All Quiet On The Western Front: The War Against Disillusionment

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is how the rest of this is organized: chronologically.
Paul and his friends started to lose their innocence the day they enlisted after their school days. In school their master, Kantorek pounded into them an idea that they are men and are obligated to do their duty for the country of Germany. Kantoreks blind patriotism led all the boys, none more than twenty to enlist. He sends them off thinking he did Germany proud but at that expense he had sent the students to a hell on earth. Kantorek called them Germany’s iron youth, but Paul said “none of us more than twenty years old. But young? Youth? That was long ago. We are old folk” (18). Already Paul has lost faith in the person who has taught him. This disillusioned Paul feels betrayed and feels he has lost his youth already.
In basic training Paul and his friends were let down by another figure of authority. This person being the disillusioned Corporal Himmelstoss. In basic training Paul experienced the cruelty of the ...

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in the leg and shipped to the hospital. This is where Paul began to show his detachment, a product of his advanced sense of disillusionment toward life. Paul felt, as did his friends that detaching themselves saved them some of the pain of loss. Kemmerich had his leg amputated and in the end he died. This was Paul’s first real experience with loss because unlike Behm, Paul was close to Kemmerich and his mother. But since Paul had detached himself he moved on as if nothing had happened: “The night lives, I live” (33). This is all that mattered to Paul and the others with him.
As the war progresses so did the groups state of disillusionment. They continued to be bombarded and in ...

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