FREE ESSAY ON ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT REPORT!!!

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT REPORT!!!

BARRON'S BOOK NOTES
ERICH MARIA REMARQUE'S
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
^^^^^^^^^^ERICH MARIA REMARQUE: THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES
Born Erich Paul Remark on June 22, 1898, he grew up in a Roman Catholic family in
Osnabruck in the province of Westphalia, Germany--a city in the northwest part of what is
now West Germany. He adored his mother, Anna Maria, but was never close to his father,
Peter. The First World War effectively shut him off from his sisters, Elfriede and Erna.
Peter Remark, descended from a family that fled to Germany after the French Revolution,
earned so little as a bookbinder that the family had to move 11 times between 1898 and
1912. The family's poverty drove Remarque as a teenager to earn his own clothes money
(giving piano lessons). He developed a craving for luxury, which he never outgrew. His
piano playing and other interests, such as collecting butterflies and exploring streams
and forests, later appeared in his fictional characters. His love of writing earned him
the nickname Smudge.
Because of the frequent moving, Remarque attended two different elementary schools and
then the Catholic Praparande (preparatory school). He loved the drama of Catholic
rituals, the beauty of churches, the flowers in cloister gardens, and works of art. He
later wrote with a sense of theater, and he featured churches and museums, flowers and
trees as symbols of enduring peace. While in school, he had problems with teachers,
however, and eventually paid them back by ridiculing them in his novels. At the
Praparande he argued so much with one teacher that he used the man's personality and
another's name (Konschorek) to produce a specific character in Ail Quiet on the Western
Front: Schoolmaster Kantorek.
In November 1916, when Remarque was eighteen and a third-year student at Osnabruck's
Lehrerseminar (teachers college), he was drafted for World War I. After basic training at
the Westerberg in Osnabruck (the Klosterberg of All Quiet), he was assigned to a reserve
battalion, but often given leave to visit his seriously ill mother. In June 1917, he was
assigned to a trench unit near the Western Front. He was a calm, self-possessed soldier,
and when his classmate Troske was wounded by grenade splinters, Remarque carried him to
safety. He was devastated when Troske died in the hospital of head wounds that had gone
unnoticed. Still, he rescued another comrade before he himself was severely injured--also
by grenade splinters--and sent to the St. Vincenz hospital in Duisburg for much of
1917-1918. He was there when his mother died in September 1917. A year later, still
grieving for her, he returned to Osnabruck for further training. After the war he
substituted her middle name, Maria, for his own, Paul.
The war ended before Remarque could return to active service, but even though he had not
experienced frontline fighting at its worst, the war had changed his attitudes forever.
He had learned to realize the value--and fragility--of each individual life, and had
become disillusioned with a patriotism that ignored the individual. To him and many of
his companions, civilian careers no longer held any meaning.
The next few years in Germany brought shortages, profiteering, runaway inflation,
unemployment, riots, and extremist politics--including the rise of National Socialism
from the postwar German Workers Party, a group almost fanatic in stressing nationalism.
For lack of anything better to do, Remarque and several friends returned to the Seminar,
but they found the studies and the older teachers' attitudes ridiculous. Remarque became
involved in many disputes. For example, to ridicule the town authorities for their
continued belief in the glory of war, he had himself photographed with his dog for the
local paper--he in an officer's uniform decorated with two Iron Crosses and other medals.
The scandalized Osnabruck officials demanded a public apology.
Still, at graduation he was given the customary letter of recommendation (although it did
describe him as more freethinking than the average teacher), and in June 1919 he began
two years' work as a substitute for teachers on leave. He was blond, strikingly
goodlooking, and very muscular, and managed to dress elegantly whatever his income. He
stayed out of politics but became interested in all sports, especially cars and racing.
Finally, bored with teaching, he wandered from job to job: playing organ on Sundays in an
insane asylum, working for a tombstone firm, working as a small-town drama critic,
writing advertising copy for an automotive firm. He married an actress, Jutta Ilse
Zambona, in 1925, shortly after taking a job in Berlin as associate editor of the
illustrated magazine, Sport im Bild, and became a regular in Berlin society, often
sporting a monocle, superficially happy.
Early in 1920, as Erich Remark, he published a novel so poorly received that the
embarrassment caused him to adopt his great grandfather's spelling of Remarque. His
journalistic writing was stiff often mediocre and overly sentimental. Thus, the great
success of his novel All Quiet on the Western Front, published in 1929, astonished him
and everyone else. He hadn't even set out to write a bestseller but had written, instead,
to rid himself of the bleak moods that he and his friends were still experiencing. The
shadow of war hung over us, he said, especially when we tried to shut our minds to it.
The result, known in German as Im Westen nichts Neues, deeply moved people on both sides
of the Atlantic who were also still seeking to make sense of the war.
In its first year, German readers alone bought more than one million copies of All Quiet;
and the British, French, and Americans bought thousands more. The novel also attained
success as an American motion picture. (One of the first talkies, the film, starring Lew
Ayres and Lewis Wolheim, is still considered a classic. A 1979 made-for-television
version starred Richard Thomas as Paul, Patricia Neal as Mrs. Baumer, and Ernest Borgnine
as Katczinsky.) By 1932 All Quiet had been translated into 29 languages, and the unknown
journalist had been transformed into a world-famous author.
Despite its popularity, the book generated a storm of controversy. Some people charged
that Remarque had written solely to shock and to sell. Others called the book sentimental
pacifism. The Nazis chose to read it as an attack on the greatness of the German nation.
Ignoring the book as literature, they spread rumors to undermine Remarque's popularity.
They variously claimed that he was a French Jew, an old man who had never seen a
battlefield, or the worthless son of millionaire parents. Remarque refused to comment,
later telling an interviewer, I was only misunderstood where people went out of their way
to misunderstand me.
During the controversy Remarque and his wife lived in Berlin. They were divorced in the
early 1930s after the Nazis exiled him but remarried almost immediately so that Ilse, who
suffered from tuberculosis, would not lose her Swiss residence permit. They lived
separately until their final divorce in 1951.
Remarque's sequel to All Quiet, based on his and his friends' experiences after they
returned from the front, was published in 1931. It was called Der Weg zuruck, or The Road
Back. At the time, Remarque was neutral (or noncommittal) rather than a convinced
anti-Nazi, but the sequel aroused further Nazi persecution. Goebbels, chief organizer of
the witch-hunt, had first brought things to a head in 1930, when the American film
version of All Quiet was screened in Berlin. His bands of Hitler Youth had rampaged
through the theater hurling stink bombs, scattering white mice, and shouting, Germany,
awake! The film was banned, and in 1931 Remarque was forced to leave Germany, where both
his novels were thrown into the fire during the infamous bookburning of 1933.
Remarque commented in 1962, I had to leave Germany because my life was threatened. I was
neither a Jew nor orientated towards the left politically. I was the same then as I am
today: a militant pacifist. It is said that Goebbels later invited Remarque back, but
that Remarque replied, What? Sixty-five million people would like to get away and I'm to
go back of my own free will? Not on your life!
In 1932 German officials seized his Berlin bank account--supposedly for back taxes--but
he had transferred most of his money as well as his Impressionist paintings to
Switzerland, where he bought a villa at Porto Ronco on Lake Maggiore, gradually filling
it with valuable antiques.
By the time Remarque was actually deprived of his German citizenship in 1938, his first
three books had already been made into films in America and he was sometimes called the
King of Hollywood. Until 1939 he divided his time between Porto Ronco and France; from
1939 to 1942 he rented a bungalow in Hollywood. His female companions included Marlene
Dietrich and Greta Garbo; his male friends, Charles Chaplin, Cole Porter, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway. Eventually, he tired of the Hollywood glitter, and in
1942 began to divide his time between New York and Porto Ronco. In 1957 he received
critical acclaim as an actor for his role in the film version of his novel A Time to Love
and a Time to Die. In 1958 he married an American actress, Paulette Goddard, whom he had
met in the 1940s.
