1. All Quiet on the Western Front
By Erich Maria Remarque

2. Journal
When you hear or think about the word “WAR,” what kinds of things come to mind? If you are having trouble writing, talk about this poster:

3. Erich Maria Remarque Born in 1898 Served in World War One
Fought on the side of the Germans
Sustained injuries and spent time in the hospital
His German citizenship was revoked in 1938 as a result of his “anti-war” novel.
Died in 1970

4. All Quiet on the Western Front
The novel is fictional, but it is based upon Remarque’s personal experiences during the war.
It was first published in More than one million copies were sold, and it was translated into twenty-three languages.
The Nazis banned and burned All Quiet on the Western Front in 1933 because it was considered an anti-war novel.

5. Remarque During the War
“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.”
-Erich Maria Remarque
Remarque During the War

6. Chapter 1 (excerpt material)
Chapter Summary
Chapter 1 (excerpt material)
Story begins on a relatively happy day
Paul Bäumer (the narrator) and his company enjoy extra rations and a little rest from the front lines. Cigarettes and food are supplied for 150 men, but only 80 have survived
Seen as significant windfall, and an introduction to what soldiers value: the practical
Solemnity, but not mourning over dead comrades
Paul’s friend and schoolmate Kemmerich is dying; more fuss is made over his boots than his impending death
Chapter 2
Training flashback. Here is the transition from romantic patriots into mindless warriors, page 21:
“We were still crammed full of vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war also an ideal and almost romantic character. We were trained in the army for ten weeks and in this time more profoundly influenced than by ten years at school ... At first astonished, then embittered, and finally indifferent, we recognized that what matters is not the mind but the boot brush, not intelligence but the system, not freedom but drill.”
Introduction of Corporal Himmelstoss, their diminutive yet brutal drill sergeant
Kemmerich dies helpless in a stinking tent of overworked medical staff. There is little emotional reaction from Paul

7. Chapter Summary Continued
Paul’s company “shows the ropes” to fresh recruits, who are only two years their junior, but far less capable of surviving on the front lines
Flashback to the beating of Himmelstoss, prior to their first deployment to the front lines. They throw a sheet over him and whip him thoroughly before retreating to safety
News arrives that Himmelstoss will be coming to the front lines
Chapter 4
Clear depiction of the horrors of trench warfare
A soldier’s unique perspective, page 55:
“To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and security; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often for ever.”
There is a sustained bombardment, which is heavy fire preceding an enemy attack. One recruit loses control of his bowels, and Paul consoles him
Dying horses are heard screaming for hours, causing panic and distress
Another bombardment, including use of poison gas. The dead simply buried in the craters where they died

8. Chapter Summary Continued Chapter 5 (excerpt material)
Showcase of how men differ in their lives outside of war
Discussion between soldiers about what they will do after the war, they have a difficult time being optimistic
In particular, Himmelstoss’ brutality is contrasted against his timidity as a postman during peacetime
Though Himmelstoss outranks them, they fail to acknowledge his authority. He is shown no respect. After experiencing warfare firsthand, Himmelstoss tries to make amends to the young men
Paul and Kat sneak out at night, stealing two geese for a rare feast
Chapter 6
More description of the ugly realities of war: rats, faulty equipment, flame-throwers, panic
Paul’s platoon defend a French charge and must counter-attack, page 115:
“If we were not automata at that moment we would continue lying there, exhausted, and without will. But we are swept forward again, powerless, madly savage and raging; we will kill, for they are still our mortal enemies, their rifles and bombs are aimed against us, and if we don’t destroy them, they will destroy us.”
After the exhaustion, they “gradually become something like men again,” page 118
Terrible hunger and lousy provisions; they steal what they can from the enemy when the opportunity arises
Though only 32 of the original 150 men remain, they must push onwards

9. Chapter Summary Continued Chapter 7 (excerpt material)
Finally, a little food and rest!
They come upon a poster of a woman, which is almost alien to them
They flirt with French women while swimming in the river, and plan to sneak past the patrols to visit with them later that night. They trade food for emotionless sex
Paul is given leave for a few days and returns home to his family, including his sick mother
Civilian life seems strange and Paul does not feel he belongs to his old life any longer, page 173:
“Wearily I stand up and look out of the window. Then I take one of the books, intending to read, and turn over the leaves. But I put it away and take out another. There are passages in it that have been marked. I look, turn over the pages, take up fresh books. Already they are piled up beside me. Speedily more join the heap, papers, magazines, letters.
I stand there dumb. As before a judge.
Dejected.
Words, words, words—they do not reach me.
Slowly I place the books back on the shelves.
Nevermore.
Quietly, I go out of the room.”
Paul has a lengthy discussion with his former head master, who “informs” him of the realities of war, much to Paul’s frustration. He tries to avoid people wherever possible
Ultimately he regrets taking leave, since it sensitizes him to the realities of being a soldier

