#katczinsky

Someone described the older German soldier in the Engländer scene as Kat from All Quiet On the Western Front and it ruined my entire life.

War will always be my favorite U2 album. I haven’t even listened to every single album of theirs but I just know that War will always be my favorite. Not just because it’s a fantastic album, but because I hold a very emotional connection with it. I was in 8th grade when I was first listening to it. At the same time I was reading All Quiet on the Western Front for English class (for those of you unfamiliar with AQWF, it’s a very famous novel written by a WWI vet in protest of war, it’s absolutely incredible, I definitely recommend reading it). We had to write this giant-ass paper for it, and during those two excruciating weeks of writing, I was listening to War. It was painful, yet this is one of my fondest memories. And now they are forever intertwined in my mind. Everytime I listen to that album, I get so lost in the words, yet I don’t recognize them. The only thing I think about is Paul Bäumer, and his best friend Stanislaus Katczinsky. I think about the anger and frustration of Albert Kropp. The terrible death of Gérard Duval. I recall the brutality, the destruction, and pain of WWI. And I think it’s absolutely brilliant that this album can bring me back to that. However ugly the reality of the book might be, it opened my eyes to a whole new set of horizons, which made me the person I am today. I know that sounds cheesy as fuck, but it’s true. So cheers to U2, and one hell of an emotionally charged album.