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Anmerkung: BARRON'S BOOK NOTES (tm) on CD-ROM Windows (tm) Ver. 2.0 1929 ERICH MARIA REMARQUE'S ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT by Rose Kam
THE STORY
Remarque begins his book with a note before the first chapter.
In it he says that his book "is to be neither an accusation
nor a confession, and least of all an adventure," but rather
an account of a generation of young men who were destroyed by
the war- World War I- "even though they may have escaped
its shells." What does he mean? Biography and history tell
us his situation. By 1929 when his book came out, World War I
had been over for ten years, but it was still affecting people
like him and his friends, who had gone from the schoolroom right
into the trenches. Many of them survived, but they felt as if
a shadow still hung over their lives. After all that time, they
still hadn't been able to sort out their feelings about the war.
Remarque says that he doesn't want to accuse or blame anyone,
that he certainly doesn't have anything new to confess, and that
he is definitely not trying to write an adventure story- the kind
of war story that's full of heroes and waving flags. If all of
that is what we should not expect, then what should we expect?
Well, if he means what he says, he's going to let the story itself
show us just exactly what was so destructive about World War I.
Maybe it's the deaths of friends; maybe it's the loss of ideals.
We'll need to read the book to find out. But we can expect every
chapter to tell us something to support his theme: that the First
World War destroyed even those who came through it alive.
CHAPTER 1
The very first paragraph takes us within five miles of the front
lines. The men are resting on the ground, having just stuffed
themselves with beef and beans (the cook is stiff dishing out
more). There are double rations of bread and sausage besides,
and tobacco is so plentiful that everyone can get his preference-
cigarets, cigars, or chews. Whoever is telling the story is right
there, in it; this is what is called first person narration. But
the narrator (we soon find out that he's 19 years old and his
name is Paul Baumer) makes clear that the whole situation is incredible:-
"We have not had such luck as this for a long time."
Where did the windfall come from? Paul says, "We have only
a miscalculation to thank for it." It turns out that the
quartermaster sent, and the cook prepared, food for the full Second
Company- 150 men. But 70 were killed at the end of a quiet two-week
mission when the English suddenly opened up with high-explosive
field guns. Before we can stop to think about Paul's dismissing
all those deaths as a miscalculation, he backs up to tell the
whole story of how they nearly had to riot to get all that food
and tobacco. The cook, it seems, didn't care about the count;
he just didn't want to give any man more than a single share.
In the course of retelling how their noise brought the company
commander, who finally ordered the cook to serve everything, Paul
introduces all his friends.
They're an assorted lot: first, three of his classmates from school-
Muller, the bookworm, Albert Kropp, the sharp thinker, and bearded
Leer who likes officers' brothels. Then there are three other
19-year-olds: the skinny locksmith Tjaden, the farmer Detering,
and the peat-digger Haie Westhus. Finally he names an older soldier-
the group's shrewd, 40-year-old leader, a man with a remarkable
nose for food and soft jobs, Stanislaus Katczinsky. -
-----------------------------
NOTE: From their names we see that these major characters are
German, but it really doesn't matter. They could just as well
be French or English, so far as their experiences are concerned.
-----------------------------
At this point we don't really know if Paul, the narrator, is as
cold and unfeeling as he appears. He and his friends seem to care
much more about food than about the lives of their companions.
Is Remarque indirectly telling us that war reduces people to animals?
Or are the men just being realistic? We'll have to wait and see.
The day continues to be "wonderfully good," says Paul,
because their mail catches up with them. But one letter angers
them. It's from their schoolmaster, Kantorek, who pumped them
all so full of the glory of fighting for their country that they
marched down to the district commandant together and enlisted.
The only one who had to be persuaded was homely Josef Behm, and
he's dead already- the first of their class to fall. Paul doesn't
blame Kantorek personally for Behm's death, but he does blame
the "thousands of Kantoreks" who were so sure their
view of the coming war was the right one. We were only 18, he
says; we trusted our teachers and our parents to guide us, and
"they let us down so badly." He seems to be saying that
the war has cut them adrift from a meaningful life, with no new
values to replace the old ones. All the young soldiers know for
sure is that it's good to have a full belly or a good smoke.
The friends go over to visit Franz Kemmerich, a classmate who
is dying after a leg amputation. Muller turns out to be totally
crude and tactless. Kemmerich is dying, and Muller rattles on
about Kemmerich's stolen watch and just who will get Kemmerich's
fine English leather boots. Paul, on the other hand, recalls Kemmerich's
mother, crying and begging Paul to look after Franz as they left
for the front. To Paul, Kemmerich still looks like a child accidentally
poured into a military uniform. Perhaps war hasn't blunted his
sensitivity yet, but Muller's crudeness shocks us. As they leave
the dressing station, it is obvious that Kropp, like Paul, is
still brimful of feelings. Erupting into anger, he hurls his cigaret
to the ground and mutters, "Damned swine!" He is thinking
of the leaders who sent them into battle and of people like Kantorek
calling waifs like Kemmerich "Iron Youth." "Youth!"
thinks Paul. "That is long ago. We are old folk."
-----------------------------
NOTE: THE ROMANTIC VIEW OF WAR From history we know that the Kantoreks
passionately believed the ideals they taught their children and
students. World War I broke out in what seems to us a largely
innocent world, a world that still associated warfare with glorious
cavalry charges and the noble pursuit of heroic ideals. Everyone-
Allies and Central Powers alike- expected a quick, clean war with
a glorious aftermath. Most Europeans, not just Germans, saw war
as the adventure of a lifetime. The popular English poet Rupert
Brooke thanked God in his poem "1914" for waking "us
from sleeping" and providing the opportunity to do something
new and clean in "a world grown old and cold and weary."
