All Quiet on the Western Front and the warmongers of 2009

video: Inspector Foyle

It’s Remembrance weekend- so to mark the occasion here’s a clip from what for my money remains the greatest- and most powerful- anti-war film of all time: All Quiet on the Western Front.

At about 7.15 in to the clip, you can watch the wonderful scene when Paul, who has returned from the horror of the trenches, visits his old school and turns on his warmongering teacher Professor Kantorek who is still urging pupils to go out and fight.

Whenever I read articles like this one and this one in the British press, I always think of Kantorek and the other armchair warriors in the bar.

For, as Paul says in the clip, it is much, much easier to tell others to ‘go out and die’ than it is to do it yourself.