For this reason, the gas mask serves as the more important physical representation of the attack, conveying not only the presence of gas but also the strange and dangerous technological world that the men now inhabit. While yellow-green smoke may approximate certain World War I gases like chlorine, others like phosgene were nearly invisible to the naked eye. The ephemeral nature of poison gas certainly makes it difficult to visualize. With these methods, the films attempt to depict a weapon that tends to defy narrative conventions. Smoke then clouds the viewer and the soundtrack shifts to an uncanny silence, punctuated by the sound of heavy breathing and racing heart beats. After the first screams of alarm wash over, the soldiers begin to react, pulling out gas masks and placing them on their faces. Upon presumably sensing the gas, either via sight or smell, the soldiers begin to scream and panic, thus trying to bring the reader or viewer into a complete sense of disorientation. And while poison gas was just one of several new weapons that Remarque described in order to convey the brutality of modern trench warfare, his gas scenes maintained enough salience to make it into in each of the three subsequent films based on the novel (1930, 1979, and 2022).Īll three of the All Quiet on the Western Front films attempted to convey gas attacks with the narrative methods that Remarque first employed. In the above lines from All Quiet on the Western Front, the renowned German war novelist Erich Maria Remarque introduced his readers to gas attacks in the western trenches of World War I. Cautiously, the mouth applied to the valve, I breathe. Klarscheiben night befassen.I grab for my gas-mask…Gaaas-Gaaas- I call…my helmet falls to one side, it slips over my face…I wipe the goggles of my mask clear of the moist breath…These first minutes with the mask decide between life and death: is it tightly woven? I remember the awful sights in the hospital: the gas patients who in day-long suffocation cough their burnt lungs up in clots. Filter auf den Boden des Behalters legen und Kappe moglichst faltenfrei ordnen. Bei ber Maske mit eingeschraubtem Filter sind die Augenscheiben so von hinten nach vorn zusammen zu falten, dass das Ausatemventil in der Mitte steht. A brown paper label pasted inside the lid reads 'Gebrauchsanweisung. & 8 Luftschutz-Gez.gen.' Below this in small letters are the makers details 'Eugen Suhl NachF. Stamped in white paint on the outside of the case is a box containing 'RL1 - 39/55 Vertrieb gem. The carrying strap and attachment loop are also made of paper. The mask is in its original 'Ersatz' black cylindrical case made of paper and cardboard which is lined with a black and brown marbled paper. Black ink figures reading '293' and '140' as well as a small swastika and eagle symbol over the marking 'Wa. The removable screw-in canister is made of unpainted aluminium with the embossed figures 'RL1. The valve is crimped onto the mask by an external metal band. The section inside the mask above the canister has a one-way rubber and steel inlet valve encircled by a thick band of compressed paper. On the outside of the rubber is a small orange paint stamp of the German eagle and swastika above the marking 'Wa A 320'. Other black ink stamps reading 'M-P 22' and 'A-W-D 24' are also present, as well as a small German eagle and swastika marking. Below this is the serial number '129512 4 28'. The inside of the mask is stamped with a blue ink box containing the following 'RL1 - 38/4 Vertrieb gemass & 8 Luftschutzgesetz genehm (obscured)'. The mask is a pull-on full head style with yellow plastic eyepieces and a one-way rubber exhaust valve in front of the nose. German Luftschutz green rubber gas mask with aluminium filter canister.
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