‘All Quiet on the Western Front’: A German retelling for a modern time

War was sold to a young Paul Bäumer as a romantic ideal.

Spurred by a patriotic teacher, he volunteers to join his fellow classmates – mere boys – on the front lines of a war that quickly manifests as anything but aspirational. The protagonist of “All Quiet on the Western Front” battles hunger, grieves lost classmates, and charges the World War I battlefield with little apparent training, all while wearing a uniform his German chain of command had recycled off a dead soldier’s body.

It’s Netflix’s version of the global bestselling 1929 war novel – “Im Westen nichts Neues” – that the Nazis famously considered a threat. Before the Nazis seized power, their master propagandist Joseph Goebbels even orchestrated a riot at the 1930 Berlin premiere of the Hollywood film version.

The 2022 release is the third film based on the novel, but the first helmed by a German director. And, says the filmmaker, Edward Berger, it was time for a homegrown telling of the unique head-hanging felt by generations of fellow Germans, following their country’s imperialistic aggressions in both world wars.

“If your [American] great-grandfather fought in the war, he came back and was celebrated and embraced,” says Mr. Berger. “It’s just a different legacy in Germany. It’s only shame and guilt – that informs every creative decision I make.” 

A land war is again raging in Europe, this time via the aggressions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The film’s depictions of war in all its brutal detail are resonating in Germany – where it’s been out in select theaters a month ahead of this week’s global Netflix release – as is its reminder of the dangers of nationalism gone overboard. Yet some early reaction in the country also reflects the ongoing conflict presented by a long-entrenched German pacifism.

“World War I remains the original catastrophe of the 20th century, really,” says Stephen Brockmann, author of “A Critical History of German Film” and a professor of German at Carnegie-Mellon University. “The Germans for a long time have been fairly pacifist, yet what’s interesting is that most people seem reasonably comfortable with the government’s pretty strong stand against Russia right now. What the [novel and film] don’t answer is the question of ‘What do you do if you have an aggressive fascist opponent who tries to invade you?’ Are you supposed to be passive?”

Interpreting the novel 

When Erich Maria Remarque’s novel was released in 1929, it was an immediate global bestseller, moving nearly 3 million copies in short order. Some 17 million people had died in World War I, and the world was still grappling with disillusionment. Mr. Remarque, who had been drafted into the German army, wrote of the banalities of war in stark terms, sparing no detail as soldiers relieved themselves on makeshift toilets, stole farmers’ geese for food, and visited brothels. In other words, there was no heroism in the narrative. 

Reiner Bajo/Netflix

Soldiers on a battlefield in the Netflix film "All Quiet on the Western Front," which takes place during World War I.

While Mr. Remarque called his work “neither an accusation nor a confession,” it’s clear why audiences interpreted the novel as anti-war: The characters’ deaths are brutal and senseless, and young people alternately battle death, boredom, and hunger along a trench that seems to shift mere meters over the course of years. The remove and relative luxury that bathes top brass is also clear, as they sip tea and travel on train cars, while exhausted soldiers carry out their orders without larger context.

The title “All Quiet on the Western Front” is mired in irony, as it’s the single line messaged home from the trenches on the day the protagonist dies.

When a U.S.-produced film version premiered in Berlin in December 1930, the Germans had spent a decade trying to work their way back onto the global diplomatic stage, and the sting was still fresh from its postwar territorial losses. It was lost on no one that 3 million Germans were now living in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. 

“The German right wing wanted to see something much more heroic and much more nationalistic, and they were very critical of Remarque and the film,” says Dr. Brockmann. The Nazi paramilitary wing’s attempt to sabotage the 1930 film premiere only added to the aura of the party at a critical political moment.

What ensued was a major cultural event, says Edward Smith, associate professor of German literature at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. “Everyone had to have an opinion, and people took a stand either for or against the 1930 film and the novel upon which it was based.”

Germany’s place in history

It’s unclear whether Mr. Berger’s 2022 work will have the same cultural reach today in a fragmented media landscape (or with today’s fragmented attention spans), though it is Germany’s submission for best international feature film at the Academy Awards.

Over the years, reception to the works have changed as Germans grappled with their place in world history, reluctantly at first and then with greater resolve. (The Nazis burned the book in 1933, and in modern times it has been required school reading.) Still, while often dismissive of the necessity for war, Germans have also criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz for sending helmets and a field hospital to Ukraine while other NATO allies were sending tanks and heavy weapons.

“Germany has been tortured by the aftereffects of war, but Germany is the largest economy in the European Union, and it needs to find its path as a strong leader,” says Dr. Smith, the German literature professor. “However Scholz and other politicians also see the danger in Germany being perceived as too strong a leader.”

For most Germans today, the Ukraine war is a clear war of good against evil, yet public opinion is divided on whether Germany is doing too much, too little, or just enough to assist Ukraine. About 45% of Germans feel their country should do more, according to a poll this week by German broadcaster ARD.

Yet, when compared across the EU, Germans are second only to Italians in wanting a quick end to the war, even if it requires Ukrainian concessions. In other words, Germans are among the loudest voices in the “peace camp,” while the “justice camp” believes only a Russian defeat can bring peace, according to a European Council on Foreign Relations report.

This is an interplay that betrays German pacifist tendencies. “The German position is a very difficult one,” admits Mr. Berger. “Having succumbed to our destructive impulses twice in the last century gives us a special weight on our shoulders. Our politics, our guiding light is very much ‘How can we solve this?’ By diplomacy, by sitting down together, by creating bridges, by being part of the EU. By championing the EU. I think that would be our responsibility in history, rather than anything that is confrontational.

“But we can’t just stand by and do nothing about Ukraine. We have to try to support them, to try to find a solution,” says Mr. Berger, while remarking he’ll leave solution-finding to “smarter minds.” 

“He understands where he’s from”

At September’s premiere of the film in Berlin, just ahead of the German nationwide release, bedecked moviegoers mingled as a three-piece band played before a neon red Netflix sign. It was a far cry from the Nazi-agitations at the 1930 Berlin premiere, though attendees were also talking about everything having to do with war.

“For my grandmother, war was always very traumatizing,” says Heinrike Heinoch, an opera singer living in Berlin. “War was always repeating and repeating, and she would look at the television and say, ‘Oh, somewhere in the world there is war,’ and she was always very emotional.”

Anna, a Berlin gallerist, who shared only her first name for privacy reasons, remarked that it was important to consider the soldier’s perspective. “You have to dive into these feelings and the thoughts people had, and the destruction that happened to the souls.”

If it were up to Mr. Berger, such considerations of the cost of war will never leave the German discourse. He recalls a family trip that included a detour to the Mauthausen concentration camp, now a museum. It was the first time his son, who was 12, toured it. 

“I saw the moment it goes into his body, that responsibility, that he understands where he’s from. It’s part of our DNA,” says Mr. Berger. “He’s growing up with it, and I hope his kids will grow up with it, too. So that we don’t forget.”

“All Quiet on the Western Front,” is streaming on Netflix and available in some theaters. It is in German and some French with English subtitles, and is rated R for strong bloody war violence and grisly images.