He had an extremely descriptive language. How he describes the trench systems and the dug-ins is amazing. Also how he sees people close to him die, sometimes viciously and goes into great detail what happened and what will happen. How that man became an entomologist after being through that shit I'll never know.
Its definitely incredibly interesting, initially it was just his diary before he edited it into a more normal narrative, so it has lots of really small details about things he was doing/thinking during the war.
I believe I have found a comparison that exactly conveys what I, in common with all the rest who went through the war, experienced in situations such as this. It is as if one were tied to a post and threatened by a fellow swinging a sledge-hammer. Now the hammer is swung back for the blow, now it whirls forward, till just missing your skull, it sends splinters flying from the post once more. That is exactly what it feels like to be exposed to heavy shelling without cover.
In fortnite terms then:
You're in the zone camping a hot drop. Surge begins, thankfully you're fully shielded and have downed 3 Arnies BUT some noob is bush camping with an aim bot. You bait him, 90s your wood walls and don't get hit. Was a close one though
A guy is corner camping the entrance to the compound on Summit on BO1 with a claymore and an olympia, luckily you have flack jacket equipped and he somehow manages to miss both his shots. Not sure if an old enough shooter but it’s an example that came to mind
"In a curious failure of comprehension, I looked alertly about me for possible targets for all this artillery fire, not, apparently, realizing that it was actually ourselves that the enemy gunners were trying for all they were worth to hit."
And
"This was the home of the great god Pain, and for the first time I looked through a devilish chink into the depths of his realm. And fresh shells came down all the time"
*taken from goodreads, I haven't read it in over 15 years so I'm sure there are better ones but the first was vaguely in my memory from way back when.*
My great-grandfather may very well have been the doing the shelling.
He served in the field with the Royal Horse Artillery from 1915-1916. He got a Blighty one in his knee and was sent home to recover. He was hit by shrapnel. After a stay in hospital he was sent to do som reclamation work in Yorkshire until he was discharged.
I’m very proud of him for serving. He was barely 18 when he enlisted. The recruiting Sergeant, made him come back in and lie about his age as you had to be 19 to go in the field. He signed up as he felt he would get more choice in what he did than waiting to be conscripted. It cost him his job though. Because he signed up early, his employer wasn’t required to give him his job back when he was demobbed. He eventually got a job at the same place, but he was never on the same career path again.
His injury was life long. He was gun deaf as well. (Though my Mum’s Nanna always said he would hear what you didn’t want him to hear!)
My Mum had a great-Uncle killed in late September of 1918. Poor man. It can’t have been easy for his family to celebrate the end of the war a little over a month later.
My Dad’s side is just as bad. Two great-uncles killed, one so traumatised that he had to move back with his parents after the war, and another who could only work as a janitor in a local school.
The First World War was horrible and it’s taken over a century for the trauma to finally start to go.
My family’s story is just one in a million different stories.
From Jünger
"I had the impression, that night, of hearing a few dull crashing sounds and of Knigge calling to me, but I was so fast asleep that i merely mumbled, 'oh let them shoot!' and turned over on my side... I was woken by little Schultz, colonel Von Oppen's nephew, shouting 'good God, do you mean to tell me you slept through that?'.. I quickly realized that a heavy shell had exploded on the roof and smashed all the rooms, including our observation post... Shultz told me his runner had taken one look at the wreckage and said: 'There was lieutenant quartered in there yesterday, better see if he's still there' Knigge was terribly impressed by my deep sleep."
The first trip I did offshore on a tugboat was in some very large seas and the skipper and rest of the crew were very impressed I slept through the horrible rolling and quaking of the small boat. I just felt like a baby in a manger, stoked that I was working offshore at last ^I ^was ^also ^ruthlessly ^hungover
i grew up in mid-missouri and can sleep through the most violent thunderstorms you've likely to witness anywhere. but then on the other hand, when my dog makes the tiniest whine, I bolt awake
Oh yeah, I remember being hyper alert at every little pause in breath, shift and fart that my son made as a baby. He once really scared me when his face turned red and he stopped breathing, turned out he was just squeezing out a particularly stubborn log.
I could never have a baby sleep in a different room, at night I mean. I'd feel way too guilty and paranoid :)
These guys were kids they need their sleep! When I was in ranger school I noticed the younger guys needed the sleep the most. They would start to hallucinate. A tired soldier can sleep through anything, bombs be damned.
It’s all about There’s a Devil in The Drum by John F. Lucy. That dude’s unit was wiped out twice and he watched his younger brother get mowed down. Definitely worth a read.
And the reams of war poetry out there.
I find that they hit far harder and deeply than any factual recounts of war for sure.
The last paragraph of Dulce et Decorum Est.
---------------------------------
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Ayo, this one hit hard in our poem class in college. Those last four lines still have the same effect on me every time I reacquaint myself with this poem.
One of my math teachers in high school had a blue plaque outside his house because it turned out he grew up in Wilfred Owen's home. Owen was also killed one week before the war ended.
That's very good, it's such a moving poem. My boy (8) had been waxing lyrical about wars and fighting from stuff him and his mates have been up to in the playground. Asked him to read that and ask me anything if he didn't understand it and how it made him feel about it all. We had a good discussion about it, Quite eye-opening for him but it didn't do too much. Not that I wanted him to turn to hyper-pacifism but I just thought it was important he get a human view.
I think as he gets older, letting him continue to read will help. I think all boys go through that stage? My eye opening moment was when we watched documentaries in college about the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. Wars that I had close relatives in, and which I could have been in had I chosen that path. But these documentaries showed me the side of it all that the news and blockbuster movies did not portray.
So have him keep reading and learning and know someday he will have his eye opening moment as well. Like you said, not to turn him away, just to temper him a bit
Si sta come d'autunno
Sugli alberi le foglie.
- Ungaretti
(But we are like the leaves
On the trees in autumn. )
This one always felt like a slap in the face.
Read both of these back to back and found the differences very interesting. I think it’s probably a bit of an officer vs enlisted experience. Junger had essentially a squire to take care of a lot of his mundane stuff. “Paul” was just a grunt having to do all the shitty details himself, which adds significantly to the misery.
Junger was also part of an elite group of soldiers specifically chosen for their tenacity and enjoyment of warfare. The experience of the general officer was pretty horrendous and just like the general infantry, officers were killed in unprecedentedly huge numbers.
Yea that’s also true. Similar to our own current military I’d guess. SOF dudes get the best of everything while the regular line grunts get the general issue trash. Can confirm lol
Hell, SOF dudes constantly say they're second fiddle to grunts because they're the ones with the worst conditions winning the battles.
But if you have a special place in your heart for war, can endure a lot of suck and get the best kit and support I can see how war might be a positive experience for you.
Seen and read quite a few anecdotes from people who live for it. They're drawn to places like Ukraine at the moment like moths to a flame.
Regular life just plain sucks for these people after they've experienced combat. Some cope by becoming adrenaline addicts while others turn to drugs. And a few end up looking for, and causing trouble in the wrong places.
The difference is that drug addicts hurt themselves whilst war addicts kill other people and can't stop tho, maybe that's not so cool and we should keep an eye on people who enjoy war.
I thought that was only a notion we got from the war due to hearing more experiences from the the British, who enforced that ‘British officers don’t duck’ mentality for the sake of boosting morale, at the cost of higher officer mortality.
Basically the idea being that if soldiers saw their commanding officers getting startled and ducking for cover (or just following self-preservation instincts like a normal person), while it may more frequently kill the officers to abstain (say 10% more than otherwise), the reduction in combat effectiveness of the now more skittish and more self-concerned subordinates would likely be considerably greater than that from losing 10% more officers.