Americans were no different, though Stephen Crane's Civil War
novel The Red Badge of Courage- showing war in all its ugliness-
had been around for 20 years. Listen to the lighthearted tone
of patriotic World War I songs by George M. Cohan. Later in the
war and afterwards, poets and novelists (including Remarque) dispelled
the myth. The English poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote about a battlefield,
"I am staring at a sunlit picture of hell."
-----------------------------
CHAPTER 2
We get to know Paul better in the second chapter. It is the next
day and he is still thinking about his parents and about Kantorek.
He recalls school life, hobbies, poetry writing, and observes,
"of this nothing remains." The older men have wives
and jobs to return to; the war is just an interruption for them.
But the "Iron Youth" had not yet taken root: "The
war swept us away" and they don't know how it will end. "We
know only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become
a waste land." He goes on to defend Muller's preoccupation
with Kemmerich's boots- Muller is just being practical, he says.
After all, Kemmerich has no further use for them. Paul claims
that Muller would go barefoot over barbed wire rather than plot
to get the boots if Kemmerich could use them. But as things are,
Muller, who does need them, is much more entitled to them than
some thieving hospital orderly. -
-----------------------------
NOTE: Let's pause a moment. Why is Paul working so hard to excuse
Muller? Does he protest so much because there's a bit of Muller
in himself? He certainly has an intellectual grasp of the situation
and probably wrote good essays in school. Look at the phrases
he can produce: "[W]e have become a waste land." Does
he secretly wish he could translate his ideas into action as bluntly
as Muller? Another question: Remember how Remarque said in his
opening note that his book was not going to be an accusation?
Is it or isn't it? An author usually speaks through his main characters-
at this point, Paul. Paul says he doesn't blame the Kantoreks.
Judging from all you already know of Paul, what do you think?
Does he truly know his own feelings? Or do you think some bitterness
he doesn't even recognize might underlie his words?
-----------------------------
A definite note of bitterness creeps into Paul's next thoughts,
but there's a strong trace of nostalgia, too. Now that he has
experienced front-line fighting, boot camp, rough as it was, almost
seems like the good old days! He recalls how quickly you learned
that in the army, all the learning from Plato to Goethe is less
important than knowing how to spring to attention or keep your
buttons polished. He particularly reviews the cruel treatment
he and his friends endured at the hands of the sadistic Corporal
Himmelstoss, a former mailman. Under his orders Paul once scrubbed
the corporals' dining room with a toothbrush, and another morning
he remade the man's bed 14 times! Often the whole group ended
drills covered with mud, or stood at attention for long sessions,
without gloves, in freezing weather. Every rotten job in the camp
came their way, but Himmelstoss never broke them. Eventually,
under Kropp's instigation, they developed the tactic of obeying
Himmelstoss's orders so slowly that even he gained a certain respect
for them and eased up on them a fraction. How insane such training
was, Paul thinks, but you can almost see him grin as he adds,
how well it worked! It made them hard, suspicious, bitter, and
tough- not so great for civilian life, but perfect preparation
for the trenches! Such discipline, Paul concludes, was exactly
what they needed as recruits.
Paul continues to spend his day quietly. He goes alone to visit
Kemmerich and says all the soothing things people say about a
bright future when they know very well that someone is dying.
But Kemmerich knows. He asks Paul to give his boots to Muller.
For an hour Paul watches as his friend cries silently. He cannot
get an orderly to help when death sounds begin to gurgle in Kemmerich's
throat. Instead the orderly urges him to hurry up and clear out
Kemmerich's things; he needs the bed. Really, the orderly has
acted no worse than the whole company yesterday, clamoring for
the food their dead companions couldn't eat. And the orderly at
least wants the bed for another man. But this time it hits Paul.
He can't be indifferent or uncaring. He's had time to see what
a young boy his friend still is; he's had time to rage at the
senseless brutality that sends boys out to be killed for nothing.
He gulps and leaves the huts as the orderlies haul Kemmerich onto
a waterproof sheet. Paul's feet seem to push him forward and he
finds himself feeling a strength rising up from the earth into
his body. He is alive and he is glad! "The night lives, I
live." He takes the boots to Muller, who immediately tries
them on. They fit well.
-----------------------------
NOTE: IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM
As Paul leaves the dressing station,
his mind fills with thoughts of girls, flowery meadows, white
clouds. Watch for the return of such images whenever Paul is overcome
by the brutality and senselessness of the carnage- the butchery-
of battle. Keep an eye, too, on Kemmerich's boots. He was not
the first owner. In Chapter 1 the boots were described as "airman's
boots. They are fine English boots of soft, yellow leather which
reach to the knee and lace up all the way." It doesn't take
too much imagination, considering the state of aviation in 1916,
to figure out how Kemmerich got the boots. Assuming the English
airman is dead, the boots have now gone to their third owner-
and fit him, too. Are all soldiers interchangeable, whatever side
they are on? And how many owners will the boots outlast?
-----------------------------
CHAPTER 3
Reinforcements arrive. Some are older, but many are even younger
than Paul and his schoolmates. When Kropp calls them "infants,"
Paul agrees. He and Kropp strut around feeling like "stone-age
veterans." It's been a few days since the big feast, and
everyone is astonished when Katczinsky ("Kat") produces
a tub of beef and bean stew. He patiently teaches the new recruits
the proper etiquette- payment next time with a cigar or chew of
tobacco- but lets his friends off free, "of course."
Paul recalls admiringly how Kat can stroll off and find hot bread,
horse meat, and even salt and a frying pan in the midst of desolation.