When he first came to America in 1939, Remarque had none of the passport difficulties
experienced by most German political exiles at that time. But he felt the injustices of
his fellow countrymen deeply and described them fully in his novels. He applied for
American citizenship in 1941, becoming a citizen after the time required by law. He loved
America--especially the easygoing friendliness of the people--but never felt fully
accepted by the Germans and always resented the loss of his German citizenship. Nor was
he the only member of his family to suffer at the hands of the Nazis. In 1943 his younger
sister Elfriede Scholz was beheaded for spreading subversive propaganda. He was deeply
moved when Osnabruck named a street for her in 1968. In 1971 the authorities also named a
section of road along the town walls the Erich-Maria-Remarque-Ring.
Wherever he was living he continued to write, and, despite his financial success and love
of fine living, never forgot the lessons of World War I. His work eventually included 11
novels, all written in German but immediately translated and published in English as
well. They developed themes first introduced in All Quiet. (Each is described in the
Further Reading section of this guidebook.) Early in the 1950s Remarque returned briefly
to Germany to collect material for a book, but he never returned to his hometown, even
when attending his father's funeral near there in 1956. He felt that the new city,
rebuilt after World War II, wasn't the town he had enshrined in All Quiet, The Road Back,
and The Black Obelisk.
A series of heart attacks in the late 1960s obliged Remarque to choose Rome instead of
New York for his winter quarters, and he lived there and in Porto Ronco until his death
in a hospital in Locarno on September 25, 1970.
Tributes from the world press were varied, and sometimes stressed strange things. In his
native Germany, the weekly journal Der Spiegel published an obituary that managed to omit
his ever having written a great World War I novel. Remarque would not have been
surprised. The news media had always been far more interested in his glamorous life than
in his novels. But the public had bought more than 13 minion copies of his books. And All
Quiet on the Western Front, accounting for 8 million in sales, is still one of the
greatest European bestsellers of the 20th century.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: THE PLOT
All Quiet on the Western Front tells what happens to a group of German teenagers during
World War I. The narrator is Paul Baumer. He and his classmates had patriotically marched
off for recruitment, spurred on by the slogans of their teacher, Kantorek. But they find
no glory in war.
As the story opens, 80 men have just returned from two weeks at the front. Seventy of
their comrades may be dead or wounded, but their empty bellies concern them more. They
nearly riot when the cook won't dish out the food prepared for twice their number. But
the commander steps in, and for once they eat their fill. Afterward, Paul and his friends
visit their classmate Kemmerich, dying from a leg amputation. All Muller can talk about
is who will get Kemmerich's fine leather boots. The more sensitive Kropp laughs bitterly
at Kantorek's having called them Iron Youth.
Lounging around the next few days, Paul recalls the basic training methods of the
sadistic Corporal Himmelstoss. Cruel as he was, Himmelstoss did a lot more than Kantorek
to toughen them for battle. Alone with Kemmerich, Paul can hardly bear it when his friend
dies and all the orderly cares about is getting the bed cleared. Outraged at the
senseless death of all such frail-looking boys, Paul nevertheless takes Kemmerich's boots
to Muller--they are of no use to Kemmerich now.
Soon, underfed replacements arrive. Katczinsky, a scavenger who could find a dinner roast
in the Sahara, surprises everyone with beef and beans. He listens as Paul and his friends
gleefully recall the night they trapped Himmelstoss with a bedsheet and soundly thrashed
him, and joins in as they argue heatedly that the leaders simply ought to slug out their
war with each other, while the soldiers watch them.
Horror descends anew the night they string barbed wire at the front. In the dark, the men
instinctively avoid incoming shells, but the screaming of horses innocently caught in the
bombardment chills them to the bone. When the shelling eases they trudge to a cemetery to
wait for transport. Many nearly suffocate in a surprise gas attack, and after a new
bombardment their stomachs turn at the sight of dead companions mixed with corpses from
blown-up graves. At dawn they mindlessly return to camp.
Resting the next day, Paul's group reluctantly conclude that war has ruined them. After
their horrifying experiences, how can they ever again take jobs or studies seriously?
Their spirits lift when Himmelstoss appears, sent to the front at last! Tjaden and Kropp
openly insult him and leave him sputtering. When the matter is officially reviewed that
evening, their light punishment is amply balanced by the lecture Himmelstoss gets on the
idiocy of saluting at the front. Much later, Paul and Katczinsky slip off to a farm.
Neither squawking goose nor growling bulldog thwarts Paul, and he and his comrade
Katczinsky spend a companionable night roasting and eating their goose.
Then it's back to rat-infested trenches at the front. At night they scramble for masks
when the enemy sends gas; by day, they cower in stiffness to deceive observers in
balloons. Terror is their companion through deafening barrages; Paul's dugout survives a
direct hit. One night the French infantry attack. All through the next day Paul's company
fights in a frenzy, the men armed only with grenades and sharpened shovels. For days,
attacks and counterattacks alternate. Once Himmelstoss panics until Paul shouts sense
into him and he plunges back into battle. Paul's only relief is to dream of quiet
cloisters. By the time the siege ends, only 32 men are left in the company.
Back at a field depot for reorganization, the men loaf and joke as if they hadn't a care
in the world. Thinking about their lost comrades would only drive them mad. Even
Himmelstoss has changed. Not only did he rescue Westhus, who had been wounded, but, as
substitute cook, he is slipping Paul's group badly needed extra rations. Twice, Paul,
Kropp, and another classmate, Leer, swim a closely guarded canal, not for the brief
pleasures of a soldiers' brothel but for the luxury of hours with three French girls.
When Westhus dies after all, Paul--due for leave and temporary reassignment--wonders in
agony who will be there when he returns.
On leave in his hometown, Paul relishes the way his classmate Mittelstaedt torments their
old schoolmaster Kantorek, now a pitiful specimen of a soldier in the reserve unit
Mittelstaedt commands. Nowhere is Paul comfortable. Duty drags him to visit Kemmerich's
mother, but his own sensitivity has been dulled by the carnage and he can't begin to
comprehend her hysterical grief over a single soldier. His own books and papers no longer
comfort him, his civilian clothes don't fit, old men lecture him on how they think the
war is really going, and his mother, whom he adores, is seriously ill. So out of place
does he feel that he is glad to report for duty at a nearby camp. There he often guards
Russian prisoners of war, whom he begins to identify as men like himself and his
comrades. The more he sees their suffering, the less he can grasp why he must call them
enemy.
When Paul rejoins his company, he is relieved to find that all his closest friends have
survived. Polishing is the order of the day; the troops are preparing for an inspection
by the Kaiser. The whole ridiculous display leaves them burning with resentment at the
blindness of their leaders. Up at the front again, Paul volunteers for a scouting mission
with his friends. He is briefly separated from them in the dark trenches and panics until
their distant voices steady him. Only comradeship sustains him now. Later, trapped by
shelling, he blindly, repeatedly, stabs a French soldier who falls into his foxhole and
must listen and watch for hours as the man's life slowly ebbs. He is guilt stricken at
having personally killed a plain soldier like himself. It takes the cool way the sniper
Oellrich tallies up his kills to snap him back to front-line reality.
By sheer luck Paul's entire group next find themselves guarding an abandoned village and
supply dump. For two glorious weeks they lose themselves in feasting sleeping, and
joking. Then, again by chance, both Paul and Kropp receive leg wounds while helping to
evacuate a village. During their stay in a Catholic hospital, the wonder of clean sheets
soon evaporates, and Paul discovers just how many ways a man can be killed--or maimed for
life. The wards seem worse than the battlefield. Kropp's leg is amputated, but Paul
recovers.
After a short while Paul is back to animal existence at the front, except that conditions
have grown even worse. Starved and short of supplies, the men are emaciated and their
nerves so frayed that they are prone to snap at the slightest provocation. It takes only
the wonder of cherry blossoms at the edge of a field to madden one man with thoughts of
his farm: he deserts and is court martialed. Another, who stoically bore the screaming of
the horses in the earlier battle, dies in an insane attempt to rescue a messenger dog.