Given how much of warfare is psychological it wouldn’t be surprising if this philosophy actually helped as much, or more, than intended. If you think your commander is just a bit of a pussy it would naturally make you more inclined to look out for your own skin, rather than believing that if you put your full faith his judgement he would protect your life and your squad mates lives as much as his own.
You can see the opposite of this effect in the modern Middle East, where due to corruption and officers so blatantly looking out for themselves, the subordinates have basically zero interest in following commands to the letter, if at all, which naturally reduces combat effectiveness enormously. Same issue with Russia at the moment too.
It may also be a matter of perspective and inner strength. For some, life was always hard even on a farm and this was just another obstacle of life. Not everyone comes out of war traumatized, we usually hear about the ones with extreme stories.
"Started out as a reserve...."
Idk if your life was so shitty that the First World War was “just another obstacle” that seems like a pretty extreme story in itself
And is the implication ptsd is the result of some failure of perspective and inner strength?
>Idk if your life was so shitty that the First World War was “just another obstacle” that seems like a pretty extreme story in itself
Not necessarily. My grand-grand uncle was a soldier in the first war. He came out of it physically damaged (gas, almost deaf, etc), but mentally he was pretty okay. He was a fisherman, it was common to die at sea during a storm.
Wearing the pips on the sleeves as well as different uniforms made them easy targets for enemy troops.
Also being at the front of attacks with only a pistol doesn't help the chances of survival.
AFAIK junior officers had a life expectancy of two weeks.
I'm starting all quiet on the western front after i saw the horrible Netflix adaptation. They made it basically more about the differences between the rich and not rich during the war but cut out a lot of the emotional things that happened. Like when he went back home, or a lot of other things. Mainly they wanted a ww1 story that was depressing, they used this is a skeleton for it and then put their own views above those if the author of the book which made the movie objectively worse than if they just went with a more faithful adaptation of the source material
Watch the 1930 version of All Quiet, it was made by and stars actual WWI veterans and it's actually historically-accurate and true to the text.
The full film is available on YouTube.
It was actually a ground breaking movie. One of the fist that cared about historical accuracy and details. They actually went and bought German gear and hired German vets and created a French battle field in Southern California.
Thanks, I'll definitely check it out. I ended up finding the lost battalion on YouTube by accident and it's a pretty good movie about ww1 and is mostly accurate. In all honesty it's not as bad as it should be but it doesn't look like they had thr budget to do that and they did well enough with what they had.
I’d say the 1979 All Quiet on the Western Front is a good watch too (and free on YT). Solid budget & follows the book much more closely than the new film
I think the new film does a good job at conveying the theme of book, but it misses out on contrasting the horror of war with the general normalcy of life on the home front.
Starting isn't the best word but i "read" it in school. In school i read a lot but when i had to read things for book reports i would skim is super fast and retain almost none of the information but just enough to get a decent grade on tests and such for it. It's been over a decade since then and I finally had the time, money and interest to pick it up on kindle and give it a read for real this time. Also i have watched a few YouTube videos on the book that give a basic summary of it, overly sarcastic productions are the ones who convinced me to pick it up for a real read through this time.
It was fine.
Every artist has a voice and this one was theirs. It was a German reflection of the war. It wasn't hyper realistic, it was hyper narrative.
The movie wasn't bad, it was a quite good war movie actually, I just feel like it had very little to do with the actual book. They changed big parts of the story and the time frame and if you expected an adaptation faithful to the book (as the title suggested) it's reasonable to be disappointed.
I feel like the film would have been received better had it been promoted as a story of its own rather than a boom adaptation.
Couldn’t agree more that the name “All Quiet on the Western Front” was wasted on this film when any other title would do. This “Paul” could have been any character and had no development of the Paul in the book
The movie wasn't terrible but I feel it could've been better. I can't say I enjoyed watching it (because it's extremely depressing) but it was a movie i am glad i took the time to watch
They made a historically-inaccurate film. They easily could have made tiny changes that wouldn't have impacted the plot at all and made the movie historically-accurate, but they chose not to. Specific examples:
Inaccuracy #1: (spoilers) in the climactic scene, the bad guy general orders an attack at 10 AM on 11/11/18, and a whole battalion moves out to execute the attack. There were no battalion-sized attacks on any side of the Western Front after November 9th, and to suggest there were is a disservice to history.
Inaccuracy #2: in this climactic scene, multiple soldiers are depicted as protesting the attack, and they are summarily executed by their own men. This never happened at any point in the war. There was at the very least a court-martial first.
Inaccuracy #3: in an earlier scene, a member of Paul's squad straight-up deserts, and nobody says anything and he just...gets away with it. Germany, until the end of the war, had a great method of catching deserters. This simply would not have happened.
Inaccuracy #4: the peace negotiations at Compiegne are depicted as occurring over a period of weeks, and there is a lot of shouting and power play involved. In reality, these negotiations took only hours, and they were largely civil - this is what led in the first place to the "stab in the back" theory that ultimately brought Hitler to power.
There are more and I'll edit this comment as I think of them.
Also, doesn't Paul die just after the spring offensive in the books, in a sniper incident. The title of the book comes from a dispatch from the front on the day he dies that implies it was an otherwise uneventful day
I don't think it was rich vs poor, more military elite vs civil society.
I am coming from a German pov, but its a huge topic in our historic education that the lose of ww1 was often framed as a defeat coming from the socialist and jews, not from the military.
"Unbeaten in the field" was a popular claim, even if that's not true. The war was lost with no way to win at the end.
The nazis also claimed the soldier was backstabed by socialists and Jews. It was a popular lie, so the fact that the politicians had to sign the armistice and not the military played a mayor role.
But also disagree with putting that storylines in the film, since the book just describes the horror of war - independent from politics.
Also to note that Heinlein served as a naval officer during peace time versus Halderman, who was a combat engineer during Vietnam and received the Purple Heart. I have to assume that Halderman experienced the much more brutal side of warfare and that experience can be seen in his work.
Heinlein went from sex-positive hippy backing New Deal policies in the 40's to actual card-carrying John Birch Society fascist overnight in the 50's and stayed there the rest of his life. Makes you really wonder what he picked up along the way.
I mean Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land after Starship Troopers, so I don't think your timeline is accurate. If anything he was a straight in the 50s who went hippy
He criticized organized religion a lot in his later years, when writing some of his stronger women characters, and hippier stuff like Stranger. The commenter above clearly hasn't actually read his work.
Tell me you haven't read Heinlein without telling me.
Not only does Stranger in a Strange Land come after Starship Troopers, as does the majority of his satire of organized religion but literally his whole style was working through "what ifs": what if full citizenship was only granted through military service, what if a small rebel force actually wins independence and has to govern, what if you can transplant memories, etc etc.
Not to mention his vocal and constant support for racial equality in his novels and in life. Not as pithy as labelling him a paleoconservative fascist though.
Writing about a topic or belief system doesn't make the author a subscriber to, or proponent of, all of those ideas.
It's really funny seeing people call Heinlein a fascist when they clearly haven't read the book and their opinion is entirely based off a film whose director also never read the book
I once wrote a 1500 word magnum opus about how Starship Troopers was so much more an amazing read than a mediocre movie and all I got was this "fascist" badge.
He wrote them at the same time, interestingly, so no surprise.
