All Quiet on the Western Front tells the tragedy of a generation whose youth coincided with the beginning of one of the most terrible wars in human history.
They lost their usual life. They went into the mud and blood of war. Many of the very first went voluntarily, carried away by the fiery speeches of agitators. They were boys, schoolboys opening up an enormous world—but they became cannon fodder, soldiers, throwing off their youth at the same time as their school uniforms, and useless now—the elementary knowledge and free thoughts. They die, are dying, and will die—by the thousands—on the bloody battlefields of the First World War.
They still have friendship—but is friendship worth so much when at any moment a friend can be taken away with their insides ripped out? To survive today and tomorrow—if luck holds.
And for now—All Quiet on the Western Front.