User:Sandria2005/sandbox

Who was he?
Paul Bäumer (born in 1896) was a Young German soldier in World War One. He and his comrades were often referred as "The Iron Youth" by many people, just like most young soldiers Paul hated this title, but in contrary it was respected amongst the masses. He enlisted in the army In 1914 when he was about 17 years old. He occasionally wrote in his diary which was discovered in 1919, which gave us a small peak in his and the Iron Youth's daily lives. There is not much information known about Paul, but he certainly is known about by many people interested by the subject of war.

Background and Childhood
Paul Bäumer was born in 11th of may 1896. He grew up in Germany in a city called Duisburg. He was an average kid living in a poor family. Not much is known about his childhood, Paul almost never mentions anything about it in his Diary, one thing we know is that he liked books very much, he collected a lot of them. His love for books came from the fact that he worked in a book store called Helmut Loeven. This book particular store is still open today.

Family
Paul Bäumer lived in a poor family. His family consisted of him, his mother, his father, and his sister. Paul had a close relationship with his mother, at least in his childhood. In Paul's diary, we see that his mother may not look like it, but in reality she cares deeply about Paul. His mother also was suffering from an unidentified illness. From all we know Paul and his father did not have the best relationship. He was described as misguided by the war, and Paul was getting annoyed of it. Unfortunately we do not know much about his sister.

Diary
Paul Bäumer's diary is a very important piece of history since it helped people realize how terrible the war actually was. Paul mostly wrote in it once or twice a week and often wrote about his feelings, others feelings and of course about daily challenges he had to go through. Most of the information about his life was actually derived from his Diary. The diary spanned over 4 years and it suddenly stopped. As mentioned this Diary had huge influence over the masses and had countless copies, but as expected most of the copies were burned by the Nazis, the copies may have been turned into ash, but this diary was edged into peoples hearts and minds and still left a mark. It also created some terms such as Kantorek (A person who spreads propaganda and lies)

Life after war
We do not know exactly how he lived after war, if he worked, where he lived, nothing, we do not even know if he had a life after war. He appeared to be suicidal, and the people who claim they saw him, say that his eyes looked lifeless and that he never talked with anyone, and seemed to be suffering with anxiety and PTSD.

Death
We do not know much about Paul's death, it is speculated that he died in 1918 when he was about 22 years old. It is thought that he ended his life or that he was killed. It is more likely that he was killed, but there is still a possibility that he ended his life. We think that he ended his life because in a few pages of his diary he appears to have suicidal thoughts, because he could not live without war, not because he liked it, but because he had nothing without it. He probably felt isolated and alienated since these were the main themes of his diary. His body was found in 1919. His face was calm, there was a small butterfly next to his body. Paul sometimes mentioned butterflies in his diary, so Experts do not know exactly what the inset was doing there. The diary was found a few days later after his body was discovered.

Murderer?
Experts never found out who the killer was, "We likely never will"- they said. It is thought that likely it was a French sniper who killed him. Also his body was intoxicated with poison gas, some people believe that that was the reason why he died

Books
Paul's Diary's copies may have been destroyed, but the popular author Erich Maya Remarque pretty much used the Diary to create a book he called "All Quiet on the Western Front". He took the stories from the diary, gave them more depth, made them more interesting and spread it around the country, but similarly his books were burned by the Nazis too, but it became very popular a few years later.