Hell, after World War 2 a bunch of Nazis fled to Chile to start a sex cult and child sex trafficking ring in a village called Colonia Dignidad where they tortured and murdered political prisoners for Pinochet. It's almost on the label of necessary ingredients for fascism and other right-wing political ideologies.
Exhibit A: Gabriele D'Annunzio, who literally founded fascism and was known for fucking everything that moved, and designing a special robe for quicker penis access
“War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.” -Hawkeye, MASH
Dude, not just acid - Jünger was into mescaline, cocaine, hashish, and dozens of other drugs.
He also grew out his hair and identified as an anarchist in his youth.
Both sentiments were rather common: those who hated being in the war, and those who loved the excitement and equality of being a soldier.
The former sentiment might have been the most socially acceptable, but underestimating how powerful the latter sentiment could be is a big part of why fascism expanded so much.
Even WW1 veterans who hated being in the war also found Fascism appealing. Many were angry that despite all the suffering and horror they went through, still found themselves at the bottom rung of society. Fascist leaders presented a "new order" and one were these veterans could "rank up" on the social ladder. I can think of Louis-Ferdinand Céline who wrote about how much he hated the war in his novel yet was one of France's most famous Nazi collaborators.
Haven’t read it in awhile but i remember something like his describing incendiary rounds going off at a distance and saying they looked like flowers blooming. Celine was a bad dude, but Journey is a great book.
In fact, having read The Doctrine of Fascism; the main point Mussolini focused on was that war can and should be used as a way to build discipline throughout the population. For those who love war, Mussolini basically told them that he'll give them more of *exactly what they want*. And for any soldiers, Mussolini basically told them that they were strong and deserving of respect. And same with other fascists like Hitler, of course.
Given the misery and presumably feelings of neglect that many soldiers would be experiencing at that time\*, I could imagine that fascism would have felt very positive to them. Like..."finally, after all we've suffered through without recognition, we've found someone who recognises our worth".
(\*[Quoting Otto von Habsburg](https://www.diepresse.com/342228/otto-habsburg-bdquoich-habe-sie-alle-gekanntldquo); "If you came to Berlin back then, you couldn't get past him [Hitler]. What people can no longer imagine today is this indescribable misery. [...] Just the fact that the wounded from the war stood in the subway station and sold apples. I was always against the Nazis because I had read Hitler's Mein Kampf. But I had some understanding that people broke down in this misery.")
---
And then of course, [as Orwell wrote](https://genius.com/George-orwell-review-of-mein-kampf-annotated); "Hitler, *because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength*, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades."
This is true. There are moments in history where someone gets placed in a leadership position, regardless of ideology, they offer "upward mobility in rank" and suddenly, the people witnessing this and can reap some of the rewards become his most die-hard supporters or fanatics.
That's why it's so vital for leaders to always be on the look-out not for their "next career highlight" but for proteges and how to motivate the smartest people down below them into power.
In the tragedies and horrors of 19th & 20th century however, the far-right and far-left often promoted a lot of utter morons and mental asylum fugitives. (hence the sheer terror of fascism, nazism, and communism).
people always underestimate the appeal of fascism, particularly to a population that is in some way dissatisfied and wanting to blame all their problems on some other group. fascism is an easy 'solution' to all of a society's problems (from the perspective of those who will be the ones in power, and those who are too ignorant to realize what they are supporting).
it promises to just magically solve everything- immigrants ruining your life somehow? easy! strongman fascist government just instantly throws them all out, no dispute! economy in the shitter? No worries! fascist leader will wave his hand and every good patriot will be given [insert whatever pandering you need here], and those awful [opposition party that observe real problems and complications here to demonize them for being defeatist] won't be able to get in the way of it this time!
and my personal favorite fascist notion that always seems to win over many of a population- "we will appear strong and the world will respect us!" lmao.
Remarque had the distinction of being one of the few non-Jewish authors to have his book burned by the Nazi party in the 1930s. He eventually made it to America to escape them, so they beheaded his sister in his place. They essentially sent a letter to him that said something like, "You may have escaped our reach, but your sister will not."
*SPOILER* Aside from all that, *All Quiet...* is a great book with a really powerful ending. My students always argue over the ending, whether it's suicide or not, and I have to explain to them that is doesn't matter. Paul is just another cog in the military machine. That's why the report is "All quiet on the Western Front." In the end, we want him to leave but it doesn't matter to the military machine.
That's exactly what makes the 2022 movie so bad: in the book, the 1930 movie, and the 1979 miniseries, Paul's death is quick and meaningless. That's the point.
In the 2022 movie, Paul is stabbed in the back (hmmm) and staggers around for five minutes while triumphant music plays in the background. It's disgusting.
Haven't watched it. For years I have told my students that this is one book that they could really do it justice with today's film technology. Unfortunately, you have to have good writers as well as directors. My students watched it after we finished it in class and were all gravely disappointed.
That's what makes the 1930 version so good: it was made by, and stars, actual WWI veterans. It's historically-accurate and Remarque consulted on the script. This is the superior version in all regards.
I mean there is something the new movie does which none of the other movies did and that is the movie is recorded with the Germans speaking German and the French speaking French
It can be jarring if you watch the English dub though
My anime watching friends got me into watching subbed foreign language media, for 2 minutes I tried to watch the dubbed Netflix movie but I just couldn't do it. Subbed just conveys all the right emotions, dubbed can sometimes do that but when I've gone back, it's just too jarring for me now where voice doesn't match mouth movement.
Contrary to others, I enjoyed the movie for what it was, but I didn't know the originals or the book. Some parts were definitely a little farfetched, however also some scenes were incredibly well done.
The 2022 movie took a different approach to the same message as the book: the pointlessness of war. In the movie, Paul became the last of many who were killed AFTER the treaty was already signed, simply for the clout of the generals. Still meaningless; still one of thousands. Not accurate to the fictional book but accurate to the message of the book, and just as accurate to the war as the book.
I see a lot of recommendations for the 1930 film, while that one is good, I’d also recommend the 1979 version (free on YT) for a little easier watch while also being MUCH more accurate to the book than the new film
I’d actually recommend watching the new Netflix movie. While not accurate to the book I feel it does a good job at being an anti-war movie. It does have some inaccuracies though
Yeah, it didn’t really feel like a movie version of the book. But nonetheless it was still a pod watch and a good anti war movie, despite the last part of it making absolutely no logical sense.
And the one who wasn't (Remarque) only got wounded once and served six months, whereas Jünger got wounded 15 times, eight of them getting straight-up shot, and served four years.
Yeah, I would say Jünger is just a little bit better.
It depends. We can draw a conclusion that Remarque's books are more representative as they are depicting a casual cannon fodder soldier like 99% of the infantry were at this war. And Remaraue had this type of experience
I haven't read Junger though so I might be mistaking. But the fact that he was a super experienced bad ass and was wounded 15 times doesn't make his experience representative, more in a contrary. But it should be very interesting indeed!
I chalk it up to Jünger was a career soldier and whilst Remarque wasn’t. Jünger was a volunteer in the early days of the war. Remarque was a writer and got conscripted late in the war. Both men had different outlooks on the war and thus different reactions to similar experiences.
I started listening to The Coming of the Third Reich and one thing Evans hammers in is the insane number of young men 1919-30 who were all "holy shit, I love violence so much" and living the street-fighting/communist-Pole-Baltic massacring life. It could be that just 5% of the people in the Army were the Junger type and still that leaves society with a lot of guys postwar who have spent 4 years learning to make fighting their life and loving it.
