A Vertext of Chapters 2-4
of All Quiet on the Western Front
Chapter 2 page 20
Though Muller would be delighted to have
Kemmerich’s boots, he is really quite as
sympathetic as another who could not bear to
think of such a thing for grief. He merely see
things clearly. Were Kemmerich able to make
any use of the boots, then Muller would rather go
bare-foot over barbed wire than scheme how to
get a hold of them”
Chapter 2 page 21
We have lost all sense of other considerations
because they are artificial. Only the facts are
real and important for us. And good boots are
scarce.
Chapter 2 page 21
[back before] We were still crammed full of
vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war
also an ideal and almost romantic character…We
learned that a bright button is weightier than four
volumes of Schopenhauer.”
Chapter 2 page 25
In spite of ourselves we tripped and emptied the
bucket [of manure] over his legs. He raved, but
the limit had been reached…he growled: “You’ll
drink this! – but that was the end of his
authority.”
Chapter 2 page 26
We became hard, suspicious, pitiless, vicious,
tough—and that was good; for these attributes
were just what we lacked. Had we gone into the
trenches without this period of training most of
us would certainly have gone mad. Only thus
were we prepared for what awaited us.
Chapter 2 page 29
[Looking at the dying Franz] But when we go
bathing and strip, suddenly we have slender legs
again and slight shoulders. We are no longer
soldiers but little more than boys; no one would
believe that we could carry packs…The whole
world ought to pass by this bed and say: “That is
Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old,
he doesn’t want to die. Let him not die!”
Chapter 2 page 33
Muller stands in front of the hut waiting for me .
I give him the boots. We go in and he tries them
on. They fit well. He roots among his supplies
and offers me a fine piece of saveloy. With it
goes hot tea and rum.”
Chapter 3 page 35
Reinforcments have arrived..The vacancies have
been filled and the sacks of straw in the huts are
already booked…Kropp nudges me: “Seen the
infants?”
Chapter 3 page 37
[on one of Kat’s many discoveries] They go off
to explore. Half an hour later they are back gain
with arms full of straw. Kat has found a horsebox with straw in it.
Chapter 3 page 41
Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He
proposes that a declaration or war should be a
kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and
bands, like a bull fight. Then in the arena the
ministers and generals of the two countries
dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with
clubs, can have it out among themselves.
Whoever survives, his country wins….the wrong
people do the fighting.
Chapter 3 page 43
“Surely Himmelstoss was a very different fellow
as a postman,” say I…”Then how does it come
that he’s such a bully as a drill sergeant?”
Chapter 3 page 43
“For instance, if you train a dog to eat potatoes
and then afterwards put a piece of meat in front
of him, he’ll snap at it, it’s his nature…”
Chapter 3 page 49
[Haie] stretched out his right arm preparatory to
giving him a box on the ear [and] he looked as if
he were going to reach down for a star”
Chapter 3 page 49
His [Himmelstoss’s] striped postman’s backside
gleamed in the moonlight.
Chapter 3 page 49
“Revenge is black pudding.”
Chapter 4 page 52
The gun-emplacements are camouflaged…and
look like a kind of military Feast of the
Tabernacles.”
Chapter 4 page 54
It is the front, the consciousness of the front, that
makes this contact…We start out for the front
plain soldiers, either cheerful or gloomy: then
come the first gun-emplacements and every word
of our speech has a new ring.
Chapter 4 page 55
From the earth…sustaining forces pour into us.
To no man does the earth mean so much as to the
soldier. Earth!—Earth!—Earth!
Chapter 4 page 56
We march up, moody or good-tempered
soldiers– we reach the zone where the front
begins and become on the instant human
animals.”
Chapter 4 page 57
Everyone carefully look and mark up the page –
looking for two very strikingly similar images.
Give everyone time. This is the page that begins
with “Mist and the smoke of guns…” and ends
with “We push on to the pioneer dump”
Go back to earlier quotes 12 & 13
Chapter 4 page 59
It reminds me of flocks of wild geese when I
hear them [the exploding shells]. Last autumn
the wild geese flew day after day across the path
of the shells.
Later – the plane “a black insect is caught
between them [the searchlights] and tries to
escape—the airman. He hesitates, is blinded
[Joe Behm] and falls.
Chapter 4 page 60
I see the rockets, and for a moment have the
impression that I have fallen asleep at a garden
fete…Mighty fine fireworks if they weren’t so
dangerous.
Chapter 4 page 62
The young recruit – his panic – his helmet – how
he loses his underpants…
Chapter 4 page 63-64
The screaming of the beasts becomes
louder..Detering raves and yells out: “Shoot
them! Shoot them, can’t you? Damn you
again!”… If we could only see the animals we
should be able to endure it better. We can bear
almost anything. But now the sweat breaks out
on us. We must get up and run no matter where,
but these cries can no longer be heard. And it is
not men, only horses.
Chapter 4 page 64
Detering: “Like to know what harm they’ve
done.” “I tell you it is the vilest baseness to use
horses in the war.”
Chapter 4 page 70-71
The graveyard is a mass of wreckage. Coffins
and corpses lie strewn about. They have been
killed once again; but each of them that was
flung up saved one of us.
Chapter 4 page 72
[Upon examining a wounded recruit]: He is the
fair-headed boy of a little while ago.
Kat looks around and whispers: “Shouldn’t we
just take a revolver and put an end to it?”
Chapter 4 page 73
Kat shakes his head. “Such a kid---” He repeats
it. “Young innocents—”