All Quiet on the Western Front
The themes of the novel can be considered under three main headings:
Comradeship – “the only good thing to come out of the war”
The Betrayal of Youth by the older generation.
The futility and destructive nature of war.
Remember at all times that Remarque was writing an anti war novel; his
purpose was to expose the horrific realities of war for those who had not
experienced it.
Comradeship
The very first chapter opens with Paul giving us fairly detailed character
sketches of his friends:
Albert Kropp
Muller
Leer
Tjaden
Haie Westhus
Dettering
Stanislaus Katczinsky
- clear thinker so only a lance corporal
- still carries his school books and mutters
physics formulas during bombardment
- dreams of girls in officer’s brothels
- huge appetite
- peat digger
- peasant, thinks of his wife and his farm
- the leader of group – a father figure
The immediate introduction of these characters emphasises how
important they are to Paul and to one another. As Paul is the first person
narrator, we care about him and by extension, his friends.

Moments of contentment while at rest: sitting on their toilets in
the open field, playing cards, reading letters and newspapers.

Kemmerich’s death: bribe the orderlies to give Kemmerich
morphia. Albert Kropp’s outburst ‘shit’ is accepted by his friends;
they understand. Paul is comforted by the others when he returns
to the camp having been with Kemmerich as he dies.
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
Bombardment P57. New recruit is terrified, Paul treats him as a
parent would “like a child [he] creeps under my arm”.

Later, the same recruit is found horribly injured and certain to
die. Every day he lives will be ‘a howling torture”. Paul and Kat
decide to shoot him in order to end his suffering. They are
prevented by the arrival of stretcher bearers.

Kat and Paul catching and cooking the goose.
P85
“We don’t talk much, but I believe we have a more complete
communion with one another than even lovers have.”
P86
“Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me,
like home.”
P91
The old hands take the bayonets with blunt saws away from the
new recruits; if they were to be caught with them by the enemy
they would be tortured.
P116 Recruits regard more experienced soldiers as ‘gods that escape
death many times”.
Older soldiers try to teach them how to survive; they largely fail us,
despite trying to follow the advice, the new recruits are so inexperienced
they panic under attack.
P167 Incident with Russian soldiers is a key scene in thinking about
comradeship. Paul realises he has no grudge against these men and
calls them brothers. He listens to them playing the violin; takes
them some food; gives them cigarettes:
“it looks as though there were little windows in dark village
cottages saying that behind them are rooms full of peace.
Paul’s return to front after leave; he is very anxious to return to
His comrades and reassure himself that they have survived. Paul
is lost in no-mans-land and hears the voices of his friends.
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P182 “They are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than
motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most
comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my
comrades.
P182 “we all share the same fear and the same life, we are nearer than
Lovers, in a simpler, a harder way.”
This is especially significant as Paul ahs just returned from leave; he is
closer to these men than he can be with his family, from whom he is
almost entirely alienated.

They are guarding the village; treat each other with good humour,
ordering one another about as ‘valets’.