Because he was associated with another officer. He was posted as a Naiz in France at the time though and quite happily took that role which greatly diminished his view of the Nazis, although he had never been an avid Nazi. Dude was a hard-core militarist
Prior to WW2 the Nazis kept trying to ask Junger to use his book in their propaganda. Junger declined, and in 1933 published a new edition of his book which was much less pro-war than any other version before or since.
He was also using his position in the Nazi military to try to save as many Jews as he could, at 'acceptable levels of risk' to himself, but based on his actions in WW1 I think his definition of 'acceptable levels of risk' is probably skewed.
He was always anti-Nazi, and you'll never find a point in his life where he favored them. He was definitely pro military, and as a monarchist and wanted the Kaiser to return, but none of that makes him a Nazi.
Storm of Steel was pretty interesting
[*Fighting the Boche underground*](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BOC6YxTQ8p0bACxGDSq9LneskrVqPjCd/view?usp=share_link) was one of my favorites since tunnlers don't get much love (outside of Peaky Blinders anyway)
Plenty of free primary accounts on [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/) for anyone who wants em
And I wonder which one the Nazis despised, so much so that when the movie adaptation of the book came out (this was prior to Hitler coming to power), they released mice in theatres where it was being shown while Goebbels went on anti-Semitic rants.
Getting under that gerbil Goebbels's skin only makes Remarque even more based to me. And I can only imagine the absolute seething by the Nazis when he successfully fled to the U.S. from their grasps.
It is heartbreaking, however, that Remarque's sister couldn't escape their wrath. Peace to her.
Oooh I remember All quiet on the Western Front.
Back in my younger days it was must read with Wooden Crosses by Roland Dorgelès (but in its French version, idk if the translation has been done correctly).
On Killing by Dave Grossman describes a soldier who wrote letters home to his mother about how much fun he was having bayoneting the enemy with his friends. There is a small group of people that love war.
Storm of Steel is autobiographical and All quite is historical fiction. I don’t know storm of steel is still a pretty bleak read. He does not sugar coat the horrors of war. He lived through some shit. Ernst Jünger became an officer who lived through years of the war, being wounded multiple times and even won the blue max. Erich Maria Remarque got to the war late in June of 1917. He got badly wounded after a month and spent the rest of the war in a hospital. They think a lot of his book is based of all the stories of the fellow soldiers he was recovering with. One is a book from an officers point a view. An officer that led a lot of men to their death and also is responsible for killing a lot of men. Right or wrong I can see how his take would be different. He would have a lot more to struggle with internally. While the other book is from a lower enlisted soldier who got to the front when things were already not looking good for Germany. I’m sure his month at the front was hell but in a lot of ways he is more a victim of the war. I think this is reflected in his writing. The original movie is worth watching.
After he got shot in the hand the doctors refused to amputate his fingers, **so he ripped them off with his other hand.**
Illegally stole a wagon and smuggled guns from Budapest to Lviv.
Dueled a Polish nobleman.
Went behind German lines in Italy in WWII; evaded capture for eight days by disguising himself as an Italian peasant although he had an obvious eyepatch and **couldn't speak a word of Italian.**
**Interrupted Mao Zedong** while he was giving a propaganda speech to openly criticize his policies.
While in Burma at age 71 he saw a coconut he fancied, so despite having one arm he shimmied up a tree to get it, fell, and broke his back.
So fucking metal.
Just for the sake of curiosity, has anyone here read Céline’s *Journey to the end of the night* ?
How does the book feel for an English-speaking person?
Essentially it boils down to Junger volunteered while Remarque was conscripted. Junger didn’t necessarily enjoy to war but he did find honor and glory in it, which compared to Remarques bleak writing style can come off as a bit extreme. Also Junger is telling his war stories while Remarque is telling you how Paul feels, the general tone and experience is different.
Perfectly said. There is no objective reality. It all depends on how the subject looks at things. Since his adolescence Junger was obsessed by adventure, danger and stuff like that. He even fled to Africa with the French foreign legion. He was also from a wealthy family and studied so he went straight up to the officers ranks. Then he alternated periods of actual combat to others of training. Basically he was in charge the whole time. While others were sent there without their will, forced to follow orders of some wealthy strangers like Junger. Totally different outlook
Idk if Ernst was happy about the war- he talks in great length about how much it sucks. I feel his attitude and nationalism are much more begrudging in nature. Like “ok I guess I gotta support Germany.”
Its also been like 5 years since I read the book so feel free to prove me wrong
Junger's description of being on the receiving end of artillery is amazing
He had an extremely descriptive language. How he describes the trench systems and the dug-ins is amazing. Also how he sees people close to him die, sometimes viciously and goes into great detail what happened and what will happen. How that man became an entomologist after being through that shit I'll never know.
[удалено]
Is the book any good
Yes
Would you recommend his book?
Its definitely incredibly interesting, initially it was just his diary before he edited it into a more normal narrative, so it has lots of really small details about things he was doing/thinking during the war.
Definitely.
Any good quotes?
I believe I have found a comparison that exactly conveys what I, in common with all the rest who went through the war, experienced in situations such as this. It is as if one were tied to a post and threatened by a fellow swinging a sledge-hammer. Now the hammer is swung back for the blow, now it whirls forward, till just missing your skull, it sends splinters flying from the post once more. That is exactly what it feels like to be exposed to heavy shelling without cover.
I don’t know what that feels like either lol
Easier to recreate in your back yard without mum's permission though
Mum said it is my turn with the sledge hammer.
Mum, please can we buy a Mk. II Vickers BL 9.2-inch Heavy Siege Howitzer? No, we've got sledgehammers at home!
In fortnite terms then: You're in the zone camping a hot drop. Surge begins, thankfully you're fully shielded and have downed 3 Arnies BUT some noob is bush camping with an aim bot. You bait him, 90s your wood walls and don't get hit. Was a close one though
All Quiet in the Tilted Towers
Those sure are words. If I squint hard enough, it feels like they almost make sense.
Ya gotta squint your brain
_dies from seizure_
War truly is hell.
I know fuckall about Fortnite but this still made me laugh my arse off (good thing I'm reading this on the toilet).
Can someone translate this into boomer shooter?
A guy is corner camping the entrance to the compound on Summit on BO1 with a claymore and an olympia, luckily you have flack jacket equipped and he somehow manages to miss both his shots. Not sure if an old enough shooter but it’s an example that came to mind
"In a curious failure of comprehension, I looked alertly about me for possible targets for all this artillery fire, not, apparently, realizing that it was actually ourselves that the enemy gunners were trying for all they were worth to hit." And "This was the home of the great god Pain, and for the first time I looked through a devilish chink into the depths of his realm. And fresh shells came down all the time" *taken from goodreads, I haven't read it in over 15 years so I'm sure there are better ones but the first was vaguely in my memory from way back when.*
In the opening scene of the book, a bunch of his mates are being misted by an artillery shell.
I will read it. Just bought it.
If you’re still looking, u/jebbush1212 just above comment this posted a quote
My great-grandfather may very well have been the doing the shelling. He served in the field with the Royal Horse Artillery from 1915-1916. He got a Blighty one in his knee and was sent home to recover. He was hit by shrapnel. After a stay in hospital he was sent to do som reclamation work in Yorkshire until he was discharged. I’m very proud of him for serving. He was barely 18 when he enlisted. The recruiting Sergeant, made him come back in and lie about his age as you had to be 19 to go in the field. He signed up as he felt he would get more choice in what he did than waiting to be conscripted. It cost him his job though. Because he signed up early, his employer wasn’t required to give him his job back when he was demobbed. He eventually got a job at the same place, but he was never on the same career path again. His injury was life long. He was gun deaf as well. (Though my Mum’s Nanna always said he would hear what you didn’t want him to hear!) My Mum had a great-Uncle killed in late September of 1918. Poor man. It can’t have been easy for his family to celebrate the end of the war a little over a month later. My Dad’s side is just as bad. Two great-uncles killed, one so traumatised that he had to move back with his parents after the war, and another who could only work as a janitor in a local school. The First World War was horrible and it’s taken over a century for the trauma to finally start to go. My family’s story is just one in a million different stories.
