Jünger and Remarque: View on World War I

...

Remarque drives this point home as he delves on this topic and questions such as, are we fighting this war for ourselves or for the people in authority? His view on war is completely different from Jünger’s whose reason for participating in war is simply for the country, whereas Remarque's novel makes us question that maybe it simply isn't as straightforward as that. One of the sentences in the novel makes Remarque’s thought come across easily as when Tjarden is curious about how a war starts and Albert ends up replying "When one country offends another" and Tjarden responds to that by saying "How can one mountain in Germany offend another mountain in France?" (Remarque, 175). This simple dialogue although may not seem as much but one can see that Tjarden doesn't believe that it's the country that is the reason for war but something else, in this case, the people in authority. The dialogue between the characters even goes further on to talk about how the war is not related to them and how they are fighting for something that's not even related to them. I would have to agree with this as most of the wars in the past have been because of reasons such as the lords, whoever is in power, vying for more territory and ending up declaring war with justifications such as: the country needs defending from the enemies, they look down upon our motherland or fatherland, and even something as crazy as "We have the right to their land because we can make better use of it" etc. These are things that have been happening since time immemorial and have been repeating over and over again and it seems we, humans, never learn from our mistakes. We seem to be doing better now partly in due to the advancement in technology as we are better informed and constrained, nuclear bombs, but it's hard to tell how long it would last, as we are known to make stupid decisions while being aware of the consequences.

One of the major things that had happened during the war was when mutiny had taken place in the ranks of army. Remarque had talked about the conditions of living in the trenches and how the soldiers felt about it in the novel, as one can see it's not just something fictional but real life soldiers also felt the same, which played a major role in the French mutiny. Of course just the living conditions wasn’t the only reason for the mutiny, if it was then even the German's or British would have had the same problem. The main reason would have to be attributed to the advancement of technology, which revamped the whole notion of war. The death tolls suffered by French in the western frontlines were in the millions. It not only increased the number of casualties to the millions but also was the cause of trench warfare as the soldiers couldn't advance in the open as they could in the previous wars, which led to the frontlines building up trenches in order to not get mowed down by the machine guns or blown to pieces by the artilleries.

One thing that we can see which is common between Jünger’s and Remarque’s writing is that both of them talk about how going through the battles in the war there was a feeling of belonging, brotherhood, being formed. But the things Jünger focuses on is how that sense of belonging plays a key role in being able to face the horrors of the battle and being able to move forward and keep on fighting. Whereas Remarque’s writing shows us how a battle can possibly change one's perspective of life and how someone who hasn't been in war wouldn't be able to understand the feelings of one that has, this can be seen via Paul's perspective when he returns home and he feels stranger to his own life and finds the company of his brother in arms more normal. As one can see although both of them talk about the same things the things they relate to it are completely different.

"I have often observed in myself and others that an officer's sense of responsibility drowns his personal fears"(Jünger, 246). One can see from the writings above that one of the main reason for Jünger to not fear and be brave during the war was most likely due to the responsibilities that he had. This resulted in him not having the time to think spending more on how bad things were but focusing more on what he can find or do in war in order to encourage the soldiers under his command. And this of course would result in his perspective of war being completely different from Remarque’s as Remarque himself was drafted and also participated not as someone leading troops in battle but being led. But it's hard to tell if that actually would have made a difference, even if he was the one leading. Remarque's perspective would have most likely stayed the same but maybe Jünger's may have possibly changed, hard to say. But these are most likely not the main reasons for their perspective being different, to begin with Jünger was a willing soldier and had a complete positive outlook on war whereas Remarque preferred to dig deeper for reasons behind actions, in this case the war, as it can be seen in Remarque’s writings.

In conclusion, even though the experiences they had were similar, facing the horrors of the war, the way they have portrayed the war is in opposite to one other. Jünger shows the patriotic side of war whereas Remarque makes the readers think: Was the war simply for the sake of nation? And also shows us war in perspective of an ordinary soldier.

Tenzing Lama

500335577