His masterpiece was four boxes of lobster, although his friends,
admittedly, would rather have had a good steak. It's a pleasant,
drowsy day. Kropp has washed his socks and spreads them out to
dry. Kat and Paul lean up against the sunny side of the hut. In
the air there's a smell of tar and summer and sweaty feet. The
men's rest period is, for us, like a bridge between the results
of battle and actual battle. We saw the results in Chapters 1
and 2- more food for some, death for others. But we know of slaughter
only by hearsay; Kemmerich died a comparatively clean death. We
have yet to experience shelling, gassing, and butchery; they will
come in Chapter 4. This chapter, meanwhile, gives us more background
on Paul's classmates and friends, and lets us see and hear infantry
soldiers at rest. What kinds of things do such men talk about?
What do you think you would talk about in their situation? Kat
wants to talk about saluting. Tjaden failed to salute a major,
so they've all been practicing, and Kat can't get it out of his
head. He maintains their side is losing the war because they salute
too well. Kropp, the thinker, begins to argue with him. Meanwhile
they bet a bottle of beer on the outcome of an airfight going
on far above them. For the attention they pay, you would think
those were toy planes battling up there, but the man who will
die is flesh and blood. Kropp and Kat begin to argue about the
management of war. Kat wants to drop all the saluting and military
drill and adopt the principle in a piece of verse he knows: If
everyone got the same grub and pay, "the war would be over
and done in a day." The more philosophical Kropp, riled up
as always about injustice, argues that war ought to be run like
a festival, with such things as tickets and bands. The main event
would be the generals and ministers of the two countries, dressed
in swimsuits and armed with clubs, slugging it out in an arena.
The winning side would be the one whose leaders survived. To Kropp
that sounds a whole lot more fair than the situation they're in,
where the wrong people do the fighting. (Maybe Remarque didn't
intend his book to be an accusation, but it gets harder and harder
to say that it does not indict the blindness of early 20th-century
world leaders.)
The heat reminds Paul of the training camp barracks, with heat
shimmering over the square. In hindsight the cool rooms seem inviting.
Meanwhile the German plane above them has been shot down and plummets
headlong in streamers of smoke. It is Kropp who bet on that plane.
Talk turns to reminiscences of Corporal Himmelstoss and basic
training. Earlier, Paul had observed that little men cause much
of the pain in this world. They are so much more energetic and
uncompromising than the big fellows. Kantorek was small, and so
is Himmelstoss. Kat observes that power always corrupts officers,
especially those who were insignificant (little?) in civilian
life. Kropp suggests that discipline really is necessary, but
Kat shoots back that the kind of discipline taught in boot camp
is practically criminal. Boys learn to drill and salute, and then
think they know how to survive at the front!
At this point Tjaden, his face red with excitement, rushes up
with news- Himmelstoss is joining their unit! Tjaden has special
reason to hate the man: Himmelstoss put him and another bedwetter
in the same set of bunks so they would disgust and "cure"
each other. Since neither could help himself, one always ended
up sleeping on the cold floor. Meanwhile Haie Westhus, the peat-digger,
ambles over, sits down, and winks at Paul. Paul recalls how Tjaden,
Westhus, Kropp, and he himself "squared accounts" with
Himmelstoss the night before they left for the front. They ambushed
him with a bedsheet as he left his favorite pub and gleefully-
though anonymously- gave him a royal beating. Himmelstoss ought
to have been pleased, Paul comments ironically, at how well the
"young heroes" had learned his cruel methods!
-----------------------------
NOTE: AIR POWER Balloons were used for reconnaissance and observation
by French forces in Italy in 1859 and by Union forces during the
American Civil War. Paul later mentions their use in World War
I as well. By 1914, successful models had demonstrated the feasibility
of motor-driven airplanes, but it was the war itself that provided
motivation for research and development of aircraft. At the beginning
of the war Germany established its superiority in the air. The
Fokker monoplane, with a fixed machine gun that could fire forward
through the propeller blades, inspired Allied efforts. Developments
and counter-developments followed, pushing the Allies ahead, and
led to formation flying, aerial dogfights, and aerial bombing
of enemy lines of communication and ammunition depots. Later in
the novel- toward the end of the war- Paul mentions flyers making
a game of pursuing individual soldiers. Still, during World War
I, planes were employed mostly in support of ground forces. Development
of air forces as a separate military branch followed World War
I as the military capabilities of aircraft became more evident.
-----------------------------
CHAPTER 4
One night the men were trucked to the front to ram in iron stakes
and to string barbed wire. It's a warm evening, a pleasant drive,
and the men smoke as they roll along. They're not concerned about
lurching into potholes the driver can't see without headlights.
Many a man would just as soon be pitched out and sent home with
a broken arm earned that way! Kat and Paul distinctly hear geese
as they pass one house. They exchange glances- another Katczinsky
raid is due when they return! At the front, they find the air
acrid, with guns reverberating and shells whistling and exploding.
The English have started early. Kat senses a bombardment coming,
and at the front his opinion is gospel. Paul already feels as
if he's entered a whirlpool which is sucking him into its spinning
depths. Only clinging to the ground helps; the earth is like a
mother offering shelter.
-----------------------------
NOTE: APOSTROPHE TO EARTH In the paragraph following "Earth!-
Earth!- Earth!," Paul prays directly to the earth. The name
of this poetic device or rhetorical figure of speech is apostrophe.
It is an address to an absent, abstract, or inanimate being. When
that being is a god, the technique is called invocation. Read
the paragraph carefully. Could it be considered an invocation?
If so, what additional weight does this lend to Paul's thought
in the preceding paragraph, "To no man does the earth mean
so much as to the soldier"?
-----------------------------
The men become alert animals, throwing themselves to the ground
instinctively just before a storm of fragments flies overhead.