Albert and Paul both injured. Paul fakes temperature in order to
stay with Albert, even through he could be going home. “It was
very hard to say goodbye to my friend, Albert Kropp.”
P230 The horrible months of 1918 at Western Front. Paul talks of being
part of a ‘great brotherhood’ and the “desperate loyalty to one
another of men condemned to death”.
P238 Bertinck (company commander) dies in saving the life of some of
his men.
P243 Kat is injured in the leg; Paul carries Kat on his back to the
dressing station. They stop for a rest:“I am very miserable, it is impossible that Kat – Kat my friend, Kat
with the drooping shoulders and the poor thin moustache, Kat,
whom I know as I know no other man, Kat with whom I have shared
all these years – it is impossible that perhaps I shall not see Kat
again”.
P245 “No, we are not related. No we are not related”
P245 “All is as usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky is dead.
Paul dies very soon after Kat; perhaps Kat’s death gives him one
less reason to survive.
-3-
Key episodes in comradeship:
o Kat and Paul cooking goose and sharing it with Tjaden and Kropp.
o Kat’s death.
Also useful for
o Character of Paul
o Relationship between Kat and Paul
Betrayal of Youth by the older generation
P15
Kantorek – “a face like a shrew mouse.”
Kantorek persuading Joseph Behm to enlist: Joseph Behm is the
first to die in horrific circumstances.
P16
“even one’s parents were ready with the word coward.”
P16
“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”
P16
“We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but in our
hearts we trusted them.”
P48
“And an old buffer was pleased to call us ‘young heroes2 “-just
after beating Himmelstoss.
P142 Incident with Major when he’s on leave: he doesn’t see the Major
while on his way to report to district commander. Major is furious
and makes him take twenty steps backwards.
Father wants him to continue to wear uniform – he’s proud of Paul’s
role as a soldier.
P145 Headmaster dismisses Paul’s opinion that a breakthrough might be
impossible!“He dismisses the idea loftily and tells me I know nothing
about it.”
-4-
P151 Kantorek is now a reservist; one of his former pupils, Mittelstaedt,
is now his superior officer. Kantorek still tries to use his
role/position in the pre-war society to buy favour:
“Would you like me to use my influence so that you can
take an emergency-exam?”
Mittelstaedt ensures he is put in charge of Kantorek and proceeds to
make his life miserable.
This represents how the younger generation realise they have been
betrayed and that they must create their own future; there is nothing to
be gained from a generation of Kantoreks.
“I cannot reconcile this [Kantorek as soldier] with the menacing
figure at the schoolmaster’s desk.”
When Paul asks Middelstaedt whether or not he can polish him up a bit,
Middelstaedt replies, contemptuously:
“He’s too stupid, I couldn’t be bothered,”
Contrast Kantorek with Himmelstoss. Kantorek learns nothing and
remains an object for both the soldiers and the readers. He does not, at
any point, have the humility to realise the error of his ways. In contrast,
Himmelstoss realises that he has behaved badly and seems to regret his
dreadful abuse of power. After his initial attempt to assert his position
and refusal to leave the trench, he risks his life to save Haie Westhus
and, when he is put in charge of the kitchen, ensures Paul and friends
have the best of everything. He is redeemed in the eyes of the reader.
The troops are visited by the Kaiser and they are disappointed by his
appearance. They have expected someone of more significant
appearances. They discuss how the war got started and Albert Kropp
says:
“Our professors and parsons and newspapers say that we are the
only ones that are right, and let’s hope so; - but the French
professors and parsons and newspapers say that the right is on
their side,”
-5-
Abuses carried out by some of the surgeons. e.g- operating on men with
flat feet in order to test a ‘pet theory’ Or sending men back as ‘A1’ when
they are clearly unfit for battle.
Even the length of time it takes for the Armistice to be signed; Paul dies
at the very end of the war: if the powers that be had ‘got on with it’ the
characters we care about most would have survived; Kat and Paul.
Reinforces how badly these men let down by, in Remarque’s view, inept
politicians.
The Futility and Destruction of War
This is a deliberately broad heading; hopefully this will make the ideas a
bit easier to manage. Under this heading we can think about all of the
ideas we have talked about already;

the destruction of the soldiers’ (as represented by Paul) past, their
present and their future. Symbolism of Kemmerich’s boots.

the destruction of their relationships; they feel alienated from
anyone not connected to the war.

animal imagery – shows what men must become to fight. They are
reduced to their most primitive instincts in order to survive.
Animal imagery also stresses the physical horrors of the war.

