Lohne

Lohne is a railway junction that, in the hands of Corporal Himmelstoss, becomes the setting for one of the most absurd and emblematic training exercises in the novel. The drill, known simply as "Change at Lohne," is designed to teach recruits how to navigate the subway at the junction when changing trains. In the barrack-room, the beds represent the subway, and each man must stand at attention on the left side of his bed. At the command "Change at Lohne!" every soldier scrambles under the bed to the opposite side, a maneuver they practice for hours on end. This exercise, recalled by Kropp with a sudden laugh during a conversation about drill, perfectly illustrates the arbitrary and dehumanizing nature of the military discipline that the young volunteers endure before ever reaching the front.

The Drill as a Symbol of Military Absurdity

The "Change at Lohne" drill is not merely a quirky memory but a concentrated symbol of the senselessness that pervades the soldiers' training. It is a product of Himmelstoss's system, a method of education that reduces men to automatons performing meaningless tasks. The exercise is recalled in the context of a broader discussion about how the army, particularly non-commissioned officers like Himmelstoss, becomes corrupted by the power it wields. The drill, with its pointless repetition and physical discomfort, is a perfect example of the kind of parade-ground soldiering that the men learn to despise, yet which they recognize as a necessary preparation for the horrors of the front. It is a game of pure obedience, stripped of any practical value, designed solely to break down individuality and enforce conformity.

Contrast with the Front and the World of Youth

The memory of Lohne stands in stark contrast to the soldiers' later experiences at the front and to the lost world of their youth. The drill is a relic of a time when the greatest challenge was a corporal's whim, a world away from the life-and-death struggles in the trenches. The absurdity of scrambling under a bed to simulate a subway transfer is a world apart from the desperate reality of crawling through shell-holes under machine-gun fire. This contrast highlights the gulf between the artificial world of the barracks and the brutal reality of war. The memory of Lohne, like the memories of the poplar avenue by the stream or the cathedral cloister, belongs to a past that is now unreachable, a time when the soldiers were still capable of being amused by such foolishness. The drill, in its very absurdity, becomes a marker of the innocence that the war has destroyed, a reminder of a time when the greatest threat was a drill sergeant's anger, not a shell fragment.

The Enduring Power of the Memory

Despite its absurdity, the memory of "Change at Lohne" persists, resurfacing in the soldiers' conversations as a shared joke and a point of connection. It is a story that binds them together, a piece of their common history that they can laugh about even as they face the daily terror of the front. The drill is a testament to the strange camaraderie forged in the crucible of military training, a shared ordeal that, however ridiculous, becomes a part of their identity. The memory of Lohne, like the memory of the thrashing they gave Himmelstoss, is a small victory over the system that sought to break them, a reminder that even in the face of overwhelming power, they could still find a way to resist, if only through laughter and shared recollection. The name "Lohne" itself becomes a code word for a whole set of experiences, a shorthand for the absurdity and the hardship that shaped them into soldiers.