrades that he meets along the way. They survive through all of the tragedies together, but in the end, the war made them lose their friendships as well as their lives. The reality is that war comes with consequences while it destroys people, and there is nothing that will ever be able to change that. The book “All Quiet on the Western Front” shows how war comes destroys people's lives with its consequences through three of its themes: the importance of comradery, the loss of innocence, and the horrors and brutality of war.
Book Thief Author’s Craft Essay by Sydney Paunan World War II was one of the darkest periods of time in human history. This is a fact widely known and accepted by most people, and this era of history is studied very often in schools so the horrors of the past may be taught and not repeated. But how did this two-front war affect young German children? They were growing up in a wildly violent time whilst being told that the horrible crimes committed by their country were justified, though this view of the war is often overlooked. Though The Book Thief does not tell a true story, it is very possible that the events in the story were the reality for many young children growing up in Nazi Germany.
The glorified act of war is often staged in historical literature by idolizing the soldiers who partake in the event. Soldiers are made to seem intrepid, ruthless and muscular, each with a ceaseless desire to fight valiantly for their countries. Timothy Findley and Kurt Vonnegut discard this typical hero archetype in their anti-war novels by portraying the soldiers who fight in the war as the men they are, not as the templates of heroes they are expected to fit, in furtherance of strengthening their anti-war stances. Findley and Vonnegut illustrate their protagonists as a tragic hero and an anti-hero, respectively, in order to juxtapose the atrocities of war with the flawed humanness of man and to challenge the stereotypical image of a
Storm of Steel provides a memoir of the savagery and periods of beauty that Ernst Jünger’s experienced while serving the German army during the First World War. Though the account does not take a clear stand, it lacks any embedded emotional effects or horrors of the Great War that left so few soldiers who survived unaffected. Jünger is very straightforward and does remorse over any of his recollections. The darkness of the hallucinations Jünger reports to have experienced provides subtle anti-war sentiment. However, in light of the descriptive adventures he sought during the brief moments of peace, the darkness seems to be rationalized as a sacrifice any soldier would make for duty and honor in a vain attempt for his nation’s
World War 2 was an era characterized by crimes against humanity. Two first-hand accounts of these injustices are detailed in Night by Elie Weisel and Desert Exile by Yoshiko Uchida. Miles away from each other, the two faced similar experiences, one for religious and one for racial reasons. While Weisel’s experience was much more extreme, the physical and psychological effects seen in both situations are similar. When basic human rights are stripped away, the victims of such abuse are open to any number of physical and psychological effects, including loss of faith and emaciation. Weisel and Uchida were wrongfully taken from their homes and treated as if they were less of a person than their captors, and this left a permanent emotional
“Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul, and turned my dreams to ashes.” (Page 34, Night) World War II was a worldwide phenomenon full of death, despair, and destruction. The Nazis committed such terrible crimes with the aid of a psychological tool known as dehumanization. This was the act of taking the Jews identities as humans, and changing them to that of a small, worthless creature that was no more than a disturbance. Eliezer Wiesel, his father, and all of the other Jews were constantly dehumanized by tragedies throughout their time spent in Auschwitz. The consistent death and pain, concealing of all emotion, and loss of identity, all contributed to the deprivation of their humanity.
From 1939 through 1941 millions were faced with the violence and devastation of World War II. Life on the Homefront in the United States and Great Britain was difficult and overwhelming.World War II was one of the most bloody battles in history, and most of whom were civilians.In this paper, we will explore what life is like for people during a terrifying war.
In the opening remarks of the first chapter, Ernst Junger describes the idealistic origins of many of the soldiers called to action. Most of the soldiers drafted into the war were students and factory workers, all of whom lived a fairly sheltered life beforehand. Being drafted was seen as the adventure of a lifetime. They “shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary.” Much like his comrades, Junger had the same sense of adventure, seeing the war as merely a new challenge to conquer. After his first real experience with war however, his enthusiasm is quickly dashed. The harsh reality set in that this war was not, in fact, an adventure. Junger and the former schoolboys and craftsmen quickly learned that life in the trenches was a challenge of endurance. As the war persists, reality slowly sets in and Junger learns the true violent nature of the war and the constant threat of imminent danger through which he must persevere. Ernst Junger’s accounts in the memoir Storm of Steel show the reality of a soldier in World War I and the taxation of enduring such great trauma.
But these reasons weren't always this clear then as they are now. We can see this in the movie All’s Quiet on The Western Front when the young german soldiers are questioning who to blame for their presence in the war, and the struggles and loss they've gone through. But because of their outstanding nationalism towards their country, their enlistment unknowingly to them, will soon result in them becoming a casualty of
In this story, the narrator’s biggest problem is finding employment. Germans are unable to go into a profession that they find interest in, rather they are forced to make due in hard labor like “clearing rubble and carrying rocks” or other underpaid jobs (125). He describes how “there was a time when they used to say it was unnecessary [to have a profession], all we needed was soldiers. But now they say you have to have a profession” (125). With total war, all the German people work for the war effort, whether that was as a soldier or working in factories making weapons and other resources. It is very difficult for them not only to have a positive attitude towards their new ways of life in occupied Germany, but it is most difficult to believe that you may never go back to the Germany that existed prior to Nazi Germany. German identity may never exist again and it is obvious that many Germans regret what emerged between 1939 and