At the end of All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul reflects on his life. How does he feel about his life and about war?

During the course of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, Paul Bäumer becomes disillusioned with the patriotic messages that had supported the war. He worries about the actual status and mental attitudes of himself and his fellow soldiers, saying “I believe we are lost.” By the end, just before his death, Paul presents himself as exhausted and grimly accepting of his, and his nation’s, fate:

They can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear.

He is realistic in his belief that the war will not improve the situation of Germany’s people and slightly optimistic that the future generations may not be severely affected, because they will have no memory of the war.

The generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside. We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older,…the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin.

Paul’s expectations have so diminished that he is just grateful to be alive.

The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes.

However, Paul at times seems to reject this resignation, as he also states:

Perhaps all this that I think is mere melancholy and dismay, which will fly away as the dust . . . It cannot be that it has gone, the yearning that made our blood unquiet.
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