As the summer of 1918 wears on, existence is reduced to a paralyzing round of filth, mud,
disintegrating gear, dysentery, typhus, influenza--and battle. Muller, shot point blank
in the stomach, gives Kemmerich's boots to Paul--the boots are sturdy and may survive
them all. When pleasure-loving Leer collapses of a hip wound, all Paul has left is his
friend Katczinsky. Then even Katczinsky is wounded: his shin is shattered. Paul doggedly
cames him far behind the lines to an aid station. But the medics can only shake their
heads. Katczinsky has died on Paul's back from a tiny splinter of shrapnel that
freakishly pierced his head.
The months wear on to October, and Paul is alone. Back at the front after two weeks of
rest for a trace of gas poisoning, he has nothing to hope for. He is killed on a day so
quiet that the army report consists of a single line: All quiet on the Western Front.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: PAUL BAUMER
Paul Baumer is the 19-year-old narrator of the story.
At the front, Paul's special friends in Second Company include his classmates Behm,
Kemmerich, Muller, Leer, and Kropp. The six of them were among 20 who enlisted together,
prodded on by Schoolmaster Kantorek. Although he doesn't say so, Paul is obviously a
natural leader: Franz Kemmerich's mother implored him to look after her son when they
left home. Paul is also courageous. He may momentarily panic, but he doesn't break under
the most terrible battle conditions. He learns the sound of each type of shell; he dives
for cover or grabs his gas mask at the right instant. In one battle, he gently comforts
an embarrassed rookie who has soiled his underpants, and later soberly contemplates
shooting the same man to spare him an agonizing death after his hip has been shattered.
Cool as he is in battle, though, Paul has a hard time making sense of it all. He keeps
recalling Behm, the first of his class to die, and when a second--Kemmerich--dies, he
rages inwardly at the senseless slaughter of scrawny schoolboys. The callous attitude of
commanders and orderlies toward an individual death saddens and disillusions him. His
elders were wrong--there is nothing glorious about war--but he has no new values to
replace the patriotic myths they taught him.
At first his companions seem shallow to him--immediately forgetting the dead and turning
their total attention to stockpiling the cigarets and food originally meant for the
deceased soldier--and he is at pains to tell us why this callousness is necessary.
Gradually, though, he comes to accept their approach: that poetry and philosophy and
civilian paper-pushing jobs alike, all are utterly pointless in the midst of so much
carnage. All you have is the moment at hand, and getting from it all the physical comfort
you can is a worthwhile goal. There is another important element, too, to being with your
comrades, as going on leave proves to Paul: no civilian understands you the way these men
do, and nothing from your former life sustains you the way their friendship does. These
values come together for Paul the evening he joins an older friend, Katczinsky, on a
goose-hunting raid. They spend the night roasting the goose before eating it, and each
time that Paul awakens for his turn at the basting, he feels Katczinsky's presence like a
cloak of comfort. At other times, panicked and alone in the dark of the trenches, all it
takes to steady his nerves is the sound of his friends' voices. If he awakens from a
nightmare, the mere sound of their breathing strengthens him: he is not alone.
Paul gradually comes to realize that the enemy is no different from himself or from one
of his friends. The Frenchman he kills in the trenches, Duval, looks like the kind of man
whose friendship he would have enjoyed. The Russian prisoners he guards have the same
feelings and desires and needs as he. He comes to see war as the ultimate horror. It's
bad enough that it pits man against man. But even animals and trees and flowers and
butterflies are innocently caught up in the carnage inflicted by Man, the great
Destroyer.
As his friends are killed one by one, Paul can only cling to his newfound beliefs in the
brotherhood of all men and the value of the spark of life within each individual. At the
end, alone, he has only the blind hope that his own mysterious inner spark will somehow
survive and guide him after the war. Otherwise, he sees no meaningful future.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: KANTOREK
Kantorek is a provincial schoolmaster, an energetic little man with a face like a shrew.
His whole life centers on the Prussian myth of Destiny: he believes with all his heart
that war will bring his country greatness. He sees Paul and his schoolmates not as
growing boys but as Iron Youth whose finest destiny lies in serving their Fatherland. His
romantic notions change only when he is called up as a reservist and placed under the
command of a former pupil named Mittelstaedt. He is a poor excuse of a soldier who
shrinks emotionally when Mittelstaedt taunts him with his own former slogans. But even
then, we never quite know him as a real human being. He is instead a pathetic
illustration of all those elders whose values the young soldier comes to reject.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: CORPORAL HIMMELSTOSS
For most of the novel Himmelstoss is the stereotypical military man who becomes a tyrant
in his own small sphere on the basis of a little rank. He sports a waxed mustache and is,
like Kantorek, physically undersized. A mail carrier in civilian life, he lets power go
to his head. As the corporal in charge of basic training for recruits, he becomes a
sadistic drillmaster known as the Terror of Klosterberg. He takes a special dislike to
Paul and his friends, being sensitive enough to detect their quiet defiance, and earns
the beating they give him one night after trapping him in a bedsheet. Later Himmelstoss
is himself assigned to the front, to Paul's company. Before his first battle, he is the
same pompous strutter as always, but during the siege he falls into momentary shell
shock. Paul snaps him out of it and Himmelstoss fights bravely, together with his former
recruits, even rescuing a friend of Paul. He emerges from battle so changed that he uses
his influence to slip Paul's group extra rations.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: STANISLAUS KATCZINSKY
Katczinsky, known as Kat, is a 40-year-old, down-to-earth soldier with bent shoulders,
blue eyes, and a scraggly mustache. In civilian life he was a cobbler or shoemaker, but
he knew a little about all trades. In war he becomes the leader of Paul's group, a
welcome substitute for all those older men whose twisted values brought on the war.
Despite their differences in age and experience, he forms an especially warm friendship
with Paul. Sharp, tough, and resourceful, Kat is unequaled at finding excellent food in
the most unlikely places. He is shrewd and cunning--the embodiment of the practical man
who can turn his inventive imagination to use in any situation. In the summer of 1918,
when Paul is carrying Kat to an aid station for treatment of a shin wound, they recall
how Kat once similarly rescued Paul. They reach the station but Kat is dead--killed on
Paul's back by a stray splinter to his head. This loss of the last of his friends drains
Paul of his one remaining source of comfort at the front.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: FRANZ KEMMERICH
The second of Paul's classmates to be killed, Kemmerich dies in great pain after a leg
amputation. He had been excellent at gymnastics, but even after a year at the front he is
still a slender boy. His nearness to death makes his face look childlike again. His
dreams of a simple, peaceful life of forestry work die with him, and Paul trembles with
rage at the wastefulness of war. All supplies being scarce at the front, Kemmerich's
well-made leather boots are a prize passed on first to Muller and later to Paul. Since
they originally came from a downed English flier, the boots become a tangible symbol both
of brotherhood and of death as they move from man to man.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: MULLER
Another volunteer and classmate of Paul, Muller still dreams of passing school
examinations. Even during bombardment he mutters propositions in physics. Muller, with
his protruding teeth and booming laugh, is a practical man, coarsened by the war. He eats
all that is available in anticipation of lean times and asks for Kemmerich's boots even
before the unfortunate soldier realizes he is dying. (Muller is indeed the first to
inherit the boots and later gives them to Paul before dying of a stomach wound.) His
transforming a comrade's death into a chance for good boots is one of the first shocking
instances we see of what war does to men.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: LEER
Also a volunteer and one of Paul's classmates, Leer shows an interesting mixture of a
keen interest in mathematics and an obsession with women. Bearded and battle-hardened, he
appears to be at least 40 years old. He claims the blond as his own when he, Paul, and
Kropp visit the three French girls. He collapses of a hip wound in the summer of 1918 and
bleeds to death within two minutes. Paul thinks, regretfully, what little use his math is
now.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: TJADEN
Tjaden is a former locksmith with a sharp, thin appearance and an enormous appetite. He
is Paul's age, though not one of his classmates. When we first meet him, he is ready to
pick a fight with the cook who does not want to serve 80 men the food prepared for twice
as many. Because of a bladder problem, Tjaden was considered lazy by Himmelstoss, who
persecuted him in basic training. He is bolder at the front, however. He is a fine enough
companion in fighting and joking, but Paul and Leer and Kropp dump him when they visit
the French girls.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: DETERING
Detering is a one-dimensional stereotype of the simple, peace-loving peasant. He
constantly dreams of his home, his wife, and his farm, and cares little for philosophy or
military doctrine. In the spring of 1918, surrounded by battlefield carnage, he is driven
nearly mad by the sight of cherry blossoms. They unlock his memories of growing things