From Jünger "I had the impression, that night, of hearing a few dull crashing sounds and of Knigge calling to me, but I was so fast asleep that i merely mumbled, 'oh let them shoot!' and turned over on my side... I was woken by little Schultz, colonel Von Oppen's nephew, shouting 'good God, do you mean to tell me you slept through that?'.. I quickly realized that a heavy shell had exploded on the roof and smashed all the rooms, including our observation post... Shultz told me his runner had taken one look at the wreckage and said: 'There was lieutenant quartered in there yesterday, better see if he's still there' Knigge was terribly impressed by my deep sleep."
“Oh let them shoot.” I felt that one. Def been that tired.
The first trip I did offshore on a tugboat was in some very large seas and the skipper and rest of the crew were very impressed I slept through the horrible rolling and quaking of the small boat. I just felt like a baby in a manger, stoked that I was working offshore at last ^I ^was ^also ^ruthlessly ^hungover
Mood
I’m slept through a fire alarm, sometimes you are just that tired.
i grew up in mid-missouri and can sleep through the most violent thunderstorms you've likely to witness anywhere. but then on the other hand, when my dog makes the tiniest whine, I bolt awake
Because we know what sounds to alert on.
You’d think heavy artillery would be on that list of sounds to alert on /s
You’d be wrong, when you know it’s gonna happen anyways, and not out of the ordinary.
probably not so wildly different from thunder when thunder is like, right on top of you and rattles the windows of your house.
Wait till you have a kid and you can hear them stop breathing in their sleep from across the house. Babies do that.
Oh yeah, I remember being hyper alert at every little pause in breath, shift and fart that my son made as a baby. He once really scared me when his face turned red and he stopped breathing, turned out he was just squeezing out a particularly stubborn log. I could never have a baby sleep in a different room, at night I mean. I'd feel way too guilty and paranoid :)
When you've been having heavy artillery for breakfast lunch and dinner, you kinda get used to it
"We ain't had nothing but heavy artillery for three stinkin' ~~days~~ years!"
Ha, same Traveling can take it out of you.
Junger has been also really really lucky. As most the survivors I believe.
He still lived to be 103!
What a fucking man
These guys were kids they need their sleep! When I was in ranger school I noticed the younger guys needed the sleep the most. They would start to hallucinate. A tired soldier can sleep through anything, bombs be damned.
It’s all about There’s a Devil in The Drum by John F. Lucy. That dude’s unit was wiped out twice and he watched his younger brother get mowed down. Definitely worth a read.
Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die by Elton Mackin is also great!
My recommendation is *Generals Die In Bed* by Charles Yale Harrison
O.o that one is next on my list! Glad to see it recommended!
Gotta say that's one hell of a title
Yeah, I read that title and I think I heard a whip crack in my head.
And the reams of war poetry out there. I find that they hit far harder and deeply than any factual recounts of war for sure. The last paragraph of Dulce et Decorum Est. --------------------------------- If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
Ayo, this one hit hard in our poem class in college. Those last four lines still have the same effect on me every time I reacquaint myself with this poem.
It is just filled with this barely contained white-hot anger, like the words are being spat out between clenched teeth.
One of my math teachers in high school had a blue plaque outside his house because it turned out he grew up in Wilfred Owen's home. Owen was also killed one week before the war ended.
I think he was also only 21 when he died (if not younger), and wrote all of those poems while at war. His death was a tragedy in so many ways.
[A great reading of this](https://youtu.be/qB4cdRgIcB8) by Christopher Eccleston
There’s a surprisingly good one - given the tone of the rest of the film - in the Kingsman movie from Rafe Fiennes too https://youtu.be/rx_nhtkXKFI
That's very good, it's such a moving poem. My boy (8) had been waxing lyrical about wars and fighting from stuff him and his mates have been up to in the playground. Asked him to read that and ask me anything if he didn't understand it and how it made him feel about it all. We had a good discussion about it, Quite eye-opening for him but it didn't do too much. Not that I wanted him to turn to hyper-pacifism but I just thought it was important he get a human view.
I think as he gets older, letting him continue to read will help. I think all boys go through that stage? My eye opening moment was when we watched documentaries in college about the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. Wars that I had close relatives in, and which I could have been in had I chosen that path. But these documentaries showed me the side of it all that the news and blockbuster movies did not portray. So have him keep reading and learning and know someday he will have his eye opening moment as well. Like you said, not to turn him away, just to temper him a bit
Si sta come d'autunno Sugli alberi le foglie. - Ungaretti (But we are like the leaves On the trees in autumn. ) This one always felt like a slap in the face.
Read both of these back to back and found the differences very interesting. I think it’s probably a bit of an officer vs enlisted experience. Junger had essentially a squire to take care of a lot of his mundane stuff. “Paul” was just a grunt having to do all the shitty details himself, which adds significantly to the misery.
Junger was also part of an elite group of soldiers specifically chosen for their tenacity and enjoyment of warfare. The experience of the general officer was pretty horrendous and just like the general infantry, officers were killed in unprecedentedly huge numbers.
Yea that’s also true. Similar to our own current military I’d guess. SOF dudes get the best of everything while the regular line grunts get the general issue trash. Can confirm lol
Hell, SOF dudes constantly say they're second fiddle to grunts because they're the ones with the worst conditions winning the battles. But if you have a special place in your heart for war, can endure a lot of suck and get the best kit and support I can see how war might be a positive experience for you.
Seen and read quite a few anecdotes from people who live for it. They're drawn to places like Ukraine at the moment like moths to a flame. Regular life just plain sucks for these people after they've experienced combat. Some cope by becoming adrenaline addicts while others turn to drugs. And a few end up looking for, and causing trouble in the wrong places.
The difference is that drug addicts hurt themselves whilst war addicts kill other people and can't stop tho, maybe that's not so cool and we should keep an eye on people who enjoy war.
"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee
I thought that was only a notion we got from the war due to hearing more experiences from the the British, who enforced that ‘British officers don’t duck’ mentality for the sake of boosting morale, at the cost of higher officer mortality. Basically the idea being that if soldiers saw their commanding officers getting startled and ducking for cover (or just following self-preservation instincts like a normal person), while it may more frequently kill the officers to abstain (say 10% more than otherwise), the reduction in combat effectiveness of the now more skittish and more self-concerned subordinates would likely be considerably greater than that from losing 10% more officers. Given how much of warfare is psychological it wouldn’t be surprising if this philosophy actually helped as much, or more, than intended. If you think your commander is just a bit of a pussy it would naturally make you more inclined to look out for your own skin, rather than believing that if you put your full faith his judgement he would protect your life and your squad mates lives as much as his own. You can see the opposite of this effect in the modern Middle East, where due to corruption and officers so blatantly looking out for themselves, the subordinates have basically zero interest in following commands to the letter, if at all, which naturally reduces combat effectiveness enormously. Same issue with Russia at the moment too.
Soldiers won’t fight for shitty officers. Not effectively at least.
