Himmelstoss: A German Soldier

These boys were motivated by nationalism and false propaganda about the heroic nature of the war. As they began to understand the uselessness of the soldiers’ sacrifices, Paul’s comrades develop a bitterness towards the system. Especially after seeing their German leader, they question the government's intentions. Their innocence was manipulated to benefit political officials with no consideration for each individual life that is affected by the war.

Heinrich Himmler was born October 7, 1900; He was a German politician, police administration, and military commander. He grew up in a comfortable and conservative Roman Catholic and middle class family. Himmler got his high school degree and got his degree in agriculture at the institute at the Institute of Technology in Munch. He was married to Margerete Boden and he had one daughter. Growing up he had suffered from health problems, including lung infections, typhoid fever and chronic gastrointestinal ailments.

They all laugh saying that they are now old folk. The significance of Kemmerich death is that Paul loses a close friend, he watches as Kemmerich dies in pain because the doctor would not amputee Kemmerich. 3)

During the war, Paul sees that his friends die or get injured. Kemmerich is the first of Paul’s friend to lose their leg in the battle. Paul notices that Kemmerich did not feel that his leg was amputated. Paul remembers Kemmerich as a childhood friend before they had signed up for the army. Paul finds Kemmerich dead after he tries to find a doctor to cure Kemmerich. After Kemmerich’s death, many of Paul’s friends died near the end of the war. Kropp’s leg is also amputated like Kemmerich when he was shot after running away from a battle with Paul. Kropp soon dies afterward after getting a fever from the wound. Paul finds out that another friend, Müller, dies after being shot in the stomach. Müller gives everything away before he dies, including the boots that Kemmerich gave Paul to give to Müller. Paul says that he would give the boot to Tjaden when his time is up. The next person to die is Company Commander Bertinck; he died after being shot in the chest. After Bertinck death, another friend of Paul named Leer is shot in the arm and later dies of eternal bleeding. Many of Paul’s friends also died from the lack of foods and supplies. One of his oldest and closest friends, Katczinsky, is also wounded during the battle. When Katczinsky was wounded, Paul tries to carry Katczinsky all the way back to safety. When he makes it back to

The young men at the front had a distant relationship that seemed to grow as the war went on. The men that fought at the front became alienated through all of the gruesome scenes they encountered and the problems they faced daily. After just two weeks of battle only half of the men that went to battle with Paul remained at the battle front. Paul along with all of the other soldiers at the front had to see their “brothers” shot and killed or wounded while fighting right by their side. Paul

Paul thinks, “Wearily I stand up and look out of the window. Then I take one of the books, intending to read, and turn over the leaves. But I put it away and take out another. There are passages in it that have been marked. I look, turn over the pages, take up freshbooks. Already they are piled up beside me. Speedily more join the heap, papers, magazines, letters. I stand there dumb. As before a judge. Dejected. Words, Words, Words--they do not reach me. Slowly I place the books back in the shelves. Nevermore” (173). Remarque places emphasis on the inhumanity and loss of innocence of the men and how minute their lives were. Franz Kemmerich, one of the many men whose life is sacrificed for his country, has a pair of boot that everyone covets, Muller is one of them. When Muller asks Kemmerich for the boots Paul is astonished at his brazenness he regards the situation as such, “Though Müller would be delighted to have Kemmerich's boots, he is really quite as sympathetic as another who could not bear to think of such a thing for grief. He merely sees things clearly. Were Kemmerich able

As Paul’s story progresses, one by one, he watches all of his friends die. The friendly farmer Detering is driven mad by homesickness and is caught as a deserter and convicted by marshal court. Muller is fatally shot in the stomach during a battle and dies a slow and painful death. He gifts the boots given to him by Kemmerich to Paul. Leer dies after bleeding out from a deep wound in his thigh. Eventually only Paul and Katczinsky as the last two surviving friends. However Kat receives a severe injury to his shin and Paul must carry him to safety. Paul makes it to a triage station only to discover that Kat, whom he had been carrying on his back, had been hit in the head and killed by a piece of shrapnel along the way. His final friend in the entire world was dead. Though parting from his friends was “very hard”, Paul remarks that “a man gets used to that sort of thing in the army” (Remarque 269).

Paul’s unit is forced to go on a wire-laying mission. They are bombed, and lose many recruits on their return to camp. When they return, they learn that Paul and his classmates’ former drill sergeant, Himmelstoss, has come to join them in the fight. As he goes to order his former pupils, two of Paul’s accomplices, Tjaden and Kropp, insult him. They go to military court and are sentenced to two days of jail time, in the camp’s makeshift jail.

Yet another example of the brutalization and dehumanization of the soldiers caused by the war occurs during Paul’s leave. On leave, Paul decides to visit his hometown. While there, he finds it difficult to discuss the war and his experiences with anyone. Furthermore, Paul struggles to fit in at home: “I breathe deeply and say over to myself:– ‘You are at home, you are at home.’ But a sense of strangeness will not leave me; I cannot feel at home amongst these things. There is my mother, there is my sister, there my case of butterflies, and there the mahogany piano – but I am not myself there. There is a distance, a

Many of Paul's fellow army men do not survive. After the loss of Paul's closest friends,

Paul was a young man. He was getting a teacher’s education. He was a good student and a wonderful sportsman. He lived with his mother, Mrs Burgess, in Belfast. She was quite unsociable and reserved. The first five years of his life Paul had spent in the North of England. He had very good relations with his father, Rees; they loved to spend time together. Later his family moved to Wortley. When they lived there, his father died because of a railway accident. Soon after

When one thinks of the most evil and powerful person through history, one often thinks of Adolf Hitler. However, most of the feats accomplished by Hitler would have been impossible without the help of his lesser known right-hand man, Heinrich Himmler. Deemed “the second most powerful man in Germany during World War II” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), he helped Hitler carry out his brutal genocide of the Jewish religion. Heinrich Himmler played an extremely important role in the Holocaust.

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Erwin Rommel was one of Germany’s greatest commanders. Born in Heidenheim, Germany, on 15 November 1891, Erwin Rommel was referred to as "the People 's Marshal" by his countrymen. Having a long career in the military, he began his service in World War I, where he cut his teeth in combat as a young infantry officer. Over his career, Rommel received several nicknames, none more famous than “The Desert Fox”, given to him by the British soldier he fought against in the deserts of Africa during World War II.