and, losing all caution, he deserts. He is caught and court martialed.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: ALBERT KROPP
A classmate, volunteer, and special friend of Paul, Kropp is a small man. Since he is
regarded as the best thinker in the class, no one is surprised that he is the first to
make lance-corporal. In group discussions he is the one who offers profound solutions and
comments. It is Kropp, for instance, who suggests turning war into a public festival,
with the generals fighting it out in an arena while the common people sit and watch. It
is also Kropp who sums up their youth, their disillusionment, and their lack of training
for the future by observing, The war has ruined us for everything. With Paul he is sent
to a Catholic hospital behind the lines because of wounds suffered during the evacuation
of a village. Scheduled to receive an artificial limb after a leg amputation, he
withdraws into long periods of sober silence.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: HAIE WESTHUS
Westhus is a 19-year-old peat digger with hands so huge that in one he can conceal a loaf
of bread. He operates as Katczinsky's executive on foraging expeditions, and, on the
whole, prefers army life to cutting sod. The army gives him food and a place to sleep,
and in peacetime would offer what he considers nice, clean work. He is the one member of
Paul's group who plans to reenlist after the war but dies of a back wound after being
rescued by Himmelstoss.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: BULCKE
The fat First Company cook, he is willing to trundle his pots right up to the front lines
for his men. He provides a contrast with Ginger.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: GINGER
The red-headed Second Company cook is more concerned with his personal safety and
regulations than with feeding the men. His pettiness contrasts with Bulcke's courage and
generosity.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: JOSEF BEHM
One of Paul's classmates, Behm is a plump, homely volunteer who dies two months before he
would have been drafted. Wounded in the eye, he is shot down while blindly attempting to
return to safety. His death greatly affects his classmates. Later, Mittelstaedt upbraids
Kantorek with the fact that had it not been for his marching the whole class down to
enlist, Behm would have had at least two more months to live.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: LIEUTENANT BERTINCK
Paul's company commander, Bertinck is a fine officer who came up through the ranks. He
bears Himmelstoss's complaint and treats Tjaden and Kropp as fairly as possible. He dies
saving his companions from an approaching enemy team using a flamethrower.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: HEINRICH BREDEMEYER
Bredemeyer is a soldier and fellow townsman of Paul who tells Paul's mother about the
increasing dangers in the front lines. His tactlessness makes Paul's first leave more
miserable than it might otherwise have been.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: FRAU (MRS.) BAUMER
Paul's mother is a courageous woman who is dying of cancer. She is the most comforting
person Paul finds at home. She alone does not pretend to understand what it is like at
the front. Paul is in agony over her illness and is overwhelmed by the love she shows him
by preparing his favorite foods and depriving herself in order to buy him fine
underwear.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: FRAU (MRS.) KEMMERICH
Unlike Paul's quiet mother, Franz Kemmerich's mother tends to weep and wail. She had
unreasonably expected Paul to watch out for her son, Franz, and blames him for surviving
while Franz died. The two mothers show different reactions to the brutality of war.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: MITTELSTAEDT
This classmate of Paul takes revenge on schoolmaster Kantorek when the latter is assigned
to the home guard unit Mittelstaedt commands. Once Kantorek had held Mittelstaedt's
future in his hands by his potential influence in connection with examinations. Aware now
that survival is more important than any test, Mittelstaedt ridicules Kantorek, even
using the schoolmaster's favorite phrases.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: BOETTCHER
The former porter at Paul's school becomes a model reserve soldier. Mittelstaedt sends
him on errands through town with the former schoolmaster, Kantorek, who is an impossible
soldier, so that everyone may enjoy the irony of the reversal of roles: the nobody is now
the teacher.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: GERARD DUVAL
Duval is a French printer with a wife and child. The soldier Paul instinctively stabs
after he falls into Paul's shell hole. Paul's horror grows as he waits hours for Duval to
die, and then learns the facts of his life from his wallet. Duval is a pleasant-looking
man, and now he is dead at Paul's own hand. Guilt nearly drives Paul mad before a
slowdown in the firing finally allows him to leave the shell hole.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: SERGEANT OELLRICH
In contrast to Paul, Oellrich is a sniper who is proud of his ability to pick off enemy
soldiers. Katczinsky and Kropp point him out to Paul to shock him back to the reality of
front-line warfare after Paul has killed Duval. Oellrich boasts about how his human
targets jump when he hits them, and Katczinsky and Kropp remind Paul that the man will
probably get a decoration or promotion if he keeps shooting so well.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: JOSEF HAMACHER
Hamacher is a popular soldier in Paul and Kropp's hospital ward. He can get away with
anything because of a shooting license, a paper stating that he experiences periods of
mental derangement.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: LITTLE PETER
Another patient, Peter is small and has black, curly hair. His lung injury is so serious
that he is sent to the Dying Room, a room located next to the elevator to the morgue. He
vows to return--and does, to everyone's amazement.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: SISTER LIBERTINE
Sister Libertine is one of the nurses at the hospital where Paul and Albert are patients.
Unlike some of the callous medics and surgeons, and even the other serious-minded nuns,
she spreads good cheer throughout her entire wing of the hospital. The men would do
anything for her.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: FRANZ WACHTER
Wachter dies in the hospital. Unable to get anyone to take care of his hemorrhaging arm
wound, he makes Paul realize that patients can die just from neglect.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: THE THREE FRENCH GIRLS
Three girls live in a house across the river from a German camp. Paul, Kropp, and Leer
swim a closely guarded canal to spend two evenings with them. Leer's favorite is the
blond; Paul's girl is the little brunet. She is not particularly concerned that he is
going on leave. Considering the shortages, she will welcome any decent soldier, whatever
his uniform, if he can also bring food.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: BERGER
Berger is the strongest soldier in Paul's company. At one time he stoically listened
while the screaming horses died, but by the end of the war his protective shell has grown
as thin as anyone else's. He loses all judgement and insanely tries to rescue a wounded
messenger dog two hundred yards off. He dies of a pelvis wound in the attempt.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: KAISER WILHELM
William II (1859-1941), or Kaiser Wilhelm, who briefly appears to inspect troops, is a
figure from world history. Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia from 1888 to 1918, he
was the son of Frederick III and a grandson of both William I of Germany and Queen
Victoria of England. When he was a young man, his parents rejected his belief in the
divine right of kingship and disliked his impulsiveness and love of military display.
These traits have often been explained as his attempts to compensate for a withered left
arm. His visit to the troops in this novel shows both his love of military display and
his lack of an imposing physical appearance.
His goal was to make Germany a major world power, and he was the dominant force in his
own government. He loved foreign travel but often spoke impulsively and insulted other
heads of state. His actions helped drive Great Britain into an alliance with France. He
engaged in the famous Willy-Nicky correspondence with Czar Nicholas of Russia, but
undermined the friendship by supporting Austria in policies offensive to Russia. He
strained relationships with France by interfering in colonial affairs in Morocco. Alarmed
at the growing isolation of Germany, he allied his country with Austria, Italy, and
Turkey.
His power declined after the outbreak of the First World War. His abdication was one of
the peace requirements demanded by the Allies in 1918.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: SETTING
The story told in All Quiet on the Western Front occurs during the two years just before
the Armistice ended World War I in November 1918. In Chapters 1 and 2 we learn that Paul
Baumer, the narrator, and his friend Kat had been together three years--one year longer
than the time period covered by the novel.
By 1916 when the story begins, World War I had already been underway for two years. It
broke out in August 1914 between the Allies (Britain, France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia,
and later the United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary and Germany). In
June 1914 Austrian Archduke Frances Ferdinand and his wife had been assassinated at
Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist, leading to Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on
Serbia. German leaders, alarmed at Russian mobilization and eager to establish the Reich
as a power on a par with Britain, declared war on both of Germany's neighbors, Russia and
France. They also refused to guarantee the neutrality of Belgium. Great Britain, in turn,
declared war on Germany in response to the threat to British allies. At the time, Paul
and his classmates would have been 16-year-old schoolboys.