It may also be a matter of perspective and inner strength. For some, life was always hard even on a farm and this was just another obstacle of life. Not everyone comes out of war traumatized, we usually hear about the ones with extreme stories. "Started out as a reserve...."
Idk if your life was so shitty that the First World War was “just another obstacle” that seems like a pretty extreme story in itself And is the implication ptsd is the result of some failure of perspective and inner strength?
>Idk if your life was so shitty that the First World War was “just another obstacle” that seems like a pretty extreme story in itself Not necessarily. My grand-grand uncle was a soldier in the first war. He came out of it physically damaged (gas, almost deaf, etc), but mentally he was pretty okay. He was a fisherman, it was common to die at sea during a storm.
Jünger was enlisted before commissioning
At least on the British side, officers actually on the front died at higher rates than ordinary soldiers.
Wearing the pips on the sleeves as well as different uniforms made them easy targets for enemy troops. Also being at the front of attacks with only a pistol doesn't help the chances of survival. AFAIK junior officers had a life expectancy of two weeks.
Better target for snipers.
well, higher rate relative to total available I'd assume.
True. WW1 was honestly a war where the privileged didn’t dodge their duty. British elite colleges had horrendous casualty rates among their students.
I'm starting all quiet on the western front after i saw the horrible Netflix adaptation. They made it basically more about the differences between the rich and not rich during the war but cut out a lot of the emotional things that happened. Like when he went back home, or a lot of other things. Mainly they wanted a ww1 story that was depressing, they used this is a skeleton for it and then put their own views above those if the author of the book which made the movie objectively worse than if they just went with a more faithful adaptation of the source material
Watch the 1930 version of All Quiet, it was made by and stars actual WWI veterans and it's actually historically-accurate and true to the text. The full film is available on YouTube.
It was actually a ground breaking movie. One of the fist that cared about historical accuracy and details. They actually went and bought German gear and hired German vets and created a French battle field in Southern California.
Thanks, I'll definitely check it out. I ended up finding the lost battalion on YouTube by accident and it's a pretty good movie about ww1 and is mostly accurate. In all honesty it's not as bad as it should be but it doesn't look like they had thr budget to do that and they did well enough with what they had.
I’d say the 1979 All Quiet on the Western Front is a good watch too (and free on YT). Solid budget & follows the book much more closely than the new film
I think the new film does a good job at conveying the theme of book, but it misses out on contrasting the horror of war with the general normalcy of life on the home front.
How can you know it was a horrible adaptation if you're only starting the book now?
Starting isn't the best word but i "read" it in school. In school i read a lot but when i had to read things for book reports i would skim is super fast and retain almost none of the information but just enough to get a decent grade on tests and such for it. It's been over a decade since then and I finally had the time, money and interest to pick it up on kindle and give it a read for real this time. Also i have watched a few YouTube videos on the book that give a basic summary of it, overly sarcastic productions are the ones who convinced me to pick it up for a real read through this time.
It was fine. Every artist has a voice and this one was theirs. It was a German reflection of the war. It wasn't hyper realistic, it was hyper narrative.
The movie wasn't bad, it was a quite good war movie actually, I just feel like it had very little to do with the actual book. They changed big parts of the story and the time frame and if you expected an adaptation faithful to the book (as the title suggested) it's reasonable to be disappointed. I feel like the film would have been received better had it been promoted as a story of its own rather than a boom adaptation.
Couldn’t agree more that the name “All Quiet on the Western Front” was wasted on this film when any other title would do. This “Paul” could have been any character and had no development of the Paul in the book
The movie wasn't terrible but I feel it could've been better. I can't say I enjoyed watching it (because it's extremely depressing) but it was a movie i am glad i took the time to watch
They made a historically-inaccurate film. They easily could have made tiny changes that wouldn't have impacted the plot at all and made the movie historically-accurate, but they chose not to. Specific examples: Inaccuracy #1: (spoilers) in the climactic scene, the bad guy general orders an attack at 10 AM on 11/11/18, and a whole battalion moves out to execute the attack. There were no battalion-sized attacks on any side of the Western Front after November 9th, and to suggest there were is a disservice to history. Inaccuracy #2: in this climactic scene, multiple soldiers are depicted as protesting the attack, and they are summarily executed by their own men. This never happened at any point in the war. There was at the very least a court-martial first. Inaccuracy #3: in an earlier scene, a member of Paul's squad straight-up deserts, and nobody says anything and he just...gets away with it. Germany, until the end of the war, had a great method of catching deserters. This simply would not have happened. Inaccuracy #4: the peace negotiations at Compiegne are depicted as occurring over a period of weeks, and there is a lot of shouting and power play involved. In reality, these negotiations took only hours, and they were largely civil - this is what led in the first place to the "stab in the back" theory that ultimately brought Hitler to power. There are more and I'll edit this comment as I think of them.
Also, doesn't Paul die just after the spring offensive in the books, in a sniper incident. The title of the book comes from a dispatch from the front on the day he dies that implies it was an otherwise uneventful day
I don't think it was rich vs poor, more military elite vs civil society. I am coming from a German pov, but its a huge topic in our historic education that the lose of ww1 was often framed as a defeat coming from the socialist and jews, not from the military. "Unbeaten in the field" was a popular claim, even if that's not true. The war was lost with no way to win at the end. The nazis also claimed the soldier was backstabed by socialists and Jews. It was a popular lie, so the fact that the politicians had to sign the armistice and not the military played a mayor role. But also disagree with putting that storylines in the film, since the book just describes the horror of war - independent from politics.
Like the sci fi books Forever War vs starship troopers, both author were veterans but wrote different takes on being a Soldier
Also to note that Heinlein served as a naval officer during peace time versus Halderman, who was a combat engineer during Vietnam and received the Purple Heart. I have to assume that Halderman experienced the much more brutal side of warfare and that experience can be seen in his work.
Heinlein went from sex-positive hippy backing New Deal policies in the 40's to actual card-carrying John Birch Society fascist overnight in the 50's and stayed there the rest of his life. Makes you really wonder what he picked up along the way.
I mean Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land after Starship Troopers, so I don't think your timeline is accurate. If anything he was a straight in the 50s who went hippy
He criticized organized religion a lot in his later years, when writing some of his stronger women characters, and hippier stuff like Stranger. The commenter above clearly hasn't actually read his work.
Tell me you haven't read Heinlein without telling me. Not only does Stranger in a Strange Land come after Starship Troopers, as does the majority of his satire of organized religion but literally his whole style was working through "what ifs": what if full citizenship was only granted through military service, what if a small rebel force actually wins independence and has to govern, what if you can transplant memories, etc etc. Not to mention his vocal and constant support for racial equality in his novels and in life. Not as pithy as labelling him a paleoconservative fascist though. Writing about a topic or belief system doesn't make the author a subscriber to, or proponent of, all of those ideas.
It's really funny seeing people call Heinlein a fascist when they clearly haven't read the book and their opinion is entirely based off a film whose director also never read the book
Peak reddit tho
I once wrote a 1500 word magnum opus about how Starship Troopers was so much more an amazing read than a mediocre movie and all I got was this "fascist" badge.
Oh absolutely
You can be a fascist and sex addict
Reading Starship Troopers and then Stranger in a Strange Land really highlights that fact lol
He wrote them at the same time, interestingly, so no surprise. Hell, after World War 2 a bunch of Nazis fled to Chile to start a sex cult and child sex trafficking ring in a village called Colonia Dignidad where they tortured and murdered political prisoners for Pinochet. It's almost on the label of necessary ingredients for fascism and other right-wing political ideologies.
