That date appears just before the closing credits, but, if it is meant to mean the Armistice, that occurred on November 11.
Actually, the German Army wasn't sitting quietly in the trenches during the last weeks of the war. They were fighting hard, but also falling back and retreating towards the German border.
Wasn't that the date he was supposed to have died? It makes it even more poignant knowing he was only a few weeks away from the end.
shareI wondered about that too; the use of the date is kind of ambiguous.
There were heavy causalities on both sides in the last weeks of the war. The British poet Wilfred Owen was killed on November 4, with just five days to go.
Another thing worth mentioning is that there expectations through 1918 that the war might continue for another year. The Germans hoped to reform a new defensive line and hold it for a while. Meanwhile the Allies were planning for new offensives, with greatly increased American help, in the winter and spring of 1919. But the German defense began to fall apart in the fall of 1918.
I don't have my copy of the book to hand, but the entry in wiki reads:
"The life that has borne [Bäumer] through these years" falls at the end of the novel, in October 1918. At the time, the western front was sufficiently quiet that the army dispatches for the day read that there was nothing new to report from the western front, and the book's German title refers to this. In the novel's adaptations for films, this is presented as a physical death rather than a spiritual death. In the end, his body on the earth has a look of calm that showed "that he could not have suffered long."
I haven't read the novel in many years - and I don't own a copy. But if I remember correctly, elements of that scene in the two movie versions (the butterfly in 1930; the bird in the tree in 1979) were not in the novel.
shareYou're right. We don't read the details of Paul's death, just that he was found, face down and the report if "All Quiet on the Western Front". In German "Am Western Nicht Neues" means "Nothing new on the WF", and has a different kind of irony.
The butterfly motif is a classic, tho', and the ghost soldiers.
I didn't realize this the first time around, but when I saw the 1930 version again recently - the footage of the ghost soldiers is actually a scene repeated from earlier in the movie. It shows the new recruits going up to the line for the first time.
shareOh really, I didn't know that (mind you, I haven't seen it for a while).
shareI know it's almost four years after this post was put up, but I had to respond. Wilfred Owen's poetry is what got me interested in this war to begin with. And the fact he died so close to the end of the war. I'm studying this in Western Civ right now. We took a class poll to see what we wanted to learn about, and this was one of two topics before the end of semester. Prof recommended this movie (actually the 1930 movie) to help understand some of why this war happened.
When I tried to make sense of this war before, my eyes would glaze over. I've begun to understand why and how this happened and why so many were killed.
Wilfred Owen was a remarkable poet. I'm glad someone else mentioned him.