German desire to become a major power was nothing new. Prussian beliefs included the idea
that Germany had to be a military state because it lacked natural protective boundaries.
The Prussian goal was to make Germany a glittering, well-organized, self-confident
machine. The idea that Paul rejects--18-year-olds as Iron Youth--fits perfectly into this
Prussian mentality.
From the beginning, World War I was fought in two areas, named for their geographical
relationship to Germany. The Eastern Front extended into Russia, and the Western Front
extended through Belgium into northern France. Germany hoped to knock out France in six
weeks and then turn its full strength against Russia. The Allies, however, soon halted
the German army at the Marne River, and the war in the West settled down to four years of
trench warfare--the static or at a standstill kind of war described in the discussion of
Chapter 6 in this guidebook.
In All Quiet, Paul describes a battle with the French in Chapter 6 and then, a short time
later, is assigned to a camp (Chapter 8) where he guards Russian prisoners of war.
Although he does not name the exact locations for the military offensives he
describes--after all, the place names had little to do with life and death--the offensive
in Chapter 6 could have been the French attack in 1917 at Aisne and Champagne. That
offensive failed, with heavy French losses.
Meanwhile, behind the Fronts, all resources were being directed toward winning the war.
At first, military methods used were mostly those from earlier wars--infantry, cavalry,
and artillery--but this war boosted production of tanks, planes, machine guns,
high-explosive shells, flamethrowers, and poison gas. The strong industrial push left
little for civil life, and economies and governments were shattered all over Europe.
Forced drafts of men, food shortages, attacks on civilian populations, and hysteria
reached heights never before seen.
It is during this final period that the last few chapters of All Quiet occur.
By late 1917 Germany had won the war in the East. In March 1918, Russia signed the harsh
treaty of Brest-Litovsk, giving Germany huge chunks of its territory. Russia's withdrawal
enabled Germany to transfer forces from the East and to mount a supreme effort to capture
Paris. But by this time the United States was entering the war, and timing was essential
to the German plan: the offensive had to succeed before American troops could reach the
Western Front in sizable numbers. Ludendorff, the German leader who directed the
operation, was prepared to lose one minion men to win. He poured his efforts onto the
British sector. The situation became so desperate that the Allies stopped arguing among
themselves and established a unified command under Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Nevertheless,
at its height the German offensive came within 40 miles of Paris. Then in May 1918
American divisions poured in, and the Allies fought back furiously. In July they broke
through the new German lines and swept the Central Powers back toward the pre-1914
frontiers.
In the fall of 1918, German allies began to surrender--in September the Bulgarians, in
October the Turks. One by one, ethnic minorities within Austria-Hungary began to proclaim
independence, and on November 3 the Austrians capitulated. Germans were demoralized, and
mutinies broke out in German fleets. There were revolts among civilians in Kiel and
Hamburg. In early November the German king or emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm, fled to Holland.
Finally, on November 11, 1918, a German delegation appeared at Allied headquarters to
request an armistice.
Overall, the war was fought at tremendous cost. Most tragic was the loss in lives. Known
dead included 1.8 million German soldiers and more than one million men each from Russia,
France, Austria-Hungary, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Even the U.S., latecomer to the
war, lost more than 100,000 men. Actual fatalities have been estimated as high as 13
million. In addition, nearly 22 million men were wounded, 7 million of them permanently
disabled or mutilated. More than 9 million civilians were also killed.
The world of 1919 was stunned and uncertain. Ten years later the mood still lingered.
People wanted to understand what had happened but could not. It is in that atmosphere
that Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front appeared.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: THEMES
In the short note that comes just before Chapter 1, Remarque lets us know exactly what
theme he intends. He says that All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of a
generation of young men who were destroyed by World War I--even if they survived the
shelling. To arrive at a fifth statement of this main theme, Remarque weaves several
related themes into the story. The outline that follows points out chapters you can read
to see how he presents each idea.
1. THE HORROR OF WAR
Remarque includes discussions among Paul's group, and Paul's own thoughts while he
observes Russian prisoners of war (Chapters 3, 8, 9) to show that no ordinary people
benefit from a war. No matter what side a man is on, he is killing other men just like
himself, people with whom he might even be friends at another time.
But Remarque doesn't just tell us war is horrible. He also shows us that war is terrible
beyond anything we could imagine. All our senses are assaulted: we see newly dead
soldiers and long-dead corpses tossed up together in a cemetery (Chapter 4); we hear the
unearthly screaming of the wounded horses (Chapter 4); we see and smell three layers of
bodies, swelling up and belching gases, dumped into a huge shell hole (Chapter 6); and we
can almost touch the naked bodies hanging in trees and the limbs lying around the
battlefield (Chapter 9).
The crying of the horses is especially terrible. Horses have nothing to do with making
war. Their bodies gleam beautifully as they parade along--until the shells strike them.
To Paul, their dying cries represent all of nature accusing Man, the great destroyer.
In later chapters Paul no longer mentions nature as an accuser but seems to suggest that
nature is simply there--rolling steadily on through the seasons, paying no attention to
the desperate cruelties of men to each other. This, too, shows the horror of war, that it
is completely unnatural and has no place in the larger scheme of things.
2. A REJECTION OF TRADITIONAL VALUES
In his introductory note Remarque said that his novel was not an accusation. But we have
seen that it is, in many places, exactly that. This accusation--or rejection of
traditional militaristic values of Western civilization--is impressed on the reader
through the young soldiers, represented by Paul and his friends, who see military
attitudes as stupid and who accuse their elders of betraying them.
In an early chapter Paul admits that endless drilling and sheer harassment did help
toughen his group and turn them into soldiers. But he points out, often, how stupid it is
to stick to regulations at the front--how insane this basic military attitude becomes in
life-and-death situations. One such scene occurs in Chapter 1 when Ginger, the cook,
doesn't want to let 80 men eat the food prepared for 150, no matter how hungry they are.
Another occurs in Chapter 7 when Paul is walking around in his hometown and a major
forces him to march double time and salute properly--a ridiculous display, considering
what he has just been through at the front. The emptiness of all this spit and polish
shows up again in Chapter 9 when the men have to return the new clothes they were issued
for the Kaiser's inspection: rags are what's real at the front.
The betrayal of the young by their elders becomes an issue on several occasions. In the
first two chapters of the book we learn how misguided Paul was by the teachings of
parents and schoolmasters. We also see how older people cling to the Prussian myth of the
glory of military might when Paul goes home on leave in Chapter 7. The Kaiser's visit in
Chapter 9 adds some hints of Remarque's specific disillusionment with the leaders of his
own country. From a broad study of literature and world history, we can see that these
older people were not individually to blame for their views. They were simply handing on
what was handed on to them. Still, we can also understand why Paul and his friends are so
bitterly disappointed and so angry to discover that their elders were wrong. Most readers
feel a little sad that young men should consider the act of ridiculing adults their
greatest goal in life, but we can also understand why they take revenge on Himmelstoss
and Kantorek (Chapters 3 and 7). We even get a certain kick out of what they do,
understanding their need to take out their disappointment on someone they know. These
situations are, in miniature, an acting out of the bitter anger and disillusionment Paul
feels when he says in Chapter 10, It must all be lies and of no account when the culture
of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out.
3. FRIENDSHIP: THE ONLY ENDURING VALUE
The theme of comradeship occurs often and gives the novel both lighthearted and sad
moments. In Chapter 5 it's easy to overlook how the farmer felt about having his property
stolen and to chuckle aloud when Paul is struggling to capture the goose! We appreciate
the circle of warmth that encloses him and Kat that night as they slowly cook and eat the
goose, and then extend their warm circle by sharing the leftovers with Kropp and Tjaden.
In Chapter 10 we enjoy their sharing of the pancakes and roast pig and fine club chairs
at the supply dump, and we understand why Paul fakes a high temperature to go to the same
hospital as Albert Kropp.