It is not conscious, but without obeying this animal insight,
no soldier would survive. Columns of men move past into the mist
like a dark wedge. Gleaming horses pass with the ammunition wagons,
their riders looking like knights of another age. Paul and his
group load up with iron stakes and rolls of barbed wire, and they
stumble all the way to the front line in the dark. Bombardment
lights the sky. Amid the sounds of the bombardment, Paul and his
group string barbed wire.
-----------------------------
NOTE: ONOMATOPOEIA The technique in which the sound of a word
imitates its meaning is called onomatopoeia, as in the word hiss.
Find other onomatopoetic words in Paul's description of the sounds
of bombardment, both in this paragraph and in paragraphs later
in the chapter. What effect do these words have on your awareness
of what it must have been like at the front? If you were filming
this novel, how would you create these sounds?
-----------------------------
Finally, after hours of work, the job is done: the barbed wire
has been strung. Paul's hands are torn from handling the close-set
spikes, and the night has turned cold. Shells are still shrieking
and pounding overhead, and beams of light sweep through the overhead
mist. One searchlight pins an airman like a bug, and he is shot
down. The scene assaulting our eyes and ears is terrifying- misty,
steaming, roaring hell- but what happens to Paul? He falls sound
asleep! Our picture of Paul fills out: he is that experienced,
old soldier he claims to be, knowing when he is in danger and
when he is not. Still, he awakens confused. Momentarily, he mistakes
the glare of rockets for gala fireworks at a party. He doesn't
know where he is or whether it's day or night; he feels like a
lost child. But Katczinsky is sitting protectively near, calmly
smoking a pipe. He tells Paul it's all right; it was just a shell
landing nearby that startled him. He sounds for all the world
like a daddy comforting a child who's had a nightmare. Paul, in
turn, acts like a kindly father when a frightened recruit creeps
right into his arms. The blond boy hides his head, and his thin
little shoulders remind Paul of Kemmerich. Paul gently moves the
youngster's fallen helmet to his buttocks where it will protect
him best. Moments later a new bombardment so terrifies the boy
that he empties his bowels, and he blushes with shame. But Paul
offers no ridicule- he just sends him behind a bush to throw away
his underpants.
The bombardment eases, but terrible cries break out- the screaming
of horses. Detering, a farmer, finds their agony unendurable and
cries for someone to shoot them. He even aims his own gun, though
they're much too far away, and Kat has to knock his rifle into
the air lest he hit a man. The appalling sounds continue, and
some of the wounded horses run berserk, dragging their own intestines.
The men in Paul's area hold their hands over their ears; they
can't bear it, yet there's absolutely nothing they can do. Finally
the horses are shot and it is mercifully still.
-----------------------------
NOTE: THE HORSES If you think back to Paul's earlier comments
on the horses, you can see how deeply he appreciates the beauty
of nature. Now he identifies their pain as nature itself protesting
the savagery of human beings. To him the cries of the horses are
"the moaning- of the world,... martyred creation, wild with
anguish." It would not have been Paul alone who saw the horses
as symbolic of all of creation. We tend to use the words romance
and romantic to mean love story. But in literature romantic means
an 18th- and 19th-century emphasis on mysticism, feeling, and
sympathy for nature. That's the kind of literature Paul and his
companions would have been familiar with before they were plunged
into the war. The presence of the horses also helps set the time
of this novel. Horses and donkeys were used extensively in the
First World War, since trucks, tanks, and planes were still in
the early stages of development. That's also why Paul calls trucks
motor lorries, to distinguish them from horse-drawn wagons, which
were still sometimes called, in English, trucks or lorries.
-----------------------------
As readers, we almost sigh with relief when the troops trudge
back at three in the morning toward the place where the trucks
will pick them up. They make their way through trenches and a
small forest, and into a cemetery, but Kat, whose feelings are
always accurate at the front, is uneasy. He's right: another bombardment
begins. This time Paul receives a blow on the head and is struck
by flying splinters, but he is not seriously wounded. Ironically,
it is a coffin that shelters him; the arm he feels is that of
a long-dead corpse, not a fellow soldier.
Bells and metal clappers warn of a new danger, poison gas. Paul
and Kat don their gas masks in time, but some of the new recruits
do not. They will cough out their seared lungs in clots. History
tells us that gas victim died in great pain, their faces burnt
and blackened. Tensely waiting to see if their masks are functioning,
Kat and Paul and Kropp scowl at the obscene stuff, the gas hanging
like a jellyfish over the field. A new bombardment churns up the
cemetery, as if killing the dead a second time. When the explosions
ease, Paul and Kat- heads buzzing from the stale air circulating
through their masks- dig a man out from under a coffin, dumping
the corpse to make the work go better. They bandage their comrade,
using a coffin board. They also bandage the rookie that Paul comforted
earlier. His hip is shattered and they think of shooting him as
an act of kindness, but too many men gather. War may be war, but
it's still not right to shoot a man in cold blood. Two dead men
lie in an upturned grave; the living throw more dirt over them.
The earth may sometimes protect a man, but as Paul will comment
later on, she also erases all sign of his ever having existed.
-----------------------------
NOTE: THE INDIFFERENCE OF NATURE Earlier in this chapter Paul
thought of the screaming of the horses as nature crying out in
protest at what man was doing. If you keep an eye out for other
comments on nature as the story develops, you'll notice that he
never does this again. Instead, his references to nature show
that earth simply covers the dead and erases their identities.
It's like the poem "Grass" by American poet Carl Sandburg.
Nature just doesn't care one way or another, but goes calmly on.
Grass covers all signs of what happened on a battlefield just
as easily as it covers a front lawn. In Chapter 11 we will also
see how the seasons march on, paying no attention at all to the
desperate gyrations of the two-legged beings struggling on the
surface of the earth. Blossoms come out in spring; rain during
the summer leaves the men soaked and caked with mud. Nature is
so big it doesn't even notice man.
