The press branded Erzberger a “criminal.” And in 1921 a right-wing terrorist group murdered him. They peddled the myth that social democrats had conspired with Jews and socialists to betray the nation. Anti-democratic nationalist groups soon formed throughout the country, attracting ex-military officers and antisemites. Weeks after signing the Armistice, some German politicians falsely claimed Germany had been on the path to victory when Erzberger surrendered. But as Berger notes in a recent interview at the Middleburg film festival, the end “is the beginning of a much greater horror.” The rift between social democrats and militant nationalists, between those who want democratic peace and those who embrace authoritarianism, will tear Germany apart. The film ends with the first moments of peace. As his soldiers fall in a futile attack fifteen minutes before the armistice takes effect, the General looks to the clock. Meanwhile, General Friedrich, an amalgam of the most depraved aspects of German militarism, sips wine in his commandeered chateau, and rails against the “Social Democrats…selling off our Fatherland.” Clinging to his final moments of power, he orders his emaciated troops, Paul among them, to charge the French lines. With no other option, the German delegation signs the Armistice. “That is a disease for the defeated,” the French General quips. Erzberger cautions that if peace spurs more misery than war, the German people will resent it. On a train carriage deep in the Compagnie Forest, the French issue unwavering demands that will gut the German military and send the nation into an economic depression. German troops are starving, and winter is upon them.
In the film, we break away from Paul to follow Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl) leading a delegation to negotiate an armistice with France. While the war ended in 1918, the terms of its conclusion sparked a domestic conflict that would rack Germany for over a decade and eventually lead to World War Two. In this new adaptation, nearly a century later, Edward Berger draws on a fuller understanding of German history. Neither Laemmle nor Remarque could have predicted what consumed Germany in the 1930s.
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When it won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Laemmle became convinced this movie would turn the world away from destroying humanity. Sparing no expense in production, the film offered a visceral cinematic experience, immersing audiences in the sounds and images of war. Laemmle, who retained deep ties with family and friends in Germany, traveled to Berlin to meet Remarque and buy the rights to the book. It is this candor that made the novel an international bestseller and in 1930 caught the attention of movie mogul Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures. For hours he lay next to the slowly dying Frenchman and finally, wracked with guilt, confesses, “If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother.” In one of the most famous scenes from the book, Paul falls into a shell-hole and buries his knife into the chest of a French solider. They fight because they are told to fight and do not want to die. Paul and his comrades hold no animus towards the French. When Erich Maria Remarque started writing the novel in 1927, he aimed to capture his experience of the war with journalistic clarity. Unlike most war stories, All Quiet on the Western Front makes no effort to justify or sentimentalize either side of the conflict. This story feels more relevant than ever. Only a nation so deluded with its own sense of exceptionalism that it has paved the way for its own demise. First adapted into an iconic film by Universal Pictures in 1930, Berger has reclaimed this story with a distinctly German understanding of war and power. Man is a beast.”ĭirector Edward Berger’s new adaptation for Netflix of the 1929 novel All Quiet on the Western Front offers a grim, yet stunning portrayal of trench warfare in WWI. “Give a dog a bone and he will always snap it up,” he mutters. A sergeant, convinced Paul will be dead by dawn, pulls the mask from his face and orders him to bail the rainwater from the trench. Like a creature from a distant planet, he takes in his first glimpse of the western front. Peering through the yellow lens of his gas mask, seventeen-year-old Paul Bäumer struggles to breath.
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