Friendship emerges as an even more important theme at the front. In Chapters 10 and 11 we
see men helping wounded comrades at great personal risk--or even, like Lieutenant
Bertinck, dying for their friends. The handing on of Kemmerich's fine yellow leather
boots also acts as a symbol of friendship--a symbol we can almost touch, and one that
keeps us aware of how deeply a soldier feels the loss of each of his special friends. We
can understand how hearing the voices of friends when one is lost (Chapter 9) or even
just hearing their breathing during the night (Chapter 11) can keep a soldier going. We
grieve with Paul and almost put down the book when Kat dies.
4. A GENERATION DESTROYED BY WORLD WAR I
Taking all of the themes together and adding Paul and his friends' hopeless discussions
of what is left for them to do after the war (Chapter 5), we can conclude that Remarque
succeeds in his main theme: showing that Paul's generation was destroyed by the Great
War, as World War I was then called.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: STYLE AND STRUCTURE
All Quiet on the Western Front is, on the whole, a very serious and even a grim novel.
Remarque presents his message through vivid description and imagery. The tone is not
overwhelmingly bitter.
Two things stand out in Remarque's style: his vivid word pictures and the way he balances
contrasting scenes against each other to make each one stand out.
His descriptions bring every chapter to life, whether he is showing us the glare of
flares or the darkness beyond the trenches, vicious rats or itchy lice, the steady
drumlike beat of bombardment or the piercing shrieks of shells and wounded. His
descriptions also include images of beauty and peace--usually in Paul's thoughts--that
make clear how awful the front actually is. He converts a pair of boots, a goose, and the
circle of light cast by campfires into symbols of friendship. And he uses similes to show
the brutality of war: the men fight like thugs, like wild beasts. The tanks push
relentlessly forward like steel beasts squashing bugs.
CH FAR FROM THE FRONT NEAR THE FRONT AT THE FRONT
1 Recollections: Second Company,
school, Kantorek. down to 80 men,
well fed.
2 Recollections: Kemmerich's death
Himmelstoss, in a field hospital.
basic training The boots.
3 Reminiscences: Kat's skill at
Himmelstoss. foraging. Theories
of war.
4 Barbed wire
duty. The
wounded horses.
The upturned
graves.
5 Insubordination
to Himmelstoss. Lack
of post-war goals.
The goose incident.
6 Days upon days
of trench
warfare.
Company down to
32 men. Westhus
wounded.
7 Paul home on The evening with
leave. the French girls.
Mittelstaedt's
humiliation by
Kantorek.
8 Paul guarding the
Russian prisoners
of war.
9 The Kaiser's visit. Paul's killing
of Duval in the
trench.
10 The hospital. The supply dump.
Kropp left behind.
11 Starvation, lack
of supplies,
demoralization.
Loss of
Detering,
Muller, Leer,
Kat.
12 Paul's death on
a quiet day.
Remarque's use of contrast, gives a new meaning to the phrase theater of war. He keeps us
moving between the trenches and the rest of the world. Even if Paul's hometown is
suffering from war shortages, life there is safe and comfortable compared with the front.
Even the hospital, filled with wounded, offers clean sheets and regular food--luxuries
unimaginable at the front lines. These contrasts help us to understand what is happening
to the emotional life of the young soldier.
The above chart will help you see more clearly how Remarque uses contrasts. The first
part of All Quiet dwells on what happened at home, far from the front, and what it is
like near the front. The middle chapters actually take us to the front and then pull us
back several times--to civilian life, to a camp behind the lines, to a supply dump, to a
hospital--so that we too feel the shock when we return, in the final chapters, to the
unrelieved pressures of the front.
Finally, Remarque's style includes irony. We fully appreciate how little value is
attached to a single human life by 1918 when we read the army report on the progress of
the war on the day Paul dies: All quiet on the Western Front.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: POINT OF VIEW
Stories usually are told from the first person or the third person point of view. We get
these terms from grammar. I love is a first person structure, you love is second person,
and he (or she) loves is third person. A story is told in the first person when the
narrator says that I or we are doing thus-and-so: someone actually in the story is
telling it. A third person story uses the he or they approach; some unnamed person
outside the story is observing others doing something.
Except for the very last two paragraphs of the book, All Quiet on the Western Front is
written from the first person point of view. The story is being told by someone who is
actually in it--Paul Baumer--not by some invisible outsider. Remarque does switch to
third person in the last two paragraphs for an obvious reason: Paul cannot report his own
death.
First person narration always has both advantages and disadvantages. A big advantage is
that we tend to identify with the main character. In All Quiet we feel as if we are right
there with Paul, experiencing what he is seeing and hearing and feeling. We almost think
his thoughts, share his ideas. First person narration makes the whole story seem direct
and real and honest.
On the other hand, first person narration also limits us to knowing and seeing only what
the narrator--in this case, Paul--knows and sees. We get other news and views and
opinions only as he filters them and reports them to us.
In the case of All Quiet, Paul is young and immature. Until he enlisted, he had never
experienced real pain or tragedy in his life. Older people generally know from experience
that human beings can survive incredible pain and still find meaning in life. Paul hasn't
had any time to gain that kind of experience to sustain him. Therefore it's asking quite
a bit to have us accept, from him, whole theories about war and life and the nature of
human beings. Still, whatever Paul might lack in age or experience is balanced for us by
the honesty and sensitivity we see in him.
Over all, then, in All Quiet on the Western Front, the advantages of first person
narration outweigh the disadvantages. There is a perfect fit of first person point of
view with what Remarque wanted to say about World War I--that it destroyed a whole
generation of the young. How better to show us that than to let us experience the war
through the eyes of a young soldier?
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: FORM
When critics use the word form to discuss a novel, they sometimes mean its overall style
and structure--the elements already presented under that heading in this guidebook.
Another meaning of form is the category a novel falls into--how it should be classified,
what kind of fiction it is.
You yourself use from in this narrow, second meaning when you say that you like to read
mysteries or westerns or romances or some other kind of story. But if someone asked you
what kind of book All Quiet is, you would find that it just doesn't fit standard
classifications. You might say it's a war story--but it's a lot more than that. It's also
a story about a boy turning into a disillusioned adult, or perhaps a story telling
society that it ought to eliminate the great evil of war. The standard categories simply
do not express all that.
The best term for a novel in which everything depends on a specific war setting is
historical novel. Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, set during the French
Revolution, is an example. All Quiet does happen during World War I, but Remarque doesn't
dwell on historical details such as names of battles. Instead he concentrates much more
on what any war does to people.
Usually a novel in which a young person matures by passing through some kind of crisis is
called a novel of formation or a novel of initiation. This fits Stephen Crane's The Red
Badge of Courage, in which Henry Fleming starts out as a naive boy, expecting war to be
glorious, only to find how terrible it is. It also fits All Quiet to some extent, but not
as well--by the time the book begins, Paul has already become disillusioned enough to
call 70 deaths a miscalculation.
If you see All Quiet as a novel telling society something wrong ought to be changed--in
this case, war--you could try sociological novel, but again the label seems somehow off.
It fits a book against slavery like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin but seems
to express only one element of All Quiet.
All in all, form as classification is simply too narrow and artificial for this book.
With All Quiet, you are better off using the word form in its broad senses meaning style
and structure. All Quiet can be described as a novel made up of dramatic scenes, vivid
language, and a series of contrasting episodes that make us feel how totally destructive
war is.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: AUTHOR'S NOTE
Remarque begins his book with a note before the first chapter. In it he says that his
book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, but
rather an account of a generation of young men who were destroyed by the war--World War
I--even though they may have escaped its shells.
What does he mean? Biography and history tell us his situation. By 1929 when his book
came out, World War I had been over for ten years, but it was still affecting people like
him and his friends, who had gone from the schoolroom right into the trenches. Many of
them survived, but they felt as if a shadow still hung over their lives. After all that
time, they still hadn't been able to sort out their feelings about the war.
Remarque says that he doesn't want to accuse or blame anyone, that he certainly doesn't
have anything new to confess, and that he is definitely not trying to write an adventure
story--the kind of war story that's full of heroes and waving flags.