the destruction of nature; the contrast of nature’s ability to
survive and regenerate and Mankind’s increasingly barbaric means
of exterminating itself.
Destruction of past, present and future
P22
“We are none of us more than twenty years old. But young?
Youth? That is long ago. We are old folk.”
P29
“We become hard, suspicious, pitiless, vicious, tough- and that was
good; for these attributes were just what we lacked.”
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P33
Kemmerich’s death “He is entirely alone now with his little life
of nineteen years and cries because it leaves him,”
P47
“Haie bending over him with a fiendish grin and his mouth open
with bloodlust.”
P48
(after beating Himmelstoss) “Himmelstoss ought to have been
pleased; his saying that we should educate one another had borne
fruit for himself”
P79
“The war has ruined us for everything”
P79
“We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world;
and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first
explosion, burst in our hearts.”
P105 Paul is on ……; he remembers back to a time when he stood in the
cloisters of a church:
“I stand there and wonder whether, when I am twenty, I shall
have experienced the bewildering emotions of love.”
P107 “We are forlorn like children and experienced like old men, we are
crude and sorrowful and superficial – I believe are lost.”
P121 “We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with
feelings which, though they might be ornamental enough in peace
time, would be out of place here.”
P149 Paul in his room, on leave, waiting for his past to reclaim him.
“Nothing stirs; listless and wretched, like a condemned man, I sit
there and the past withdraws itself.”
P150 “Words, words, words – they do not reach me.”
P157 Paul doesn’t understand why Kemmerich’s mother grieves as she
does:
“When a man has seen so many dead he cannot understand any
longer why there should be so much anguish over an individual.”
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P160 “I bite into my pillow. I grasp the iron rods of my bed with my
fists. I ought never to have come here.”
P162 “I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother.”
P224 “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but
despair, death, fear and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss
of sorrow,”
P238 despite all of this; the rootlessness of the past, the horrors of the
past and the emphasis of the future, Paul is still desperate to live.
“No! No! Not now! Not at the last moment.”
The symbolism of Kennerich’s boots is also relevant here: Muller inherits
the boots when Kemmerich dies. Indeed he asks for them before
Kemmerich dies. No-one thinks this insensitive; war has bred a
practicality in the men. Kemmerich will never need them again and good
boots are hard to find.
“We have lost all sense of other considerations, because they
are artificial.”
When Muller dies the boots fall to each man in turn. As each man dies,
and the boots pass along, we se how a generation of young men is wiped
out and how each one loses his future.
Destruction of Relationships
The soldiers become increasingly alienated from all those who do not
fight at the front: how can anyone who has not experienced a
bombardment, on attack, the ghastly scenes of the front possibly
understand?
Paul’s leave is a prime example of this; his father wishes him to remain in
uniform in order to “show him off” to his acquaintances. Paul refuses.
Paul’s father also asks questions about the front which Paul finds “stupid
and distressing”; Paul tries to placate his father by telling him amusing
anecdotes but he cannot tell him about the front. It is not that Paul is
not willing to speak to his father but that he cannot bring himself to
confront his experiences for fear the he will be unable to master them.
-8-
Paul makes the mistake of accepting a drink from a former schoolmaster.
He then has to join a group of civilians who tell him how much worse
things are at home, naturally the soldiers receive the best provisions, and
how Paul and his comrades really know very little about the war. Not only
does this demonstrate the ignorance of the older generation but it
emphasises how little contact Paul can make with any ‘world’ but his own.
Most poignant relationship is that with his mother, who is dying of cancer.
She asks him many questions about the war and he tells her many
reassuring lies. His mother’s concerns show how little she knows about
his life! She warns him to stay away from French girls; she asks him if he
can’t get a ‘safe’ job, away from the fighting; she tells him to take care.
The love they bear one another is very moving – Paul’s mother has made
great sacrifices to provide him with his favourite jam, stale cakes and
woollen underwear – but they cannot speak. On Paul’s last night on leave,
his mother comes to sit in his room, believing him asleep. Neither speaks
for a long time but the suppressed, unspoken emotion is one of the most
moving passages of the book.
P158 “Ah Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child – why can I not
put my head in your lap and week?”
P160 “I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother.”
End of chapter ten.
“My mother does not want to let me go away, she is very feeble. It
is all much worse than it was last time.”
Relationship with Women
In chapter seven, Paul and Albert see the poster of the attractive girl
with a handsome man. They realise how filthy they are and how they
could never compete with such an attractive, well turned out rival; they
very carefully rip down the poster in order that they can only see the
girl:
“The girl on the poster is a wonder to us. We have quite forgotten
that there are such things.”
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9–
Paul and the French girl:
P130 “But I – I am lost in remoteness, in weakness, and in a passion
to which I yield myself trustingly.”
P130 Brothels “I wish I never thought of them; but desire turns my
mind to them involuntarily and I am afraid for it might be
impossible ever to be free of them again.”
P131 “I cannot trust myself to speak, I am not in the least happy”
P210 “She is young and crisp, spotless and neat, like everything here;
a man cannot realise it isn’t for officers only, and feels himself
strange and in some way, even alarmed.
Animal Imagery
P53
“We reach the zone where the front begins and become on the
instant human animals.”
P58
“It’s unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the
martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and
groaning” – symbolism of horses.
P64
“Like a big, soft jelly-fish, it floats into our shell-hole and lolls
there obscenely.” – gas attack.
P90
“They have shocking, evil, naked faces.” – rats in trenches.
P93
“When a shell lands in the trench we note how the hollow, furious#
blast is like a blow from the paw of a raging beast of prey.”
P100 “We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend
ourselves against annihilation.”
P100 “What do we know of men in the moment when Death is hunting us
down.”
P165 “In the darkness, one sees their forms move like sick storks,
Like great birds.2 – Russian prisoners.
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P238 Tanks embody the horror of war. The soldiers are terrified of
them:
“ a fleet of roaring, smoke-belching, armour-cad, invulnerable
steel beasts squashing the dead and the wounded.”
The Earth
How nature coexists and continues to flourish along side the horror
created by Man.
P13
“on the horizon float the bright yellow, sunlit observation balloons,
and the many little white clouds of the anti aircraft shells.
OR
“We hear the muffled rumble of the front only as a very distant
thunder, bumble bees droning by quite drown it.”
P52
“To me the front is a mysterious whirlpool.”
“She is his only friend, his brother, her mother.”
“Earth! – Earth! – Earth!
Earth with thy folds, and hollows, and holes
into which a man may fling himself and
crouch down.”
P5?
The collision of Nature’s beauty and was – men coming out
of the mist on horses are beautiful in the moonlight.
They:
“resemble Knights in a forgotten time; it is strangely
beautiful and arresting.”
P101 “The brown earth, the torn blasted earth, with a greasy shine
under the sun’s rays.”
P104 -almost mystical in description of nature:
“Night comes, out of the crates rises the mist. It looks as though
the holes were full of ghostly secrets.”
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P162 “Now the stems gleam purest white, and between them airy and
silken, hangs the pastel-green of the leaves.”
P241 “The Earth is one dripping, soaked, oily mass in which lie yellow
pools with red spiral streams of blood.”
P241 “Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain.
we do not know whether we still live.”
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