-----------------------------
At last Paul's unit clambers numbly into the trucks, too battered
to care about the insensitive men at the dressing station with
all their babbling about numbers and labels. Driving back to camp,
the standing men mindlessly duck their heads at each call of "Wire"-
a warning of low, dense, overhead telephone lines. It is raining,
and the rain, Paul says, "falls in our hearts."
CHAPTER 5
After the nightmare in Chapter 4, we're ready for some relief,
and this chapter offers it. Remarque- or Paul- shows us by contrast
how friendship can create a tiny island within the sea of death.
Once again the men idle behind the lines, nonchalantly killing
lice while they talk about plans for after the war. Suddenly the
newly assigned Himmelstoss appears and roles are reversed: they
are the veterans. Tjaden sneers at the man and rudely refuses
to salute. The others enjoy the encounter, but, once it is over
and Tjaden and Himmelstoss have stormed off in different directions,
they go right back to their discussion. Paul does some counting-
of the twelve privates among the 20 classmates who volunteered
as a group, seven are already dead, four are wounded, and one
is insane. Muller and Kropp and Paul feel lost. Kat and Westhus
and even Himmelstoss can return to their old jobs after the war,
but what future do Muller, Kropp, and Paul have? Kropp, the intellectual,
puts the fate of his generation into the simplest of words: "The
war has ruined us for everything." Paul agrees. They no longer
care about "achieving" or believe in the progress of
civilization. They know only war.
The discussion ends when Himmelstoss comes steaming back. He wants
Tjaden. Kropp and Muller comment on ways to "get" Himmelstoss,
and Paul observes how pitiful their goals have become. The biggest
ambition they have left is to knock the conceit out of a mailman.
Half an hour later Himmelstoss is back, still seeking Tjaden.
He interrupts their card game. Kropp angrily points to puffs of
antiaircraft fire high above them and tells Himmelstoss off: What
does he want them to do? Salute and ask permission before they
die? Himmelstoss disappears like a comet, with Kropp obviously
added to his complaint list.
That evening Lieutenant Bertinck gives Himmelstoss's complaints
a fair review, and he does punish Kropp and Tjaden but only lightly,
with open arrest behind wire fencing instead of closed arrest,
locked up in a cellar. Kat and Paul play cards with the two prisoners
far into the night, but events haven't erased Kat's memory of
the geese. With a little bribery, he and Paul hitch a ride to
the spot. And then we enjoy the most comic scene of the novel!
Try reading it aloud: Paul, in the goose-shed, battling a bulldog
and kicking geese in order to steal a goose and toss it to Kat.
Our formerly law-abiding schoolboy is even ready to shoot some
farmer's dog to steal the man's property! But to Kat and Paul,
it's a soldier's right to supplement his rations however he can.
At last Paul succeeds, and he and Kat spend the rest of the night
in quiet camaraderie in an out-of-the-way shed, cleaning, roasting,
basting, and eating all the goose they want. Near dawn they pack
up the feathers for later use. Extending their circle of peace
and brotherhood, they take the rest of the meat to Tjaden and
Kropp. For the moment, all's right in their world.
CHAPTER 6
This chapter opens a whole new stage in the novel. Battered and
numbed as Chapter 4 left Paul and his friends, with its screaming
horses and twice-killed corpses, it was only one night- a series
of flash impressions of war. Now Remarque moves Paul- and us-
into the deadening cage of weeks of trench warfare. In 1929 a
few critics accused Remarque of sensationalizing the war in chapters
like this one, of deliberately trying to shock readers to sell
more books. The National Socialists, or Nazis, who were then coming
to power, pounced on every mention of worn-out equipment or lack
of supplies as an attack on the Fatherland. But everyone else
found Remarque's account, if anything, an understated report on
the horrors of war for men on either side. Things that we world
scream about at home- infestations of rats or days without food-
are simply reported as facts of the soldier's life. The chapter
also helps us see why fighting men sometimes lose religious faith:
they see only blind luck in operation on the battlefield, no evidence
of the orderly plan of a loving God. For men Paul's age, a scene
glimpsed on the way to the front says it all: brand new coffins,
stacked against a bombed-out schoolhouse. The scene predicts their
future and shows that nothing remains of their past.
-----------------------------
NOTE: WORLD WAR I TRENCH WARFARE In World War I, attacks changed
from those of earlier wars, since a machine gun behind barbed
wire could mow down whole columns of attackers. Flag-waving cavalry
charges were replaced with prolonged bombardment, followed by
days upon days of infantry attacks and counterattacks. Often,
both sides ended up in their original positions. Battles became
sieges, the aim simply being to drain the other side's resources.
As it became clear that this was static warfare- war at a standstill-
leaders began to compute even human casualties like an inventory
of shells or fuel. Any loss was acceptable if the enemy loss was
greater. In the 1916 battle of the Somme, for instance, casualties
totaled more than one million, approximately one man for every
four square yards of contested ground. Trenches became fortresses:
above ground- barbed wire, mines, and a maze of foxholes; below
ground- command posts, supplies, and damp, rat-infested living
quarters. Men burrowed in these places for months, surrounded
by corpses and exposed to constant danger from gas and artillery.
They hoped to be wounded seriously enough to be sent to the rear
for convalescence. Morale grew so bad by the spring of 1917 that
mutinies broke out in some French, Italian, and Russian units.
