Steven O’Dell
Ms. Erickson
AP English
17 December 2014
The eighteen and nineteen hundreds was a very significant time for literature. Several phenomenal authors and writers emerged to create great writings and books. Such as Mark Twain, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Lucy Montgomery, James Oliver Curwood, and Erich Maria Remarque. These people were the bestselling authors during the nineteen hundreds (arosebooks). Although all the authors contributed lot’s of things to the world of literature, Erich Remarque contributed a lot of important aspects of writing. Erich was primarily influenced by German heritage during the twentieth century.
As a student at Munster college, he was drafted into the German army at the age of 18. He fought on the western front…show more content… He was then shipped off to Celle to complete his basic training (cliffsnotes). While he was in Celle his mom was fighting cancer. She lost the fight on September ninth, 1917. Erichs duties in the army consisted of a lot of construction. For example, he built lots of bunkers, pillboxes, and dugouts for the German soldiers. He worked mainly at night due to high risk of sniper fire (cliffsnotes). Some time later, on July 15, 1917, his company was sent off to Flanders. The gunfire really messed with Erich. At one point he had to carry his best friend through gunfire, just to watch him die when he got him to the medic. When the rainy season hit, it lasted for five months. During this time the armies battled against each other. Nearly eight hundred thousand people lost their lives in these battles (cliffsnotes). Erich was also injured during this time. He was hit with grenade splinters in the neck, knee, and wrists. It was then time for him to go back home. He left by train on July thirty…show more content… It was mistaken as a call for world peace (A German Pacifist?). All Quiet on the Western Front could be used as a source to talk about the war because of the past history of the author. Erich was a World War I veteran for the German army. He was wounded five times in combat during the course of his time in the war. He was able to fully experience what war was really like for an individual. The characters in his book went through many of the same hardships as he did while being a German solider in World War I (history channel). For this reason, I believe it is very rational to assume that All Quiet on the Western Front could be used as a source for discussing the Great War. Erich experienced the war first hand and possibly incorporated much of his own life as a soldier in the
