“We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and began to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.” -All Quiet on the Western Front: Chapter 5 pages 87-88. How does one “shoot the world to pieces?” When Paul says this he means this both in the literal and metaphorical sense. 

In this war, Paul had to overcome his youth and realize the life he had grown to appreciate and see the beauty in was also shaded with blood and death. His age became insignificant as he forgot more and more about his youth and instead on “shooting” the world to pieces. Paul has to come to the realization that the life he had was no longer there and instead, to focus on war and survival which causes Paul to shoot and kill in the literal sense as well as “shoot and kill” his old life in the metaphorical sense. 

Paul comes to terms with life as he knows the people once known as “youth” including himself are “fleeing from life” which represents both leaving their youthful life behind as well as facing death’s door. People in the war had to kill and burn down the world they began to love and cherish which as a result killed a part of them. In the end, the “people” in the soldiers had been killed and what was left was just soldiers.