10. Chapter Summary Continued
Additional training in a camp, where rules are somewhat different
More attention to ceremony
Paul meets some Russian prisoners adjacent to his camp. He fears getting to know them, lest he awaken some feelings towards them. Ultimately Paul feels sympathy for them. They are even worse looked after than the German soldiers, forced to beg for scraps and eat garbage. Paul shares his cigarettes and home-cooked food with several prisoners
Chapter 9
Paul returns to the front lines
There is a light, soldierly discussion about the futility of war; both sides believe they are right, but what is the sense in dying over it?
Paul becomes disoriented while on patrol and becomes stranded between friendly and enemy lines. When a French soldier wanders too close, Paul is forced to stab him. He has never killed a man face-to-face before. Paul tries to make the man’s last hours as comfortable as possible, and plans to write to the man’s family
Demonstrates a strong sense of compassion by identifying with the enemy soldier, which is a potential Achilles’ heel for a soldier
The chapter ends with snipers jovially competing over kill totals for their shift

11. Chapter Summary Continued
Paul’s company is put in charge of guarding a village/supply dump. They have a feast
Comical scene of nonchalantly preparing a meal in a house that is being destroyed by enemy bombardment
Paul and his friend Albert are injured. They escape with their lives, and are sent to a hospital
Doctors are described unfavorably; they are more concerned with practicing experimental surgical techniques than curing patients
Mention of the “dying room” where patients are taken to die
Fellow patients offer some semblance of privacy to a man whose wife comes to visit
Paul heals in time, while Albert’s leg must be amputated. Little remorse is shown for a friend who doesn’t want to live any longer
Chapter 11
The only way to survive, page 273:
“Here, on the borders of death, life follows and amazingly simple course, it is limited to what is most necessary, all else lies buried in gloomy sleep ... All else is banished because it would consume energies unnecessarily. That is the only way to save ourselves ... Life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death.”
Müller dies, Paul inherits Kemmerich’s boots
New recruits are merely poorly trained children who “know only how to die,” page 280
The hopelessness of facing tanks in battle
Rumors circulate about the war ending

12. Chapter Summary Continued
Brief summary of a broken generation who are unable to return to their lives
Paul dies, page 296:
“He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.
He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.”

13. Themes: Civilian vs. Military life
The story is not a generalization about the atrocities committed by people during war, it is a specific exploration about an entire generation of men and how the war destroyed their chances of growing up to be ordinary people
Aside from the narrator, there are two men who are depicted in both civilian and military life: Kantorek the schoolmaster, and Corporal Himmelstoss
Kantorek filled their heads with ideas of nationalism, pride and courage, having no personal experience as a soldier. He saw it as his job to encourage these boys of 18 to go off to war, page 8 of excerpt:
“There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best—in a way that cost them nothing.
And that is why they let us down so badly.”
Eventually Kantorek is conscripted as well, and is found under the command of one of his former students, Mittelstaedt. In retribution for his years of bullying, Mittelstaedt gives Kantorek a ridiculously ill-fitting uniform, and forces him through a series of particularly harsh drills without sympathy
An interesting and complete reversal of positions

14. Themes: Civilian vs. Military life continued
Himmelstoss is the boys’ superior during training, and a postman before the war. He picked on them incessantly because he sensed their “quiet defiance,” forcing them to repeat punishing exercises and humiliating tasks.
When faced with actual trench warfare, Himmelstoss pretends to be wounded and cowers away, until Paul beats him and forces him into the fight.
Paul feels and expresses the change war has made in him very acutely. During a discussion in the tent about what they would do if the war was over, page 55 of excerpt:
““if it really came, I think I would do some unimaginable thing—something, you know, that is worth having lain here in the muck for. But I can’t even imagine anything. All I do know is that this business about professions and studies and salaries and so on—it makes me sick, it is and always was disgusting. I don’t see anything at all, Albert.”
…Kropp feels it too. “It will go pretty hard with us all. But nobody at home seems to worry much about it. Two years of shells and bombs—a man won’t peel that off as easy as a sock.”
We agree that it’s the same for everyone; not only for us here, but everywhere, for everyone who is of our age; to some more, and others less. It is the common fate of our generation.
Albert expresses it: “The war has ruined us for everything.””
When he visits home on leave, he feels detached and uneasy the whole time. He says of his own mother that “There is a distance, a veil between us,” (page 100). He is not the same person he was before, and feels out of place even in his own bedroom.