-----------------------------
Paul remarks that the trenches are in poor condition. For days
his group loafs and makes war on the rats, rats so voracious they
devoured two cats and a dog in an adjoining sector. At night the
enemy sends gas; by day, observation balloons. Morale is lowered
by rumors of tanks, low-flying planes, and flame-throwers. Deafening
bombardment continues; the trench is cratered and battered. Food
cannot be brought up. One night the men battle a swarm of fleeing
rats; one noon a recruit turns into a raving madman from being
enclosed in the underground living quarters. That night the dugout
survives a direct hit. Suddenly the nearer explosions stop, and
the French attack. Paul's company fight and throw grenades and
use their sharpened spades like wild beasts, killing to save themselves.
The fight continues into the next day, Paul's side chasing the
retreating French right into their own trenches. They seize what
provisions they can carry and clear out. Back in their own trench,
they are too tired even to enjoy their booty- the rare luxuries
of corned beef, bread, and cognac.
Night comes, and Paul, on sentry duty, dreams of cloisters and
an avenue of poplar trees- quiet dreams in a place where there
is no quiet. He believes his generation is lost, unable ever to
have innocent peace again. For several days attacks and counterattacks
alternate; the dead pile up between the trenches. The men search
two days in vain for a crying man. The dead swell and hiss and
belch with gas; the smell is nauseating. On quiet nights the soldiers
search for souvenir parachute silk and for copper bands from bombs.
Two butterflies settle one morning on a skull. Three layers of
bodies fill a huge shell hole. Recruits in clothes too big fall
like flies; a surprise gas attack kills many. One day Himmelstoss
panics and Paul shouts at him until he can grasp an order and
regain his wits. Haie Westhus, who had hoped to reenlist in the
army for a nice, clean job after the war, suffers a serious back
wound. Still, says Paul, they have held their little piece of
convulsed earth. It's the only kind of victory to be seen in this
war. On a grey autumn night they return behind the lines. Second
Company is now down to 32 men.
-----------------------------
NOTE: IMAGERY Paul again dreams of quiet beauty. He notices a
butterfly amid the devastation and comments on how terribly young
the replacement recruits are. Of his own group he says, "We
are forlorn like children.... I believe we are lost." He
has felt like a child at least twice before- the night they strung
barbed wire and the night he helped Kat baste the goose. Both
times he awoke to find Kat there, like a father. Why does part
of him long for that element of childhood? What is it from childhood
that he thinks he and his classmates have lost so completely?
-----------------------------
CHAPTER 7
This chapter gives us some breathing space. We follow the men
back to a field depot for reorganization. The change in Himmelstoss
seems to be permanent: not only did he rescue Westhus; he has
also wangled a job as substitute cook and slips Tjaden some butter
and the others, sugar.
-----------------------------
NOTE: By this time we could make a list of the ways Remarque has
developed his theme: how World War I destroyed a generation of
young men. It has taken from them the last of their childhood
years, it has destroyed their faith in their elders, it has taught
them an individual life is meaningless- and all it has given in
return is the ability to appreciate basic physical pleasures.
According to Paul, though, the men haven't entirely lost human
sensitivity: they're not as callous as they appeared in Chapter
1, wolfing down their dead companions' rations. It's just that
they must pretend to forget the dead; otherwise they would go
mad.
-----------------------------
A theater poster starts a new series of events in this chapter.
At the front, or even a few miles behind the lines, dirt and grime
and basic survival are the main elements of life. The poster,
showing a well-dressed, healthy pair of actors, reminds Paul and
his classmates of another world out there somewhere, a civilian
world. From history we know that civilians also did not fare well
during World War I, but Paul and his friends don't know that;
they have not yet gone home on leave. But the poster awakens desires.
They try to recover that world in stages. The first stage is simple.
They can't do much about their dirty, ragged, clothing, but they
can stop the itching awhile- they get deloused. The next stage
is better. That evening Leer, Kropp, and Paul dump Tjaden and
swim a guarded canal for an evening with three French women. They
do the same the next night, carrying the girls bread, sausage,
and cigarets kept dry, overhead, in their boots. To us it is clear
that the girls are hungry and do not care what uniform a man wears,
as long as he's a decent guy and has some food. But Paul wants
more; he wants the little brunet really to care about him personally.
One afternoon Paul stands the others drinks: he's been given two
weeks' leave plus travel time and temporary reassignment to another
camp. He tries to forget which of his friends will still be there
when he gets back. The train trip home provides Paul- and us-
with a sense of transition to an entirely different kind of life,
as old landmarks appear, even the poplars. He doesn't understand
why tears start pouring down his face at the sound of his sister's
voice calling to their mother, "Paul is here." Perhaps
it is simply homesickness, catching up with him at last. His mother
is ill with cancer, and Paul does the most he can for them, offering
cheese from Kat and food from his own military rations. In the
towns, shortages are acute, though his family has saved Paul his
favorite dishes. One day he stands in line at the butcher's with
his sister for three hours, but the promised bones are sold out
before they can get any. He can't even talk to people any more.
If he were to talk about front-line horrors, as another soldier
has done, upsetting Paul's mother, how could he stand to go back?
On the whole, the leave he'd wanted so badly is a disaster. After
he reports to the district commander, some major whom he fails
to salute properly gives him a bad time. To avoid similar situations
he changes into his civilian clothes, even though they hardly
fit any more. His father and other old men press "the young
warrior" with opinions and questions that don't begin to
connect with his own knowledge of war. He can't even gain any
comfort from the books and papers in his own room.
When he goes to see Franz Kemmerich's mother, she blames him for
living while her son has died. In a gesture of kindness, he swears
Kemmerich died instantaneously and without pain, but he has seen
so many deaths since then that he forgets how he himself felt.
He can no longer understand so much grief for one man dead among
so many. The only relief is a visit to his classmate Mittelstaedt,
who is now the commander of a reserve unit. To his and Mittelstaedt's
delight, Schoolmaster Kantorek is in the unit! He's an absolutely
pathetic-looking soldier. Mittelstaedt demonstrates how he humiliates
Kantorek and throws his own slogans back into his face. Not satisfied
with that, he sends Kantorek on errands with a model reservist,
Boettcher, the former school porter, so the whole town can laugh.
