Quick Book Reviews Blog

When a war ends it seems customary that the light of good be shined upon the victors, while those defeated be relegated to the least pleasant pages of history. Needless to say, this happened at the end of the Second World War and allowed many of those on the Allies' side to get away war crimes, while on the other hand all who lived under the Axis rule were lumped together as murderous animals.

With us having the tendency to divide our worlds between us and them, we seldom take the time to look at what's happening on the other side of the hill, and that is ever-more true in times of war, where the other side of the front can be populated by nothing but scum (or so both sides tell themselves). Luckily enough, we have plenty of thinkers who recognized the importance of empathizing with and trying to understand those on the bad side of history.

When stories revolving around the Second World War are written, for the most part they are told from the perspective of either soldiers or politicians. However, it seems as if many forget about the refugees, the simple civilians who suddenly saw their lives threatened and were forced to flee from their homes by any means necessary.

When we look back on the Second World War , we always see Germany as being the bad guys, but what we often forget is that many of the German people were opposed to the concept of Nazism, but they were forced stop professing their views, in one way or another. In Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque, we follow the story of one such German, who found himself exiled from Germany for his different political views in the late 1930s.

The two World Wars have been documented, discussed and depicted from virtually every perspective imaginable, ranging from small children caught in a crossfire all the way the leaders of each country. However, it seems that here is a startlingly small amount of attention dedicated to the small hiatus period between the two wars, a time during which many changes came to pass in Germany in a very short amount of time.

Throughout the twentieth century many breathtaking war novels saw the light of day, and I think we can all guess why (the two World Wars). Though naming one novel above all the others ones would be foolish, many people hold All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque in much higher regard than other pieces of writing on the same subject. Indeed, the novel truly does offer a very powerful and moving meditation on the utter futility of war, through the eyes of a young German by the name of Paul Baumer.