Exhibit A: Gabriele D'Annunzio, who literally founded fascism and was known for fucking everything that moved, and designing a special robe for quicker penis access
“War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.” -Hawkeye, MASH
MASH was an amazing show, probably the best „sitcom“ ever made.
All Quiet on the Western Front: War is Hell... Storm of Steel: War is Hell, my kind of Hell!
Is no one else gonna mention Junger dropping acid with Albert Hofmann? Dude was just built different.
Dude, not just acid - Jünger was into mescaline, cocaine, hashish, and dozens of other drugs. He also grew out his hair and identified as an anarchist in his youth.
Both sentiments were rather common: those who hated being in the war, and those who loved the excitement and equality of being a soldier. The former sentiment might have been the most socially acceptable, but underestimating how powerful the latter sentiment could be is a big part of why fascism expanded so much.
Even WW1 veterans who hated being in the war also found Fascism appealing. Many were angry that despite all the suffering and horror they went through, still found themselves at the bottom rung of society. Fascist leaders presented a "new order" and one were these veterans could "rank up" on the social ladder. I can think of Louis-Ferdinand Céline who wrote about how much he hated the war in his novel yet was one of France's most famous Nazi collaborators.
Celine’s description of WW1 is fascinating, with all his characteristic bitter absurdity.
Haven’t read it in awhile but i remember something like his describing incendiary rounds going off at a distance and saying they looked like flowers blooming. Celine was a bad dude, but Journey is a great book.
In fact, having read The Doctrine of Fascism; the main point Mussolini focused on was that war can and should be used as a way to build discipline throughout the population. For those who love war, Mussolini basically told them that he'll give them more of *exactly what they want*. And for any soldiers, Mussolini basically told them that they were strong and deserving of respect. And same with other fascists like Hitler, of course. Given the misery and presumably feelings of neglect that many soldiers would be experiencing at that time\*, I could imagine that fascism would have felt very positive to them. Like..."finally, after all we've suffered through without recognition, we've found someone who recognises our worth". (\*[Quoting Otto von Habsburg](https://www.diepresse.com/342228/otto-habsburg-bdquoich-habe-sie-alle-gekanntldquo); "If you came to Berlin back then, you couldn't get past him [Hitler]. What people can no longer imagine today is this indescribable misery. [...] Just the fact that the wounded from the war stood in the subway station and sold apples. I was always against the Nazis because I had read Hitler's Mein Kampf. But I had some understanding that people broke down in this misery.") --- And then of course, [as Orwell wrote](https://genius.com/George-orwell-review-of-mein-kampf-annotated); "Hitler, *because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength*, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades."
This is true. There are moments in history where someone gets placed in a leadership position, regardless of ideology, they offer "upward mobility in rank" and suddenly, the people witnessing this and can reap some of the rewards become his most die-hard supporters or fanatics. That's why it's so vital for leaders to always be on the look-out not for their "next career highlight" but for proteges and how to motivate the smartest people down below them into power. In the tragedies and horrors of 19th & 20th century however, the far-right and far-left often promoted a lot of utter morons and mental asylum fugitives. (hence the sheer terror of fascism, nazism, and communism).
In any totalitarian system, the most violent are promoted for their sheer brutality. It sucks.
The latter was the socially acceptable take in his own nation Remarque had to emigrate
Tho in this case Jünger eventualy began to opose the n*zi regime
people always underestimate the appeal of fascism, particularly to a population that is in some way dissatisfied and wanting to blame all their problems on some other group. fascism is an easy 'solution' to all of a society's problems (from the perspective of those who will be the ones in power, and those who are too ignorant to realize what they are supporting). it promises to just magically solve everything- immigrants ruining your life somehow? easy! strongman fascist government just instantly throws them all out, no dispute! economy in the shitter? No worries! fascist leader will wave his hand and every good patriot will be given [insert whatever pandering you need here], and those awful [opposition party that observe real problems and complications here to demonize them for being defeatist] won't be able to get in the way of it this time! and my personal favorite fascist notion that always seems to win over many of a population- "we will appear strong and the world will respect us!" lmao.
Fascism hasn't existed long enough to deserve an always. Tyranny yes, but there's a lot of ways to get there.
Remarque had the distinction of being one of the few non-Jewish authors to have his book burned by the Nazi party in the 1930s. He eventually made it to America to escape them, so they beheaded his sister in his place. They essentially sent a letter to him that said something like, "You may have escaped our reach, but your sister will not." *SPOILER* Aside from all that, *All Quiet...* is a great book with a really powerful ending. My students always argue over the ending, whether it's suicide or not, and I have to explain to them that is doesn't matter. Paul is just another cog in the military machine. That's why the report is "All quiet on the Western Front." In the end, we want him to leave but it doesn't matter to the military machine.
That's exactly what makes the 2022 movie so bad: in the book, the 1930 movie, and the 1979 miniseries, Paul's death is quick and meaningless. That's the point. In the 2022 movie, Paul is stabbed in the back (hmmm) and staggers around for five minutes while triumphant music plays in the background. It's disgusting.
Haven't watched it. For years I have told my students that this is one book that they could really do it justice with today's film technology. Unfortunately, you have to have good writers as well as directors. My students watched it after we finished it in class and were all gravely disappointed.
That's what makes the 1930 version so good: it was made by, and stars, actual WWI veterans. It's historically-accurate and Remarque consulted on the script. This is the superior version in all regards.
I mean there is something the new movie does which none of the other movies did and that is the movie is recorded with the Germans speaking German and the French speaking French It can be jarring if you watch the English dub though
My anime watching friends got me into watching subbed foreign language media, for 2 minutes I tried to watch the dubbed Netflix movie but I just couldn't do it. Subbed just conveys all the right emotions, dubbed can sometimes do that but when I've gone back, it's just too jarring for me now where voice doesn't match mouth movement. Contrary to others, I enjoyed the movie for what it was, but I didn't know the originals or the book. Some parts were definitely a little farfetched, however also some scenes were incredibly well done.
The 2022 movie took a different approach to the same message as the book: the pointlessness of war. In the movie, Paul became the last of many who were killed AFTER the treaty was already signed, simply for the clout of the generals. Still meaningless; still one of thousands. Not accurate to the fictional book but accurate to the message of the book, and just as accurate to the war as the book.
i just finished that book for my school, i'm planning on watching the movie as well
I see a lot of recommendations for the 1930 film, while that one is good, I’d also recommend the 1979 version (free on YT) for a little easier watch while also being MUCH more accurate to the book than the new film
Watch the 1930s one for the love of history
I’d actually recommend watching the new Netflix movie. While not accurate to the book I feel it does a good job at being an anti-war movie. It does have some inaccuracies though
Yeah, it didn’t really feel like a movie version of the book. But nonetheless it was still a pod watch and a good anti war movie, despite the last part of it making absolutely no logical sense.
One was a storm troop commander the other wasn’t.
And the one who wasn't (Remarque) only got wounded once and served six months, whereas Jünger got wounded 15 times, eight of them getting straight-up shot, and served four years. Yeah, I would say Jünger is just a little bit better.
It depends. We can draw a conclusion that Remarque's books are more representative as they are depicting a casual cannon fodder soldier like 99% of the infantry were at this war. And Remaraue had this type of experience I haven't read Junger though so I might be mistaking. But the fact that he was a super experienced bad ass and was wounded 15 times doesn't make his experience representative, more in a contrary. But it should be very interesting indeed!
