All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is considered an anti-war novel through examples of the horror and waste of human life during war time. Throughout the novel, the death and destruction caused by battle is clearly depicted. The major theme of the novel dwells on the waste and emptiness of war. Thousands of lives are lost just because a few men in authority want more land and more power. Ordinary people, with valuable aspirations and dreams, are being pulled into the battle and forced to fight courageously, only to have a grave as a reward. War does not only destroy lives and property, but also destroys the human spirit. These Soldiers are subjects to emotional as well as physical torment; eyes being blinded, limbs are blown off, blood flows everywhere, and innocent men die in agony.
The clear message is that there is no glory or honor in war because it all will end in death. The reasons that men gave for enlisting were nationalism and patriotism, which were later shown to be false and empty by Remarque. The author makes these claims with example in each chapter; the sharing of the boots in chapter one, the dehumanizing of soliders in chapter three, the amount of losses in chapter six, and the effects on the home front in the final chapters.
In Chapter 1, we have the occurrence with Kemmerich's boots. When Kemmerich's expensive boots are brought back to him in the hospital, the boys all think that they are useless to him now, and if they stay here, the orderlies will steal them. So Muller tries to convince Kemmerich to give them up, but he does not want to, however he continues and promises to see him every morning, thinking of the boots and forces Kemmerich to give up his boots, however, when Muller dies, the boots pass on to Paul, and seemingly the boots see out the rest of the war on someone else's feet. From this we learn that things are more important than people.
