Every once in a while comes a book, a story, that puts a stop in your life. And this one, is one of those stories.
Hauntingly and masterfully told, it makes your heart ache.
We follow a young German soldier, named Paul, through his years serving in the war. We experience all the horror of modern war through his eyes.
What I loved the most about this story, is that we hardly ever hear about the other side, and when we do, he isn't referring to them as 'enemies', rather 'the others'. There are no heroes in this story, but young men, shaped by the war and afraid of loneliness after the war.

I would like to share an afterword from my edition, by Brian Murdoch.

“The novel shows us very clearly that war is something else: war is not about heroism, but about terror, either waiting for death, or trying desperately to avoid it, even if it means killing a complete stranger to do so, about losing all human dignity and values, about becoming an automation; it is not about falling bravely and nobly for one's country, but about soiling oneself in terror under heavy shellfire, about losing a leg, crawling blinded in no man's land, or being wounded in every conceivable part of the body.”