All Quiet on the Western Front (German: Im Westen nichts Neues, lit. ’In the West, nothing new’) is a semi-autobiographical novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I.
The book describes the German soldiers’ extreme physical and mental trauma during the war as well as the detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home from the war. It is billed by some as “the greatest war novel of all time”.
The novel was first published in November and December 1928 in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung and in book form in late January 1929.
The book and its sequel, The Road Back (1931), were among the books banned and burned in Nazi Germany. All Quiet on the Western Front sold 2.5 million copies in 22 languages in its first 18 months in print.
Three film adaptations of the book have been made, each of which was lauded. The 1930 American adaptation, directed by Lewis Milestone, won two Academy Awards.
The 1979 British-American adaptation, a television film by Delbert Mann, won a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award. The 2022 German adaptation, directed by Edward Berger, won four Academy Awards.
The original book and its first English translation entered the public domain in the United States in 2024 and 2025, respectively; the 1930 film adaptation is set to do so in 2026.
Title and translation
The 1929 English translation by Arthur Wesley Wheen gives the title as All Quiet on the Western Front. The literal translation of “Im Westen nichts Neues” is “Nothing New in the West,” with “West” being the Western Front; the phrase refers to the content of an official communiqué at the end of the novel.
Brian Murdoch’s 1993 translation rendered the phrase as “there was nothing new to report on the Western Front” within the narrative. However, in the foreword, he explains his retention of the original book title:
Although it does not match the German exactly, Wheen’s title has justly become part of the English language and is retained here with gratitude.
The phrase “all quiet on the Western Front” has become a colloquial expression meaning stagnation, or lack of visible change, in any context.
Murdoch also explains how, owing to the time it was published, Wheen’s translation was obliged to Anglicise some lesser-known German references and lessen the impact of certain passages while omitting others entirely. Murdoch’s translation is more accurate to the original text and completely unexpurgated.
Plot summary
The book centers on Paul Bäumer, a German soldier on the Western Front during World War I. Before the war, Paul lived with his parents and sister in a charming German village. He attended school, where the patriotic speeches of his teacher Kantorek led the whole class to volunteer for the Imperial German Army shortly after the start of the Great War.
At the training camp, where they meet Himmelstoß, his class is scattered over the platoons amongst Frisian fishermen, peasants and labourers, with whom they soon become friends. Bäumer arrives at the Western Front with his friends and schoolmates (Albert, Kemmerich, Leer, Müller, and a number of other characters). There they meet Stanislaus Katczinsky, an older recalled reservist, nicknamed Kat, who becomes Paul’s mentor.
While fighting at the front, Bäumer and his comrades engage in frequent battles and endure the treacherous and filthy conditions of trench warfare. The battles fought here have no names and only meager pieces of land are gained, which are often lost again later. Remarque often refers to the living soldiers as old and dead, emotionally drained and shaken.
Paul visits home, and the contrast with civilian life highlights the cost of the war on his psyche. The town has not changed since he went off to war, but he has: he finds that he does “not belong here any more, it is a foreign world”.
Paul recovers the books and writings he had left in his childhood room, but finds his passion for literature to have been completely erased by the trauma of war. He feels disconnected from most of the townspeople, who ask him “stupid and distressing” questions about his experiences or lecture him about strategy and advancing to Paris while insisting that Paul and his friends know only their “own little sector” but nothing of the big picture.
Indeed, the only person he remains connected to is his dying mother, with whom he shares a tender yet restrained relationship. In the end, he concludes that he “ought never to have come home on leave”.
Paul is glad to return and reunite with his comrades. Soon after, he volunteers to go on a patrol and kills a Frenchman in hand-to-hand combat for the first time. He watches the man die slowly in agony for hours. He is remorseful and devastated, asking for forgiveness from the man’s corpse.
He later confesses to Kat and Albert, who try to comfort him and reassure him that it is only part of the war. Paul and his company receive a temporary reprieve from the horrid rations and living conditions of the trenches when they are instead sent to a supply depot in an occupied French town.
They enjoy food and luxuries taken from the depot or looted from the town but continue to lose men to Allied shelling, culminating in Paul and Albert being wounded while evacuating civilians and needing to be diverted to a Catholic hospital far behind the lines. Albert eventually has his leg amputated, whilst Paul is deemed fit for service and returned to the front.
By the closing months of the war, German morale is almost nonexistent as the men realize they are only fighting to delay an armistice.
The Americans have recently joined the war as both they and the English begin outperforming the far more poorly equipped Germans. In despair Paul watches as his friends fall one by one.
Kat’s death is the last straw that finally causes Paul to lose his will to live. In the final chapter he comments that peace is coming soon but he does not see the future as bright and shining with hope. Paul feels that he has no aims left in life and that their generation will be different and misunderstood.
In October 1918 Paul is finally killed on a remarkably peaceful day. The situation report from the frontline states a simple phrase: “All quiet on the Western Front.” Paul’s corpse displays a calm expression on its face, “as though almost glad the end had come.”
Themes
At the beginning of the book, Remarque writes, “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.” The book does not focus on heroic stories of bravery, but rather gives a view of the conditions in which the soldiers find themselves.
The monotony between battles, the constant threat of artillery fire and bombardments, the struggle to find food, the lack of training of young recruits (meaning lower chances of survival), and the overarching role of random chance in the lives and deaths of the soldiers are described in detail.
Another major theme is the concept of blind nationalism. Remarque often emphasizes that the boys were not forced to join the war effort against their will, but rather by a sense of patriotism and pride. Kantorek called Paul’s platoon the “Iron Youth”, teaching his students a romanticized version of warfare with glory and duty to the Fatherland.
It is only when the boys go to war and have to live and fight in dirty, cramped trenches with little protection from enemy bullets and shells while contending with hunger and sickness that they realize just how dispiriting it is to actually serve in the army.
Characters
Paul Bäumer: The narrator and protagonist of the story, Paul is a thoughtful and sensitive young man who serves as the reader’s guide through the horrors of war. He is nineteen years old and joined the army straight out of school along with his classmates. Paul undergoes a profound transformation as he experiences the dehumanizing effects of war and grapples with the trauma of killing. His internal monologues reveal his growing disillusionment, his longing for peace, and his struggle to retain his humanity.
Albert Kropp: Kropp is in Paul’s class at school and is described as the clearest thinker of the group as well as the smallest. Kropp is wounded towards the end of the novel and undergoes a leg amputation. Both he and Bäumer end up spending time in a Catholic hospital together, Bäumer suffering from shrapnel wounds to the leg and arm.
Haie Westhus: Haie is tall and strong with a good sense of humor, and a peat-digger by profession. His size and behavior make him seem older than Paul, yet he is the same age as Paul and his school-friends, who are roughly 19 at the start of the book. During combat, he is fatally injured in his back (Chapter 6).
Friedrich Müller: Müller is one of Bäumer’s classmates, and is 19 when he also volunteers to join the German army. He is killed later after being shot point-blank in the stomach with a flare gun.
Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky: Katczinsky, a recalled reserve militiaman, was a cobbler in civilian life. He is older than Paul Bäumer and his comrades, about 40 years old, and serves as their leadership figure.
Tjaden: One of Bäumer’s non-schoolmate friends. Before the war, Tjaden was a locksmith and a big eater with a grudge against the former postman-turned-corporal Himmelstoß.
Himmelstoß: Sergeant der Reserve Himmelstoß was a village postman before being mobilised for the war and
