Rudolf G. Binding expressed his philosophy of art and life most succinctly in his condemnation of Erich Maria Remarque's Im Westen nichts Neues (1929; translated as All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929). Entitled "Krieg für genügsame Leute" (War for Contented Folk), the review presented Binding with an opportunity to denounce the complacency of the postwar generation and to criticize his compatriot's inability to confront the harsh realities of the human condition. Though Remarque's classic antiwar novel had been praised for its realistic depiction of a soldier's life during World War I, Binding considered it poetic and thus a falsification of the war he had experienced as a soldier. He based this scathing critique on his own concept of the human experience: "Selbst eine Hölle wäre heilig, durch die ein Mensch gegangen wäre. Und wir sind durch den Krieg gegangen...