15. Themes: Dehumanization
page 56:
“At the sound of the first droning of the shells we rush back, in one part of our being, a thousand years. By the animal instinct that is awakened in us we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it is far quicker, much more sure, less fallible, than consciousness … It is this other, this second sight in us, that has thrown us to the ground and saved us, without our knowing how. If it were not so, there would not be one man alive from Flanders to the Vosges.
We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers—we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals.”
page 57:
“The column marches on, straight ahead, the figures resolve themselves into a block, individuals are no longer recognizable, the dark wedge presses onward, fantastically topped by the heads and the weapons floating on the milky pool. A column— not men at all.”
pages 62-64:
“We can bear almost anything. But now the sweat breaks out on us. We must get up and run no matter where, but where these cries can no longer be heard. And it is not men, only horses.
… The cries are silenced. Only a long-drawn, dying sigh still hangs in the air.”
page 72:
“He whimpers like a child and plucks at us: “Don’t go away—”
Kat looks around and whispers: “Shouldn’t we just take a revolver and put an end to it?”
… I nod. “Yes, Kat, we ought to put him out of his misery.””

16. Themes: Emotional detachment from death
When Paul’s friend Kemmerich dies, the focus is on boots, not sorrow
Soldiers seem to know deep compassion but are extremely reserved in what emotions they allow themselves to feel or express, page 88:
“…all these things that now, while we are still in the war, sink down in us like a stone, after the war shall waken again, and then shall begin the disentanglement of life and death.”
Death is an inevitable part of their daily reality, they cannot give it the same reverence and still be focused enough to survive, page 169:
“We have almost grown accustomed to it; war is a cause of death like cancer and tuberculosis, like influenza and dysentery. The deaths are merely more frequent, more varied and terrible.”
It becomes simply a matter of course, as though being shot were a natural part of life
Even when his last friend dies, Paul does not mourn, page 181:
“All is as usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky has died. Then I know nothing more.”

17. Themes: Comradeship The gang live and die as one, page 17 of excerpt:
“The most important result was that it awakened in us a strong, practical sense of esprit de corps, which in the field developed into the finest thing that arouse out of the war—comradeship.”
When Paul gets overrun in a trench, he associates life with their voices, and draws great strength from them, page ???:
“I am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the darkness;—I belong to them and they to me; we all share the same fear and the same life, we are nearer than lovers, in a simpler, a harder way; I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these words that have saved me and stand by me.”

18. Paul Baumer Characters
Paul Bäumer is the narrator, and the main character of the novel, whom Remarque uses to represent his own experience in World War I. Aged only 19, Bäumer, who is an amateur writer of several poems and a play, is persuaded by his schoolmaster, Kantorek, to enlist in the German Army for World War I. He is deployed to the western front, where he experiences the devastating physical and psychological effects of intense combat, including the horrific wounding or death of his comrades and close friends. Bäumer reflects on the war as he witnesses the dehumanizing conditions of combat and the robbing of soldiers of their individuality and love of life. Remarque named this character probably after the German flying ace, Paul Bäumer.
Bäumer dies at the end of the novel, in October At the time of his death the western front was so quiet that the army dispatches for the day read that there was nothing new to report from the western front, and the book's German title refers to this. In the novel's adaptations for films, Bäumer was killed either while reaching for a butterfly (film) or drawing a bird (television movie).

19. Albert Kropp
Perhaps Paul's closest friend, Kropp was in his class at school and is described as the clearest thinker of the group. Kropp is wounded towards the end of the novel and undergoes an amputation. Both he and Bäumer end up spending time in a Roman Catholic hospital together, Bäumer suffering a shrapnel wound to the leg and arm. Though Kropp initially plans to commit suicide if he requires an amputation, the book suggests he eventually decides against it. Kropp and Bäumer part ways when Bäumer is recalled to his regiment after recovering

20. Haie Westhus
Haie is described as being tall and strong, slightly older than Bäumer, and a peat-digger by profession. Haie also has a good sense of humor. During combat, he is injured in his back, fatally (see ch7) — the resulting wound is large enough for Paul to see Haie's breathing lung when Himmelstoss carries him to safety.