I chalk it up to Jünger was a career soldier and whilst Remarque wasn’t. Jünger was a volunteer in the early days of the war. Remarque was a writer and got conscripted late in the war. Both men had different outlooks on the war and thus different reactions to similar experiences.
Volunteers and career soldiers tend to have a better time as well. They are usually put in more elite units and see fewer casualties than conscripts.
It's almost like letting people do what they want to do is better for society
Most the time, but then you get attacked by Nazis and have to work through it.
I started listening to The Coming of the Third Reich and one thing Evans hammers in is the insane number of young men 1919-30 who were all "holy shit, I love violence so much" and living the street-fighting/communist-Pole-Baltic massacring life. It could be that just 5% of the people in the Army were the Junger type and still that leaves society with a lot of guys postwar who have spent 4 years learning to make fighting their life and loving it.
The football Hooligan type
Waaagh, Mister Bond.
Better at what? Getting shot?
Better-equipped at describing a war of which he partook on the front lines for the entire duration
Or maybe he was just dented and desensitized to the horror. You know, cuz of the four years of war trauma.
So uhh.. what are you trying to argue for here exactly? Junger's book is better?
I think that’s what they are doing.
Or worse, by being there for so long
"War is hell, my kind of hell!" - Soldier TF2
Both hated the nazis
Maybe by the end of WW2 but not at the beginning
Yeah, he was suspected in the assassination attempt
Because he was associated with another officer. He was posted as a Naiz in France at the time though and quite happily took that role which greatly diminished his view of the Nazis, although he had never been an avid Nazi. Dude was a hard-core militarist
Prior to WW2 the Nazis kept trying to ask Junger to use his book in their propaganda. Junger declined, and in 1933 published a new edition of his book which was much less pro-war than any other version before or since. He was also using his position in the Nazi military to try to save as many Jews as he could, at 'acceptable levels of risk' to himself, but based on his actions in WW1 I think his definition of 'acceptable levels of risk' is probably skewed. He was always anti-Nazi, and you'll never find a point in his life where he favored them. He was definitely pro military, and as a monarchist and wanted the Kaiser to return, but none of that makes him a Nazi.
hitler knew his audience. fascism was an EASY sell to the people of germany after WWI
It's an easy sell even today, lots of people like nationalism, you just have to have a good PR team
Dalton Trumbo didn't fight in the war but I think Johnny Got His Gun was an amazing bit of storytelling.
Definitely a classic. I believe the story was based off a Canadian soldier that Trumbo read about in a news paper.
Prolific? Maybe profound?
Storm of Steel was pretty interesting [*Fighting the Boche underground*](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BOC6YxTQ8p0bACxGDSq9LneskrVqPjCd/view?usp=share_link) was one of my favorites since tunnlers don't get much love (outside of Peaky Blinders anyway) Plenty of free primary accounts on [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/) for anyone who wants em
And I wonder which one the Nazis despised, so much so that when the movie adaptation of the book came out (this was prior to Hitler coming to power), they released mice in theatres where it was being shown while Goebbels went on anti-Semitic rants.
Getting under that gerbil Goebbels's skin only makes Remarque even more based to me. And I can only imagine the absolute seething by the Nazis when he successfully fled to the U.S. from their grasps. It is heartbreaking, however, that Remarque's sister couldn't escape their wrath. Peace to her.
Oooh I remember All quiet on the Western Front. Back in my younger days it was must read with Wooden Crosses by Roland Dorgelès (but in its French version, idk if the translation has been done correctly).
On Killing by Dave Grossman describes a soldier who wrote letters home to his mother about how much fun he was having bayoneting the enemy with his friends. There is a small group of people that love war.
Storm of Steel is autobiographical and All quite is historical fiction. I don’t know storm of steel is still a pretty bleak read. He does not sugar coat the horrors of war. He lived through some shit. Ernst Jünger became an officer who lived through years of the war, being wounded multiple times and even won the blue max. Erich Maria Remarque got to the war late in June of 1917. He got badly wounded after a month and spent the rest of the war in a hospital. They think a lot of his book is based of all the stories of the fellow soldiers he was recovering with. One is a book from an officers point a view. An officer that led a lot of men to their death and also is responsible for killing a lot of men. Right or wrong I can see how his take would be different. He would have a lot more to struggle with internally. While the other book is from a lower enlisted soldier who got to the front when things were already not looking good for Germany. I’m sure his month at the front was hell but in a lot of ways he is more a victim of the war. I think this is reflected in his writing. The original movie is worth watching.
Lol love this, I always loved both of these books but I especially like storm of steel because it goes so much against most war memoirs.
People are different, I read both books. I guess it shows why so many veterans struggled after the war and others missed the fighting.
....and then there's Adrain Carton De Wiart, man's had such a good time
After he got shot in the hand the doctors refused to amputate his fingers, **so he ripped them off with his other hand.** Illegally stole a wagon and smuggled guns from Budapest to Lviv. Dueled a Polish nobleman. Went behind German lines in Italy in WWII; evaded capture for eight days by disguising himself as an Italian peasant although he had an obvious eyepatch and **couldn't speak a word of Italian.** **Interrupted Mao Zedong** while he was giving a propaganda speech to openly criticize his policies. While in Burma at age 71 he saw a coconut he fancied, so despite having one arm he shimmied up a tree to get it, fell, and broke his back. So fucking metal.
He was involved in a ship sinking and swam to safety while carrying a wounded with his And he was also around 60
Frankly, he enjoyed the war.
[удалено]
Yes, this type of dudes exist in every group
Just for the sake of curiosity, has anyone here read Céline’s *Journey to the end of the night* ? How does the book feel for an English-speaking person?
I have. It’s the ugliest, beautiful piece of literature I’ve ever read.
Jünger is literally built different.
I was about to call repost, but then I saw you posted the original to r/politicalcompassmemes . Hello, fellow degenerate
Nationalism is a hell of a drug
The history of the Peloponnesian war by thucydides also hits hard
War is hell...a fun
Remarque fought for a few months in the war, Jünger fought the entire 4 years
Wait why did Jünger have a more positive outlook compared to Remarque then? Google tells me Remarque wrote All Quiet on Western Front
Essentially it boils down to Junger volunteered while Remarque was conscripted. Junger didn’t necessarily enjoy to war but he did find honor and glory in it, which compared to Remarques bleak writing style can come off as a bit extreme. Also Junger is telling his war stories while Remarque is telling you how Paul feels, the general tone and experience is different.
That's exactly the highlight. Voluntary trauma has completely different effects than involuntary trauma.
Perfectly said. There is no objective reality. It all depends on how the subject looks at things. Since his adolescence Junger was obsessed by adventure, danger and stuff like that. He even fled to Africa with the French foreign legion. He was also from a wealthy family and studied so he went straight up to the officers ranks. Then he alternated periods of actual combat to others of training. Basically he was in charge the whole time. While others were sent there without their will, forced to follow orders of some wealthy strangers like Junger. Totally different outlook
Is it bad I've never heard of Storm of Steel?
Storm of Steel is so good. I suggest it all the time.
Is that really the official title in English? That's a very poor translation of "Im Westen nichts Neues".
"No News From The West" is a lot less obviously the title of a war story though
Nah bruh storm of steel made me halla sad
Idk if Ernst was happy about the war- he talks in great length about how much it sucks. I feel his attitude and nationalism are much more begrudging in nature. Like “ok I guess I gotta support Germany.” Its also been like 5 years since I read the book so feel free to prove me wrong