What role did the mailman have in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front?
Usually a mailman simply brought the mail (hopefully from a loved one fighting overseas) and it was a telegraph courier that would bring bad news by delivering a telegraph from the war department. When a soldier was killed the death would reach the families back home by telegraph. When families saw the telegraph courier truck come they literally stood still in fear (some may have kept busy doing chores) in hopes it wasn’t their home he was coming too. Sometimes the telegram would say the soldier had died in the act of duty, or that he was lost in action, but also there was a thank you from the government for the duty of such a hero.