The scene is comic, yet sad. Even though Paul doesn't blame Kantorek
for anything, it's interesting that he doesn't seem to feel the
slightest shame at his classmate's behavior. Is this still the
same boy who, before his last stint in the trenches, found it
sad that the only ambition he had left was to humiliate a mailman?
Finally, the last night of his leave arrives. His mother sits
long into the night watching him sleep. At last he lets her know
he is awake. She alone has not asked foolish questions. Now she
asks gently, "Are you very much afraid?" He walks her
back to bed, choked up at her getting him good wool underwear
when she is so destitute and ill. He is in agony for what he has
lost and for what is happening to her.
-----------------------------
NOTE: SHORTAGES From history we know that in August 1914 the Prussian
War Raw Materials Department began stockpiling and allocating
raw materials on a priority basis. Civilians weren't high on the
priority list. In November 1914 staple foods such as flour and
sugar were placed under government control, and in 1915 complete
food rationing was introduced in Germany.
-----------------------------
CHAPTER 8
Paul goes to his assignment, the training camp near his home town
where Himmelstoss "educated" Tjaden. During days of
drill, evening of poker and newspapers, he again notices the beauty
of nature. At other times he guards Russian prisoners of war in
the camp alongside. They are sick and feeble, hanging on to life
by picking over the none-too-plentiful garbage from Paul's camp
and trading their last few possessions for bread. He loves their
courage and their music, and when he guards them he cannot understand
why they must be enemies- just because, at some table, a document
was signed. As he looks at them, he knows that any soldier would
see an officer as more of an enemy; any schoolboy, a teacher as
more of an enemy. But he dare not think that way too long, any
more than he could tell his family what the front was really like.
It's still his job to go back there and kill. But he stores away
his thoughts for after the war. He can vaguely see that spreading
the truth afterward may be the only good thing he can bring out
of this war. Recall Remarque's introductory note before Chapter
1- is Paul perhaps speaking here for Remarque himself? Could writing
this book be a task Remarque set for himself when he fought in
World War I? This is at least the second time Remarque has suggested,
through his characters, that all men are the same- that only the
leaders want war. Recall Kropp's theory for having the right people
fight, in Chapter 3. Paul's father and sister visit him the Sunday
before he returns to the front, telling him that his mother is
dying and they cannot afford the proper care. At least when it
comes to his mother, Paul is not callous: he can't choke down
the jam and potato cakes she has sent. He gives two cakes to the
Russians and saves the others for his friends.
CHAPTER 9
Paul travels for several days and then loafs, awaiting his company.
He is worried about his friends; the company has been designated
a "flying division," one assigned wherever the need
is greatest. How relieved he is when they return, and Kat, Muller,
Tjaden, and Kropp have all survived! The slightly moldy potato
cakes serve for a meal of celebration. All are delighted to be
issued clean new gear for once, too. But they get to keep the
clothing for only eight days of drill and polish- and a visit
from the Kaiser. Then it's back to rags. The Kaiser turns out
to be a disappointingly small man (like Kantorek and Himmelstoss?)
and that leads the friends to a discussion of his power. Would
there have been a war if he had said no? Paul says he knows for
sure the Kaiser did say no. We know from history that Paul, like
many people who are certain, is wrong. Nobody directly contradicts
him at this point, but later Kat observes that every grown-up
emperor wants his very own war, so maybe the Kaiser figured it
was his turn. Meanwhile everyone does agree that if 20 or 30 leaders
had said no, there couldn't be a war. Kropp notes how strange
it is: everybody's fighting for his own fatherland, sure that
he's right. There must be something they are missing. War has
always existed; it must be some kind of fever. But that is too
philosophical for the others, and it is Kropp who finally growls
that they might as well just drop the whole rotten discussion.
Think about Kropp's contributions to all the discussions. How
do his ideas differ from those of his companions? Is he as willing
as they to speculate that his own leaders might be wrong? What
do you think the defeat of Germany will do to his ideals and emotions?
Even if he survives, will he be destroyed in exactly the same
way as the others? After Kropp's outburst, a line of white space
is our only transition to the next sentence: "Instead of
going to Russia, we go up the line again." The Setting section
of this guidebook points out the geography: they are going west,
to France, despite rumors of going east.
This time they barely notice things that would have horrified
them earlier. Bodies, many naked from the concussion of trench
mortars, hang in some trees they pass. They casually report the
situation at the next stretcher-bearers' post; there's no point
getting upset. Back at the front, they volunteer to scout out
the enemy position. Paul, separated from his friends in the dark,
is overcome with fright until he again hears their voices. He
blames his leave; it has thrown his instincts off. But the experience
makes him realize that friendship is the one solid element he
has left in his life: it steadies him.
In the darkness Paul is pinned down by a bombardment. When a French
soldier suddenly stumbles into Paul's shell hole, Paul stabs wildly
with a small dagger, hitting the man again and again by reflex.
Then, still trapped by the firing, Paul's guilt and horror grow
as he bandages the man and waits until he finally dies, about
three the next afternoon. He looks through the man's papers and
vows not to forget the name: Gerard Duval, printer. He has killed
a man, not some abstract enemy. When it is dark again, Paul is
able to creep out and find his friends. When he mentions the dead
printer the next morning, Kat and Kropp reassure him: "Mat
else could you do?" They point out Sergeant Oellrich, a sniper
who boasts about how his targets jump and about how high his kill
score is. Paul comments that war, after all, is war.
