Examine the presentation of attitudes towards war All Quiet on the Western Front

"Attitudes to war fluctuate depending on perspective." Examine the presentation of attitudes towards war in All Quiet on the Western Front. 

Remarque presents various attitudes to war such as the Home Front's perspective, and by the extension the general public's, through the character of Kantorek, who filled his student's heads with passionate rhetoric about duty and glory, "until the entire class marched under his leadership down to the local recruiting office and enlisted".

Remarque also includes Kantoerk in the novel to reinforce his anti-war stance and also represent the older entrenched people who are at fault for encouraging the war. At the beginning of the war, men of the older generations like Kantorek taught young men that "duty to one's country is the greatest thing". As a teacher and an older man, Kantorek is greatly respected by the students of the 1910s and highly influential as he is supposed to be intellectually and morally above the normal classes of people in society, however, what Kantorek provides the boys with are lies and propaganda.

An example of how the war was "sold" through propaganda to make young men willingly, even enthusiastically regardless of the war's brutality, enlist, fight, and many times, die was the Iron Youth. It was rooted in nationalism and was a portrayal of and symbol of the strong German man that would defend Germany, leading it to military victory. It was a way to romanticise the war and Kantorek, who completely believes the propaganda about German Pride and Glory and, additionally, knows nothing about the military, with no experience of it, uses it to influence his students. 

He writes a letter to Kropp which contains the phrase "young men of iron" to remind them of the Iron Youth. This is an empty phrase of patriotic fever, glorifying the boy's heroism but the boys ridicule it because it is incongruent with what they have become. The word "iron" conjures up images of strength and durability, while the word "youth" conjures up images of innocence and life. The soldiers are no longer innocent, trusting youth, many being physically and emotionally shattered by their experience of brutual violence in the trenches leading to a dulling of their faith and trust. As Paul remarks later: "Young? None of us is more than twenty. But young? Young men? That was a long time ago. We are old now."

The experience of the war has made young soldiers old before their time, adrift on a sea of confusion and pain and bereft of any hope for the future. While older men like Detering "have wives, children, occupations, and interests...a background...so strong that the war cannot obliterate it", young soldiers like Paul and Kropp have nothing to hold onto; "the war swept us away." Both are also powerless as they watch their fellow soldier, classmate and friend, Kemmerich, die and can do nothing for him; all the patriotic catchphrases are impotent in the face of youthful death. The boys feel disillusioned and no longer hold…