"We saw the meaning of the war in this inner liberation of the whole nation from its obsolete conventions, in this breakthrough into the unknown, into some heroic venture, no matter whom it devoured" (148).
             In February 1915, Zuckmayer was on a routine patrol along the quiet sector of the front. Wanting to be alone for awhile be was trudging along one of the communications trenches when he saw two medics carrying a stretcher with a soldier who had been shot in the head on it. After examining the body he noticed with horror that it was a schoolmate he had enlisted with. His one regret, after the medics carried his fallen friend away, was that he should have closed his friend's eyes. Over the course of the war, every schoolmate who was with him on the day of his enlistment perished in battle. However, his attitude remained fairly positive. He later writes that
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