Shoshanna Stoume ’s Reviews > All Quiet on the Western Front > Status Update

“Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony- Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother “

In the first few pages I have 2 thoughts. 1: I have learned a young German soldier smokes 40 cigarettes a day. That’s 2 packs per day! 2: I am already filled with a sense of sadness at the youth of the soldiers. The main characters who just survived the front line of WWI are only 19 years old.