@Ms. Cox: Commenting doesn't seem to be working correctly for me, so I'll just answer your comments here!


      "Why do you think they chose to make a plan to attach [sic] Himmelstoss? ..."
    In my opinion, there's no way they're attacking the military as a whole. The way to attack a system of government of any shape or form is not to attack one person, especially one nowhere near the top of the chain of command. They were attacking a person, not a system: the way to destroy a system is to undermine it or use its loopholes. Beating up one man is neither.
    As for what led up to the event of the attack: Himmelstoss treated everyone in the group poorly, but Tjaden especially suffered at his merciless hands. I believe the chain of command which placed him over them and made them unable to safely rebel against his treatment helped to establish their hatred for him, but they have no hatred for the chain of command itself.

      "What do you think the effect is on the story of having a first-person narrator? ..."
    Although it's indeed true that a single person's view is always going to be biased to have him and his friends in the higher moral standing and his enemies in the lower moral standing, the average person won't have a massively slanted bias one way or the other – although I must admit the events thus far seem to be far more slanted than average. So far, I've seen four groups of characters.
  1.) Neutral – Bystanders; people Paul never interacts with directly or indirectly.
  2.) Friends – These people are obviously 'the good guys' - Paul always shows them in a positive light.
  3.) Enemies – Again, these people are obviously 'the bad guys' - they're always complete jerks.
  4.) The Other Side – Paul never actually says he hates the opposing army; he just tries to not get
            killed by them.

      "Why do you think Remarque chose to have these main characters in a hole in the ground, ..."
    To me this seems fairly obvious to even the most oblivious of readers. The hole in the ground in inherent in the setting the characters are in – they're in the middle of a warzone in which cannon shells are falling and making craters in the ground, hence hiding in a hole. As for the coffin falling on the character instead of a happy face bowling ball, the coffin creates a grim tone in which even those who already died aren't safe from the ravages of war. War has no respect for anyone within its reach.

    ...well, it would also be fairly unlikely for a happy face bowling ball to be in the middle of a warzone anyway.