All Quiet on the Western Front
Chp. 1 Questions and activities
Fill in the blanks
The book opens with _____________, the narrator, and the rest of Second Company a few miles from the
front. They have just returned from the front the night before, having suffered ____________________.
Half of the men from the company are dead or wounded. Ginger, ___________, has made a _______ for
150 men instead of the _________ that are left. The men get out of bed around noon to line up for food. First
in line is ________________, then Muller, Leer, and Paul. All four boys, aged 19, were in __________
together, and joined the army on the same day. Behind them is ___________, a 19-year-old locksmith; Haie
Westhus, a 19-year-old _____________; _________, a peasant farmer, and Stansislaus Katczinsky: "the
leader of our group, shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten, forty years of age, with a face of the soil, blue eyes, bent
shoulders, and a remarkable nose for dirty weather, good food, and soft jobs." (3)
Once in line, the men get impatient when Ginger _________ them. The men dislike Ginger because he is a
________ and won't bring food _____________ when the men are ________. He tells them that he can't
serve them until _________ is there. Katczinsky tells him of the losses they suffered, and Ginger gets angry
that he has cooked too much. He doesn't want to give out all the food or the double ration of _________. Kat,
angry, tells him that he has cooked for _________________ and he should give everything to
________________. They are about to fight him when the company _____________ arrives and orders
Ginger to give all the food as well as the ______________ rations to the men. Ginger, flustered, gives the
food out to the men. Everyone happily eats the huge meal, and _________ and Tjaden even take extra. After
the meal, the stuffed men read their _____________. Paul, Kropp, and Muller decide to go to the
______________ to play cards.
Out in the __________ near camp, there is a common _________ and several small boxes that the men use
to go to the bathroom. Paul thinks back to how ___________ they were when they were first forced to go to
the bathroom in a common room as _________. Now, they don't care. They have no _________, and going
to the bathroom outdoors is an enjoyable experience.
They pull three boxes together, read their mail, and smoke. Using a lid from a ________ as a table, they sit
and play _____, a three-man card game. Sometimes they mention something about the ______, but they
never really discuss it. There is no need to. Kropp asks if anyone has seen their friend, ________, who is in
the hospital, wounded. They decide to go visit him later that afternoon. Kropp pulls out a letter from their old
teacher, ___________, who sends his greetings. They all laugh, trying to imagine him there on the front.
Summarize this passage: Kantorek had been our schoolmaster, an active little man in a grey tail-coat, with
a face like a shrew–mouse. He was about the same size as Corporal Himmelstoss, the "Terror of Klosterberg".
It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men. They are so much
more energetic and uncompromising than the big fellows. I have always taken good care to keep out of
sections with small company commanders. They are mostly confounded little martinets.