All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front, novel by German writer Erich Maria Remarque, published in 1929 as Im Westen nichts Neues and in the United States as All Quiet on the Western Front. An antiwar novel set during World War I, it relies on Remarque’s personal experience in the war to depict the era’s broader disillusionment. The book is an account of Paul Baumer’s experiences in battle and his short career as a soldier, and it is primarily concerned with the effect of war on young men. Its title, which is in the language of routine communiqués, is typical of its nonchalant terse style, which graphically records the daily horrors of war in laconic understatement. Its refusal to take an explicit stance on war was in shocking contrast to the patriotic rhetoric typical of the time, especially in Germany. The book was an immediate international success, though it had many critics.

Plot summary

All Quiet on the Western Front tells the story of a group of young Germans who enlist in World War I after being captivated by slogans of patriotism and honour. It is narrated by the protagonist, Paul Baumer, who is 20 years old. The young men soon learn that the romanticized version of war that was described to them is nothing like the battlefields they encounter. The novel opens with the group having just been relieved from their position on the front lines. Kemmerich, one of Paul’s classmates, has suffered a wound in his thigh that resulted in amputation, and some of the soldiers go to visit him in St. Joseph’s hospital. They quickly realize that Kemmerich will die there, and Müller, another of the soldiers, asks Kemmerich for his boots, a moment that is discomforting but irreproachably logical. Paul visits Kemmerich again, alone, and during this visit Kemmerich dies; Paul calls out for help, and a doctor refers him to an orderly. No one, however, provides any aid, because the staff is more concerned with preparing the soon-to-be-empty bed for a new patient. Kemmerich becomes the 17th soldier to die that day, and his body is quickly removed.

Paul and his friends, hungry and tired, are delighted when their friend Katczinsky (“Kat”) returns after a search for food with two loaves of bread and a bag of raw horsemeat. Kat, Paul explains, has always been uncannily resourceful. Paul also introduces the cruel drill sergeant Himmelstoss, a former postman with whom Paul and his friends are frequently in conflict. After spending some time relieved from the front line, their regiment is called up once again. When night comes, they fall asleep to the sound of exploding shells. When they awake, they hear sounds of an impending attack. Wails of wounded horses pierce the silence between explosions, and the gory sight of their injuries unsettles everybody deeply. Soon after, an attack is launched, and chaos ensues. Poison gas and shells infiltrate the group. When the fighting finally stops, the carnage is gruesome. The trenches are bombarded a number of times as the novel continues, until finally the soldiers are sent off-duty to take a break while they await reinforcements. Himmelstoss, who had recently made his first appearance in the trenches, makes efforts to get along better with the group. While bathing in a canal, Paul and some of his friends encounter three French girls, who they sneak out at night to meet. Paul then learns that he has been granted 17 days of leave. When he gets home, he learns that his mother has cancer. He feels disconnected from people he once felt close to, and he cannot understand the things that occupy their minds. He visits Kemmerich’s mother, who questions him about her son’s death. After a difficult conversation with his own mother, Paul wishes he had never come on leave, believing that he has changed far too much to live as he once did.

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Paul next spends four weeks at a training camp before heading back to the front. Across from the base is a camp for Russian prisoners; Paul witnesses and ruminates on how similar his enemies look to his neighbours. He eventually returns to his regiment. He and his friends are given new clothing in preparation for a visit from someone implied to be the German emperor William II, referred to in the novel as the Kaiser, who will be doing an inspection. After the Kaiser leaves, Paul becomes lost at night during battle and, while hiding in a shell hole during a bombardment, stabs a French soldier who falls in. He watches as the man dies, desperately trying to help him by giving him water and dressing the wound he inflicted. When the man dies, Paul is delusional with shame. He finds a picture of the man’s wife and child in his breast pocket along with letters. He waits in the hole with the dead man for hours upon hours, until he feels it is safe enough to return to his regiment’s trench.

When Paul returns, he, Kat, and six others are sent to guard a village, where they find lots of food to eat. They are later sent to another village to help evacuate civilians. During the evacuation, however, the French bombard the town, and Paul and his friend Albert Kropp are injured. Albert’s leg is amputated. Paul undergoes surgery and is sent back to the front lines. Paul’s friends begin to die one by one. Kat is hit while searching for food, and, afraid that he doesn’t have time to wait, Paul carries him to the dressing station. When they arrive, however, Kat has already died. Paul becomes the last of his seven classmates. The novel then shifts away from Paul’s first-person perspective and ends with an announcement that Paul has died. The army report issued on the day of his death stated only this: All quiet on the Western Front.