21. Müller
Müller is about 19 years of age, and one of Bäumer's classmates, when he also joins the German army as a volunteer to go to the war. Carrying his old school books with him to the battlefield, he constantly reminds himself of the importance of learning and education. Even while under enemy fire, he "mutters propositions in physics." He became interested in Kemmerich's boots and inherits them when Kemmerich dies early in the novel. He is killed later in the book after being shot point-blank in the stomach. As he was dying "quite conscious, and in terrible pain," he gave his pocket-book and the boots he inherited from Kemmerich to Bäumer.

22. Stanislaus Katczinsky
Also known as Kat, he has the most positive influence on Paul and his comrades on the battlefield. Katczinsky was a cobbler in civilian life; he is older than Paul Bäumer and his comrades, and serves as their leadership figure. He also represents a literary model highlighting the differences between the younger and older soldiers. While the older men have already had a life of professional and personal experience before the war, Bäumer and the men of his age have had little life experience or time for personal growth. When Katczinsky is killed it is as though a great hero has died.
Kat is also well known for his ability to source nearly any item needed, above all, food. At one point he secures four boxes of lobsters. Bäumer describes Kat as possessing a sixth sense. One night, Bäumer along with a group of other soldiers are holed up in a factory with neither rations nor comfortable bedding. Katczinsky leaves for a short while, returning with straw to put over the bare wires of the beds. Later, to feed the hungry men, Kat brings bread, a bag of horse meat, a lump of fat, a pinch of salt and a pan in which to cook the food.
Kat is shot in the leg at the end of the story, just before Bäumer himself is killed. Bäumer carries him back to camp on his back, only to discover upon their arrival that a shell fragment had hit Kat in the head and killed him on the way. He is thus the last of Paul's close friends to die in battle. It is Kat's death that eventually makes Bäumer careless whether he survives the war or not, but that he can face the rest of his life without fear. "Let the months and the years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more."

23. Tjaden
Before the war Tjaden was a locksmith. A big eater with a grudge against Himmelstoss, he is one of Paul's friends. At the end of the book, it is unknown whether Tjaden has died or not.

24. Mr. Kantorek
Kantorek was the schoolmaster of Paul and his friends, including Kropp, Leer, and Müller. Behaving "in a way that cost [him] nothing," Kantorek is a strong supporter of the war and cajoles Bäumer and other students in his class to join the war effort. Among twenty enlistees was Joseph Behm, the first of the class to die in battle. In an example of tragic irony, Behm was the only one who did not want to sacrifice his life in the line of duty. Remarque uses the figure of Kantorek to make a point about the usefulness of a person's education in the real world. In a twist of fate, Kantorek is later called up as a soldier as well. He very reluctantly joins the ranks of his former students, only to be grilled and taunted by Mittelstädt, one of the students he had earlier persuaded to enlist.

25. Leer
Leer is a soldier in Bäumer's company. He is very popular with women; when he and his comrades meet three French girls, he is the first to seduce one of the girls. Bäumer describes Leer's ability to attract girls by saying "Leer is an old hand at the game". In chapter 11, Leer is hit by a shell fragment, which also hits Bertink. The shrapnel tears open Leer's hip, causing him to bleed to death quickly. His death causes Paul to ask himself, "What use is it to him now that he was such a good mathematician in school?"

26. Bertinck
Lieutenant Bertink, often referred to as the company commander, is the leader of Bäumer's company. His men have a great respect for him, and Bertink has great fondness for his men. He permits them to eat the rations of the men that had been killed in action, standing up to the chef who would only allow them their allotted share. Bertink is genuinely despondent when he learns that few of his men had survived an engagement. When he and the other characteres are trapped in a trench under heavy attack, Bertink spots a flamethrower team advancing on them, which will certainly kill them all. Although already shot in the chest and hit in the chin by the same shell fragment that killed Leer, Bertink manages to kill the flamethrower team, and right afterward he mutters "good", assured that his men will live, and slumps down dead.

27. Himmelstoss
Remarque's portrayal of Himmelstoss easily raises the ire of the reader. He is a power-hungry corporal with special contempt for Paul and his friends, taking sadistic pleasure in punishing the minor infractions of his trainees during their basic training in preparation for their deployment. He often teases Tjaden and Kindervater about their bed-wetting and make them sleep under one another. However, Bäumer and his comrades have a chance to get back at Himmelstoss, mercilessly whipping him on the night before they board trains to go to the front. Himmelstoss later joins them at the front, revealing himself as a coward who shirks his duties for fear to get hurt or killed, and pretends to be wounded because of a scratch on his face. Bäumer beats him and when a lieutenant comes along looking for men for a trench charge, Himmelstoss joins and leads the charge. He carries Haie Westhus' body to Bäumer after he is fatally wounded. Matured and repentant through his experiences Himmelstoss later asks for forgiveness from his previous charges. As he becomes the new staff cook, to prove his friendship he secures two pounds of sugar for Bäumer and half a pound of butter for Tjaden.

