All Quiet On The Western Front Nationalism Quotes

“The Bushmen are primitive and naturally so, but we are primitive in an artificial sense, and by virtue of the utmost effort” (274). This quote written by Erich Maria Remarque in All Quiet on the Western Front calls attention to the division and inhumanity of the masses in the first World War. Ordinary people hated others that were across a non-physical border because they were convinced that they were the enemy. However, Paul argues that the people who the soldiers are killing are not the enemies. The enemies are the people who don’t risk their lives on the battlefield yet think they can make decisions about a war where thousands are brutally killed everyday. The concept of nationalism is a prime example of the values and misconceptions of European people at the start of the 20th century.

Nationalism existed before World War I, however because it was the largest war to date, the concept had reached new heights. Day-to-day people saw other countries as their enemies, and because of this, it was considered noble and brave to sacrifice their lives to fight in the war. Paul Bäumer, the narrator of the novel, conveys the idea that soldiers quickly realize that the people being killed aren’t the real enemy. Bäumer tries to explain this to a French soldier that he killed in chapter nine, saying, “Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed” (223). This quote shows the realities of the war, and how the soldiers who killed opposing soldiers did not have any personal reasons to despise