If all of that is what we should not expect, then what should we expect? Well, if he
means what he says, he's going to let the story itself show us just exactly what was so
destructive about World War I. Maybe it's the deaths of friends; maybe it's the loss of
ideals. We'll need to read the book to find out. But we can expect every chapter to tell
us something to support his theme: that the First World War destroyed even those who came
through it alive.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: CHAPTER 1
The very first paragraph takes us within five miles of the front lines. The men are
resting on the ground, having just stuffed themselves with beef and beans (the cook is
stiff dishing out more). There are double rations of bread and sausage besides, and
tobacco is so plentiful that everyone can get his preference--cigarets, cigars, or chews.
Whoever is telling the story is right there, in it; this is what is called first person
narration. But the narrator (we soon find out that he's 19 years old and his name is Paul
Baumer) makes clear that the whole situation is incredible:--We have not had such luck as
this for a long time.
Where did the windfall come from? Paul says, We have only a miscalculation to thank for
it. It turns out that the quartermaster sent, and the cook prepared, food for the full
Second Company--150 men. But 70 were killed at the end of a quiet two-week mission when
the English suddenly opened up with high-explosive field guns.
Before we can stop to think about Paul's dismissing all those deaths as a miscalculation,
he backs up to tell the whole story of how they nearly had to riot to get all that food
and tobacco. The cook, it seems, didn't care about the count; he just didn't want to give
any man more than a single share. In the course of retelling how their noise brought the
company commander, who finally ordered the cook to serve everything, Paul introduces all
his friends.
They're an assorted lot: first, three of his classmates from school--Muller, the
bookworm, Albert Kropp, the sharp thinker, and bearded Leer who likes officers' brothels.
Then there are three other 19-year-olds: the skinny locksmith Tjaden, the farmer
Detering, and the peat-digger Haie Westhus. Finally he names an older soldier--the
group's shrewd, 40-year-old leader, a man with a remarkable nose for food and soft jobs,
Stanislaus Katczinsky.
NOTE: From their names we see that these major characters are German, but it really
doesn't matter. They could just as well be French or English, so far as their experiences
are concerned.
At this point we don't really know if Paul, the narrator, is as cold and unfeeling as he
appears. He and his friends seem to care much more about food than about the lives of
their companions. Is Remarque indirectly telling us that war reduces people to animals?
Or are the men just being realistic? We'll have to wait and see.
The day continues to be wonderfully good, says Paul, because their mail catches up with
them. But one letter angers them. It's from their schoolmaster, Kantorek, who pumped them
all so full of the glory of fighting for their country that they marched down to the
district commandant together and enlisted. The only one who had to be persuaded was
homely Josef Behm, and he's dead already--the first of their class to fall. Paul doesn't
blame Kantorek personally for Behm's death, but he does blame the thousands of Kantoreks
who were so sure their view of the coming war was the right one. We were only 18, he
says; we trusted our teachers and our parents to guide us, and they let us down so badly.
He seems to be saying that the war has cut them adrift from a meaningful life, with no
new values to replace the old ones. All the young soldiers know for sure is that it's
good to have a full belly or a good smoke.
The friends go over to visit Franz Kemmerich, a classmate who is dying after a leg
amputation. Muller turns out to be totally crude and tactless. Kemmerich is dying, and
Muller rattles on about Kemmerich's stolen watch and just who will get Kemmerich's fine
English leather boots. Paul, on the other hand, recalls Kemmerich's mother, crying and
begging Paul to look after Franz as they left for the front. To Paul, Kemmerich still
looks like a child accidentally poured into a military uniform. Perhaps war hasn't
blunted his sensitivity yet, but Muller's crudeness shocks us.
As they leave the dressing station, it is obvious that Kropp, like Paul, is still brimful
of feelings. Erupting into anger, he hurls his cigaret to the ground and mutters, Damned
swine! He is thinking of the leaders who sent them into battle and of people like
Kantorek calling waifs like Kemmerich Iron Youth. Youth! thinks Paul. That is long ago.
We are old folk.
NOTE: THE ROMANTIC VIEW OF WAR From history we know that the Kantoreks passionately
believed the ideals they taught their children and students. World War I broke out in
what seems to us a largely innocent world, a world that still associated warfare with
glorious cavalry charges and the noble pursuit of heroic ideals. Everyone--Allies and
Central Powers alike--expected a quick, clean war with a glorious aftermath. Most
Europeans, not just Germans, saw war as the adventure of a lifetime. The popular English
poet Rupert Brooke thanked God in his poem 1914 for waking us from sleeping and providing
the opportunity to do something new and clean in a world grown old and cold and weary.
Americans were no different, though Stephen Crane's Civil War novel The Red Badge of
Courage--showing war in all its ugliness--had been around for 20 years. Listen to the
lighthearted tone of patriotic World War I songs by George M. Cohan. Later in the war and
afterwards, poets and novelists (including Remarque) dispelled the myth. The English poet
Siegfried Sassoon wrote about a battlefield, I am staring at a sunlit picture of hell.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: CHAPTER 2
We get to know Paul better in the second chapter. It is the next day and he is still
thinking about his parents and about Kantorek. He recalls school life, hobbies, poetry
writing, and observes, of this nothing remains. The older men have wives and jobs to
return to; the war is just an interruption for them. But the Iron Youth had not yet taken
root: The war swept us away and they don't know how it will end. We know only that in
some strange and melancholy way we have become a waste land. He goes on to defend
Muller's preoccupation with Kemmerich's boots--Muller is just being practical, he says.
After all, Kemmerich has no further use for them. Paul claims that Muller would go
barefoot over barbed wire rather than plot to get the boots if Kemmerich could use them.
But as things are, Muller, who does need them, is much more entitled to them than some
thieving hospital orderly.
NOTE: Let's pause a moment. Why is Paul working so hard to excuse Muller? Does he protest
so much because there's a bit of Muller in himself? He certainly has an intellectual
grasp of the situation and probably wrote good essays in school. Look at the phrases he
can produce: [W]e have become a waste land. Does he secretly wish he could translate his
ideas into action as bluntly as Muller?
Another question: Remember how Remarque said in his opening note that his book was not
going to be an accusation? Is it or isn't it? An author usually speaks through his main
characters--at this point, Paul. Paul says he doesn't blame the Kantoreks. Judging from
all you already know of Paul, what do you think? Does he truly know his own feelings? Or
do you think some bitterness he doesn't even recognize might underlie his words?
A definite note of bitterness creeps into Paul's next thoughts, but there's a strong
trace of nostalgia, too. Now that he has experienced front-line fighting, boot camp,
rough as it was, almost seems like the good old days! He recalls how quickly you learned
that in the army, all the learning from Plato to Goethe is less important than knowing
how to spring to attention or keep your buttons polished. He particularly reviews the
cruel treatment he and his friends endured at the hands of the sadistic Corporal
Himmelstoss, a former mailman. Under his orders Paul once scrubbed the corporals' dining
room with a toothbrush, and another morning he remade the man's bed 14 times! Often the
whole group ended drills covered with mud, or stood at attention for long sessions,
without gloves, in freezing weather. Every rotten job in the camp came their way, but
Himmelstoss never broke them. Eventually, under Kropp's instigation, they developed the
tactic of obeying Himmelstoss's orders so slowly that even he gained a certain respect
for them and eased up on them a fraction. How insane such training was, Paul thinks, but
you can almost see him grin as he adds, how well it worked! It made them hard,
suspicious, bitter, and tough--not so great for civilian life, but perfect preparation
for the trenches! Such discipline, Paul concludes, was exactly what they needed as
recruits.