Context and analysis

Remarque used his personal experience as a German soldier to write All Quiet on the Western Front. He was drafted at age 18, and he fought on the Western Front of World War I, where he witnessed many of the atrocities he later depicted in the novel. All Quiet on the Western Front works both as a vehicle for overwhelmingly realistic and graphic depictions of war and as a mode of underscoring the disillusionment of the period. Remarque tied his individual experience to something much larger and more abstract: the novel, while focusing specifically on the German-French conflict in World War I, expresses sentiments about the contemporary nature of war itself. Paul’s self-reflection and the conversations between the soldiers feature not only ghastly images but ghastly truths about the effects of war on young soldiers. For example, when engaged in one of these conversations, one of the soldiers says,

…almost all of us are simple folk. And in France, too, the majority of men are labourers, workmen, or poor clerks. Now just why would a French blacksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us? No, it is merely the rulers. I had never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with the majority of Frenchmen as regards us. They weren’t asked about it any more than we were.

This notion of a gulf between those who declare war and those who fight it is present throughout All Quiet on the Western Front, but the gulf between those fighting on opposing sides shrinks as the novel progresses. Paul begins to see his enemies as people rather than faceless targets, a transformation that culminates in an intensely intimate scene of delusional guilt as he watches a French soldier die slowly from a wound he inflicted.

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All Quiet on the Western Front also addresses the disillusionment of the public, specifically that of German citizens. Paul and his fellow students enlisted in the war because of their previous schoolmaster, Mr. Kantorek, who had spouted patriotic propaganda at them when they were students, imploring them to enlist. Paul also recalls how the newspapers would, at times, report that troops were in such good spirits that they would organize dances before heading out on the front line. Paul explains that he and his fellow soldiers did not behave in this way out of genuine good humour but instead “because otherwise we should go to pieces.” Remarque captured the nuances of the disconnect that Paul experiences, especially when he interacts with non-soldiers or new recruits. Paul’s laconic manner of depicting the carnage he experiences serves as a method of distancing himself from the horrors. The novel’s unflinching realism places All Quiet on the Western Front among the most accurate written depictions of World War I, but its philosophical sentiments are applicable to any war. The novel’s disclaimer insists that it is not an accusation, yet the entirety of the novel accuses war as an institution of stealing young boys’ lives, regardless of whether they died on the battlefield or survived forever changed.

Reception

All Quiet on the Western Front was both an overwhelming success and the target of intense criticism. In its first year it sold more than one million copies in Germany, and yet many Germans were furious with the novel, claiming that Remarque’s protagonist was too limited in perspective and that the novel promoted pacifism naively. Others argued that such a critique only underscored the novel’s realism and Remarque’s own intent: many young soldiers who enlisted in the German army during World War I were just as limited in perspective as Paul was, and the novel hinges on relaying that truth through the eyes of an adolescent soldier. Others claimed that Remarque’s laconic style was too dull and that the novel had little literary value outside of its initial shock. Still others argued that the novel’s matter-of-fact approach to war only highlighted Paul’s adaptation to the emotional trauma of war. Some critics even used Remarque’s personal life, particularly his many love affairs, as a reason to distrust the novel.

All Quiet on the Western Front was also popular in English: approximately 800,000 English-language copies were sold during its first year. With its popularity came similar concerns in Britain and the United States about it being pacifist propaganda, though reactions were less violent than in Germany. English-speaking critics shared some of the opinions of their German counterparts, especially that the novel’s nonchalant tone was, at times, monotonous and flat. All Quiet on the Western Front was eventually translated into about 50 languages, and it continues to provoke polarized reactions.

The political impact of All Quiet on the Western Front was significant around the world but especially in Germany within the Nazi Party. In 1930 the novel was adapted as a film, directed by Lewis Milestone, which won Academy Awards for best picture and best director. When it was shown in Germany, Nazi Party members used the movie as an excuse to violently attack moviegoers, particularly those believed to be of Jewish descent. The movie was subsequently banned. All Quiet on the Western Front was one of the many books burned by the Nazi Party after Hitler took power, because of its representation of German soldiers as disillusioned and its perceived negative representation of Germany. The book was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. Remarque wrote a sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front called Der Weg zurück (The Road Back), which was published in 1931 and also later banned by the Nazi Party.