All Quiet on the Western Front

Deadline ^ | Sept. 12, 2022 | Pete Hammond

[Hot Tabasco]

I just watched the trailer and while I have Netflix, I'm not inclined to watch it.

I've been witnessing so much violence in the news this past two years that I'm just burned out on it.

It looks like a great movie but too intense for me at this time.......

[jerod]

Now that... is a KNIFE.

Man to man, hand to hand combat. Reading through the Canadian World War 1 military diaries, you can find many references to bayonet fighting... Nasty business.

Lieutenant Robert Fleming Bell is noted on this diary page entry for his gallantry and leadership... He was killed in action during 'heavy' bayonet fighting. Because of his actions, he was posthumously awarded a 'Mention in Despatches'... The only award you can recieve if you died during combat heroically, other than the Victoria Cross which is the highest military honour among commonwealth countries.

[Bulwyf]

Sabaton has a song about it.

[libstripper]

Are his memoirs published and available?

[Reily]

That was the reasoning of the German Imperial staff. However, after Russia’s poor showing in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, it’s hard to justify. Where was Czarist Russia actually threatening Germany? Russia posed a threat to a German ally - Austro-Hungary but that was because A-H was sitting on a Slavic nationalism powder keg. 30-40 years prior to that A-H was a German enemy.

It would have been a different world if the Czar’s father had lived. Imperial Germany would have moved even closer to the UK. Wilhelm II was Victoria’s favorite grandchild!

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Want a WWI film from the German point of view? I would suggest Westfront 1918.

[ansel12]

When I was a boy I set up my own bayonet dummy in the backyard and had a German Mauser with about an 18-inch bayonet that I trained with.

[Savage Beast]

The magnificent 1930 version is easily one of the greatest movies ever made. I have never been able to forget the perfectly cast Lew Ayers as a young man face to face with unimaginable horror. I cannot imagine any remake surpassing it.

However, I fully intend to watch this German remake. If it even approaches the 1930 version or Remarque's masterpiece it will be well worth watching. Fortunately I have lived in Germany, und ich kann Deutsch, so I shall definitely look forward to it.

Thanks for posting this and letting me know about it. My grandson, who knows how much I love the 1930 version, told me that it was being remade, but I didn't know the details until now.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

That’s a great point. The AQOTWF movie showed how things rapidly devolved from artillery to machine guns to rifles to bayonets to hand-to-hand combat with both men so tired they can barely move. No way women can do that.

The women you asked ab out that mortal hand-to-hand combat — how did they answer?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

No, I have his typewritten pages. I need to get them to a museum somewhere so they can be available.

[Savage Beast]

Thanks!

The trailer brought tears to my eyes.

[moovova]

Thanks...I’ll watch it.

[ansel12]

Handling that trench knife while I explained it to them seemed to always have an effect on people, the reaction always seemed to indicate that they were looking at the reality with new eyes.

How deep the change was, who knows, but I did see thoughtfulness.

[jjotto]

I recall a story that the UK wanted Wilhelm II to remain as symbolic head of post-WW1 German government as a unifying and moderating presence, but Pres. Wilson insisted on absolute German ‘democracy’. That democracy brought a weak Hindenburg and Weimar, which resulted in Hitler.

[Organic Panic]

Did they wokeify it? Cast all the Germans as black transgenders? Give the roll of Paul to Ruby Rose?

[Reily]

There is a quote attributed to Churchill that if a Hollenzollern (Germany), a Hapsburg (Austria) and Wiesbaden (Bavaria) had been allowed to stay on there thrones there would have been no Hitler.

[Savage Beast]

And one must not over look Remarque's other masterpiece, Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben, which is also unforgettable.

[Reily]

Typo
there = their

[jjotto]

After reading some details about von Hindenburg and Ludendorff, they should have been executed and Wilhelm II allowed to remain on the throne UK-style.

[oldvirginian]

“Perhaps even harder to watch is the insane German high commander who sends his troops into battle against the French with 15 minutes to go until the 11th hour.”

The Germans weren’t the only ones who did that. All along the lines soldiers were being killed right up to the last moment.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/11/08/in-the-final-hours-of-world-war-i-a-terrible-toll/