All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

I am Krista Becker and I have been Paul Baumer’s Reverend since he was thirteen years old. I came to this small town six years ago as Paul was entering the teenage years of his life. When I met Paul he came to church regularly and participated in many activities at the church without being asked by his parents. It was not unusual for me to see Paul perched in a corner of the sanctuary with a pen and paper writing what was on his mind. Although Paul was a shy reserved boy who liked to write poetry, he had an intense love for his family and friends and showed compassion with everyone he interacted with. He worked with me to care for the people in the church that needed prayer and nurturing.

But war changes everything. Paul was a member of a tight knit group of young men at the local high school. Paul was one of many of his peers who have been affected by the tragedies of this horrible war. He was a young man who listened to his fellow classmates and supported them and their endeavors. Kantorek was one of Paul’s teachers whom he and his classmates held in the highest esteem. When Paul and his friends reflected about their school days they remembered “Kantorek had been our schoolmaster, a stern little man in a grey tail-coat, with a face like a shrew mouse.”(10) Paul and the boys in his class listened to Kantorek as he talked about the war and their responsibility to support it. The boys from his class remembered that “during drill-time Kantorek gave us long lectures until the whole of our class went, under his shepherding to the District Commandant and volunteered.”(11) Paul’s head was filled with ideas that if he participated in the war that he would contribute to the German cause of World War I. Kantorek filled the boy’s minds with the ideas that it was their civic duty to serve in the military. He almost made them feel a since of guilt if they did not feel the need to enlist in the military. The boys in Kantoreks class felt...