Paul continues to spend his day quietly. He goes alone to visit Kemmerich and says all
the soothing things people say about a bright future when they know very well that
someone is dying. But Kemmerich knows. He asks Paul to give his boots to Muller. For an
hour Paul watches as his friend cries silently. He cannot get an orderly to help when
death sounds begin to gurgle in Kemmerich's throat. Instead the orderly urges him to
hurry up and clear out Kemmerich's things; he needs the bed. Really, the orderly has
acted no worse than the whole company yesterday, clamoring for the food their dead
companions couldn't eat. And the orderly at least wants the bed for another man. But this
time it hits Paul. He can't be indifferent or uncaring. He's had time to see what a young
boy his friend still is; he's had time to rage at the senseless brutality that sends boys
out to be killed for nothing. He gulps and leaves the huts as the orderlies haul
Kemmerich onto a waterproof sheet. Paul's feet seem to push him forward and he finds
himself feeling a strength rising up from the earth into his body. He is alive and he is
glad! The night lives, I live. He takes the boots to Muller, who immediately tries them
on. They fit well.
NOTE: IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM As Paul leaves the dressing station, his mind fills with
thoughts of girls, flowery meadows, white clouds. Watch for the return of such images
whenever Paul is overcome by the brutality and senselessness of the carnage--the
butchery--of battle.
Keep an eye, too, on Kemmerich's boots. He was not the first owner. In Chapter 1 the
boots were described as airman's boots. They are fine English boots of soft, yellow
leather which reach to the knee and lace up all the way. It doesn't take too much
imagination, considering the state of aviation in 1916, to figure out how Kemmerich got
the boots. Assuming the English airman is dead, the boots have now gone to their third
owner--and fit him, too. Are all soldiers interchangeable, whatever side they are on? And
how many owners will the boots outlast?
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: CHAPTER 3
Reinforcements arrive. Some are older, but many are even younger than Paul and his
schoolmates. When Kropp calls them infants, Paul agrees. He and Kropp strut around
feeling like stone-age veterans. It's been a few days since the big feast, and everyone
is astonished when Katczinsky (Kat) produces a tub of beef and bean stew. He patiently
teaches the new recruits the proper etiquette--payment next time with a cigar or chew of
tobacco--but lets his friends off free, of course. Paul recalls admiringly how Kat can
stroll off and find hot bread, horse meat, and even salt and a frying pan in the midst of
desolation. His masterpiece was four boxes of lobster, although his friends, admittedly,
would rather have had a good steak.
It's a pleasant, drowsy day. Kropp has washed his socks and spreads them out to dry. Kat
and Paul lean up against the sunny side of the hut. In the air there's a smell of tar and
summer and sweaty feet. The men's rest period is, for us, like a bridge between the
results of battle and actual battle. We saw the results in Chapters 1 and 2--more food
for some, death for others. But we know of slaughter only by hearsay; Kemmerich died a
comparatively clean death. We have yet to experience shelling, gassing, and butchery;
they will come in Chapter 4.
This chapter, meanwhile, gives us more background on Paul's classmates and friends, and
lets us see and hear infantry soldiers at rest. What kinds of things do such men talk
about? What do you think you would talk about in their situation?
Kat wants to talk about saluting. Tjaden failed to salute a major, so they've all been
practicing, and Kat can't get it out of his head. He maintains their side is losing the
war because they salute too well. Kropp, the thinker, begins to argue with him. Meanwhile
they bet a bottle of beer on the outcome of an airfight going on far above them. For the
attention they pay, you would think those were toy planes battling up there, but the man
who will die is flesh and blood.
Kropp and Kat begin to argue about the management of war. Kat wants to drop all the
saluting and military drill and adopt the principle in a piece of verse he knows: If
everyone got the same grub and pay, the war would be over and done in a day. The more
philosophical Kropp, riled up as always about injustice, argues that war ought to be run
like a festival, with such things as tickets and bands. The main event would be the
generals and ministers of the two countries, dressed in swimsuits and armed with clubs,
slugging it out in an arena. The winning side would be the one whose leaders survived. To
Kropp that sounds a whole lot more fair than the situation they're in, where the wrong
people do the fighting. (Maybe Remarque didn't intend his book to be an accusation, but
it gets harder and harder to say that it does not indict the blindness of early
20th-century world leaders.)
The heat reminds Paul of the training camp barracks, with heat shimmering over the
square. In hindsight the cool rooms seem inviting.
Meanwhile the German plane above them has been shot down and plummets headlong in
streamers of smoke. It is Kropp who bet on that plane. Talk turns to reminiscences of
Corporal Himmelstoss and basic training. Earlier, Paul had observed that little men cause
much of the pain in this world. They are so much more energetic and uncompromising than
the big fellows. Kantorek was small, and so is Himmelstoss. Kat observes that power
always corrupts officers, especially those who were insignificant (little?) in civilian
life. Kropp suggests that discipline really is necessary, but Kat shoots back that the
kind of discipline taught in boot camp is practically criminal. Boys learn to drill and
salute, and then think they know how to survive at the front!
At this point Tjaden, his face red with excitement, rushes up with news--Himmelstoss is
joining their unit! Tjaden has special reason to hate the man: Himmelstoss put him and
another bedwetter in the same set of bunks so they would disgust and cure each other.
Since neither could help himself, one always ended up sleeping on the cold floor.
Meanwhile Haie Westhus, the peat-digger, ambles over, sits down, and winks at Paul. Paul
recalls how Tjaden, Westhus, Kropp, and he himself squared accounts with Himmelstoss the
night before they left for the front. They ambushed him with a bedsheet as he left his
favorite pub and gleefully--though anonymously--gave him a royal beating. Himmelstoss
ought to have been pleased, Paul comments ironically, at how well the young heroes had
learned his cruel methods!
NOTE: AIR POWER Balloons were used for reconnaissance and observation by French forces in
Italy in 1859 and by Union forces during the American Civil War. Paul later mentions
their use in World War I as well. By 1914, successful models had demonstrated the
feasibility of motor-driven airplanes, but it was the war itself that provided motivation
for research and development of aircraft. At the beginning of the war Germany established
its superiority in the air. The Fokker monoplane, with a fixed machine gun that could
fire forward through the propeller blades, inspired Allied efforts. Developments and
counter-developments followed, pushing the Allies ahead, and led to formation flying,
aerial dogfights, and aerial bombing of enemy lines of communication and ammunition
depots. Later in the novel--toward the end of the war--Paul mentions flyers making a game
of pursuing individual soldiers. Still, during World War I, planes were employed mostly
in support of ground forces. Development of air forces as a separate military branch
followed World War I as the military capabilities of aircraft became more evident.
^^^^^^^^^^ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: CHAPTER 4
One night the men were trucked to the front to ram in iron stakes and to string barbed
wire. It's a warm evening, a pleasant drive, and the men smoke as they roll along.
They're not concerned about lurching into potholes the driver can't see without
headlights. Many a man would just as soon be pitched out and sent home with a broken arm
earned that way! Kat and Paul distinctly hear geese as they pass one house. They exchange
glances--another Katczinsky raid is due when they return! At the front, they find the air
acrid, with guns reverberating and shells whistling and exploding. The English have
started early. Kat senses a bombardment coming, and at the front his opinion is gospel.
Paul already feels as if he's entered a whirlpool which is sucking him into its spinning
depths. Only clinging to the ground helps; the earth is like a mother offering shelter.
NOTE: APOSTROPHE TO EARTH In the paragraph following Earth!--Earth!--Earth!, Paul prays
directly to the earth. The name of this poetic device or rhetorical figure of speech is
apostrophe. It is an address to an absent, abstract, or inanimate being. When that being
is a god, the technique is called invocation. Read the paragraph carefully. Could it be
considered an invocation? If so, what additional weight does this lend to Paul's thought
in the preceding paragraph, To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier?
The men become alert animals, throwing themselves to the ground instinctively just before
a storm of fragments flies overhead. It is not conscious, but without obeying this animal
insight, no soldier would survive. Columns of men move past into the mist like a dark
wedge. Gleaming horses pass with the ammunition wagons, their riders looking like knights
of another age. Paul and his group load up with iron stakes and rolls of barbed wire, and
they stumble all the way to the front line in the dark. Bombardment lights the sky. Amid
the sounds of the bombardment, Paul and his group string barbed wire.
NOTE: ONOMATOPOEIA The technique in which the sound of a word imitates its meaning is
called onomatopoeia, as in the word hiss. Find other onomatopoetic words in Paul's
description of the sounds of bombardment, both in this paragraph and in paragraphs later
in the chapter. What effect do these word