“A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends,” (All Quiet on the Western Front Ch. 8 Pg. 193-194). How have people in power placed others in danger, for the benefit of fighting for their selfish needs? It’s been shown throughout history and experience, that many wars, battles, and even small arguments between friends have been influenced or done by the people in power. In All Quiet on the Western Front the conversation topic about not wanting to fight each other, but fighting for the sake of the people in power and for survival has been brought up numerous times throughout the story. The idea is also reinforced by a scene in chapter 9 where Paul ends up in a shell hole with a soldier from the opposing side. As a desperation for survival, Paul stabs the other soldier, but afterwards, struggles severely as he’s forced to stay in the shell hole with the slowly dying soldier. After empathizing with the soldier, he tries to bandage the soldier and feed him water. This also happens in the movie (2022 version) and Paul swears to tell the soldier’s wife about him. Towards the end of the movie however, the book and movie go through different endings as Paul was forced to fight due to the German general wanting to break the armistice as a means for pride and nationalism. There was only a short period of time before the war was about to officially end, but in this short period of time, Paul was put to rest a few minutes before the war truly ended.

The book and movie display the idea that people in power often abuse the power they’re given/earned and put others in danger for the sake of their ego, greed, and/or sake for revenge. Along with this, it’s also been shown before World War One as Napoleon III, the president of France, often tried to expand territory and declare war as an attempt to “bring France to its former greatness” from when Napoleon previously ruled France. As a result of his selfishness, he brought a lot of suffering as a war he declared after reading a telegram brought many losses to France due to the lacking technology and military France had in comparison to Prussia and Germany. It may be that the rulers or people in power made mistakes that caused their empire to fall, or it could be that they were simply too incompetent to understand the losses that they’ve caused as they needed to heighten their “greatness.” One thing we can still take into consideration is that we need to understand the mistakes made in the past and learn from them, so we don’t have to deal with so many issues in our world.