28. Detering
Detering was a young farmer who loved his wife and farm and constantly longed to return to them. He is driven to desert when he saw a cherry blossom, which reminded him of home too much and inspired him to leave. He was found and court-martialled for deserting, and is never heard of again. He was especially fond of horses and was angered when seeing them used in combat. He says, "It is of the vilest baseness to use horses in the war," when the group hears several wounded horses writhe and scream for a long time before dying.

29. Franz Kemmerich
Kemmerich had enlisted in the army for WWI along with his best friend and classmate, Bäumer. Kemmerich is shot in the leg early in the story; his injured leg had to be amputated, and he dies shortly thereafter. In anticipation of Kemmerich's imminent death, Müller was eager to get his boots. While in hospital, the doctors took Kemmerich's watch from him, causing him great distress, prompting him to ask about his watch every time his friends came to visit him in the hospital.

30. Joseph Behm
A student in Paul's class. Behm was the only student that was not quickly influenced by Kantorek's patriotism to join the war. Eventually, due to pressure from friends and Kantorek, he joins the war. He is the first of Paul's friends to die, and he dies in a horrifying fashion: He is blinded in no man's land and cut down by enemy fire.

31. Literary Style
All Quiet has three streams of text which are braided together. There is a linear narrative of Paul’s current experience, his reflections and meditations, and his memories of past events.
There is no clear timeline. The reader relies on the changing seasons and the narrator’s age as reference points for the passage of time, but in reading these details are irrelevant to the reader. Although, there are no dates, the narrative is chronological – we think - and takes place over the course of four years.
It is also comparable to a diary since we are privy to Paul’s inner thoughts as well as the events he experiences.
Cathartic: cleansing, purifying, purging. (OED)

32. Literary Style Continued
Remarque uses plain and direct language, almost as if it was written for a teenage audience. It is quite an easy read that uses language that could be found in any era.
Characters are well defined. Each background character is distinct and consistent.
His writing style, though mostly plain and direct, is often poetic.
And this I know; all these things that now, while we are still in the war, sink down in us like a stone, after the war shall waken again, and then shall begin the disentanglement of life and death. (Remarque 140)

33. Literary Style Continued
Remarque’s descriptions are rooted in sensations: sights, sounds, tastes and touch. This occurs in both descriptions of the setting as well as descriptions of events.
The air becomes acrid with the smoke of the guns and the fog. The fumes of powder taste bitter on the tongue. The roar of the guns makes our lorry stagger, the reverberation rolls raging away to the road, everything quakes. Our faces change imperceptibly. We are not, indeed, in the front-line, but only in the reserves yet in every face can be read: This is the front, now we are within its embrace.
It is not fear. Men who have been up as often as we have become thick skinned. Only the young recruits are agitated. Kat explains to them: “That was a twelve-inch. You can tell by the report; now you’ll hear the burst.”
But the muffled thud of the burst does not reach us. It is swallowed up in the general murmur of the front: Kat listens: “There’ll be a bombardment tonight.” (Remarque 52-53)

34. Literary Style Continued
The tone of the book shifts between light-hearted, fearful and bleak, a literary technique that is used to camouflage or highlight emotional events in the text. Starting out, the boys are happy to receive more rations, they sit around on their latrines and enjoy the outdoors, the descriptions of the surroundings are vibrant:
As the book progresses, these realities are no longer camouflaged:
We hear the muffled rumble of the front only as very distant thunder, bumble-bees droning by quite drown it. Around us stretches the flowery meadow. The grasses sway and float on the soft warm wind of the late summer. We read letters and newspapers and smoke. We take off our caps and lay them down beside us. The wind plays with our hair; it plays with our words and thoughts. The three boxes stand in the midst of the glowing, red field-poppies. (Remarque 9 )
The rifles are caked [with mud], the uniforms caked, everything is fluid and dissolved, the earth one dripping, soaked, oily mass in which lie yellow pools with red spiral streams of blood and into which the dead, the wounded, and survivors sink down.
The storm lashes us, out of the confusion of grey and yellow the hail of splinters whips forth the child-like cries of the wounded, and in the night shattered life groans painfully into silence.Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain. We do not know whether we still live. (Remarque 286)