-----------------------------
NOTE: That appears to be the end of the issue. From your own knowledge
of Paul, do you think he does forget his vow to make amends? Remarque
doesn't tell us; he leaves it open. Some readers think Paul is
totally brutalized and that he does forget. Others notice rather
that there is just no mention of Duval's wallet and pictures again.
What do you think?
-----------------------------
CHAPTER 10
By pure good luck eight men, including Paul's "whole gang"-
Detering, Kat, Kropp, Muller, Tjaden- draw an assignment that
feels like soldier heaven: guarding an abandoned village and supply
dump. The only cloud is that by now Haie Westhus isn't with them;
he has died even though Himmelstoss had rescued him. Despite some
shelling, life near the supply dump means real beds, excellent
food, and all the cigars they want. Even when they leave, they
do it in style in a big truck loaded with extra food, a canopied
bed, two red plush chairs, and even a cat pulling in a parrot
cage. These wonderful two weeks are the last light moments of
the novel. A few days later, while they are helping evacuate a
village, Paul and Kropp are each wounded in the leg. Picked up
by a passing ambulance wagon and treated, somewhat roughly, at
a dressing station, they bribe their way onto a hospital train
going to the rear. Paul hates to haul his dirty body onto the
clean sheets and suffers embarrassment over getting a bottle for
urination. On the train Albert's fever begins to rise. To prevent
their being separated, Paul heats a thermometer to raise his temperature
also. His doing so is more than just a childish prank; he and
Kropp need each other's presence as much as they need medical
care. Put off at the same station, they are also placed in the
same ward at a Catholic hospital. The nuns' morning prayers give
them headaches till Josef Hamacher takes responsibility for the
bottle Paul threw into the corridor, its noisy shattering getting
the nuns to close the door. Hamacher says he threw it because
he has what is known as a "shooting license," a paper
that says he has periods of mental derangement because of his
injuries. They also meet Franz Wachter, who suffers such neglect
that he dies of a hemorrhaging arm wound, and little Peter, said
to be the only patient ever to return from the Dying Room.
Paul's bones will not knit, so he is operated upon. Hamacher warns
some new men not to let the chief surgeon try out his pet cures
for their flat feet, but in the end they consent. If you've ever
been seriously ill or hospitalized, you can understand their reaction;
after awhile you'll let the doctor do almost anything, as long
as it will get you out of there! Other men come and go; many die.
Kropp's leg is amputated, and he becomes silent and depressed,
but Paul can finally get around on crutches. At first Paul wanders
the wards, doing so just to keep out of Kropp's sight (he doesn't
want his friend to feel worse at the sight of his two legs). As
he roams, he notices in how many places a man can be hit. The
total image stuns him: shattered men in hospitals all over Europe.
"It must all be lies and of no account when the culture of
a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being
poured out, these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands."
He is utterly and completely disillusioned with the traditions
and values handed down to him. After a few weeks Kropp's stump
is well healed and he is to be sent off to an institution for
artificial limbs. Earlier he would have shot himself, had he been
able; now he is more solemn than he was. Even that is quite a
change from the hot-tempered arguer we've known. Paul gets convalescent
leave. Parting from Kropp is hard, but he tells himself that "a
man gets used to that sort of thing in the army." If Paul
is so used to it, why is it so hard? At home, he finds his mother
very feeble; this time is worse than his first leave. He returns
once more to the line.
-----------------------------
NOTE: THE MEDICAL PROFESSION Doctors are dealt a blow in this
chapter. They are depicted as cruel, callous, preferring amputation
to repair of shattered limbs, and too eager to perform experimental
surgery. In the next chapter we hear stories of surgeons aiding
the Fatherland by certifying everybody A-1. Each example is undoubtedly
based on true cases, but consider also the pressures of mass operations
under wartime conditions.
-----------------------------
CHAPTER 11
By now Paul has lost a great deal: youth itself, faith in his
elders, belief in the traditions of Western civilization. He's
even lost much of his own ability to rise about pure animal reactions-
to feel and think as a sensitive human being. Only comradeship
now keeps him going, and he has already seen several friends killed
or maimed. In this chapter Paul records the collapse of the Western
Front during the last terrible year of World War I, and the deaths
of his few remaining close friends.
It was winter when Paul returned to duty. His life has alternated
between billets and the front until it is once again spring. His
moods and thoughts depend on the kind of day it is; all soldiers
are brothers in this. They have been reduced to relying on animal
instinct to avoid death. Otherwise the madness around them would
kill them, physically or emotionally. Says Paul, "We are
little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm
of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes
almost go out.... Our only comfort is the steady breathing of
our comrades asleep, and thus we wait for the morning." Every
barrage cuts into this thin protective shell, however; everyone's
nerves are dangerously frayed. With Detering it takes only the
sight of a cherry tree in blossom to madden him with thoughts
of his wife and farm. He deserts but is caught and court-martialed.
Another man, Berger, six feet tall and the most powerful man in
the company, dashes into a barrage to help a wounded messenger
dog. A pelvis wound kills him. Yet another man madly tries to
dig himself into the earth with hands, feet, and teeth. Muller
is shot point blank in the stomach. Before he dies he gives Paul
Kemmerich's boots; they are to go to Tjaden next. (Is this simply
being practical, or a premonition of death to come for Paul?)
As the men bury Muller, they are saddened to think that well fed
English and Americans will probably soon overrun his grave. For
the enemy are sure to win. They are well fed on beef and bread,
well supplied with guns and planes, while the Germans are emaciated,
starved, short of all supplies. For every German plane there are
five English and American planes. For every German soldier there
are five of the enemy. Dysentery is constant, the artillery is
worn out, the new recruits are anemic boys who can only die. Tanks
are common now, new and terrible armored beasts that squash men
like bugs. Things have grown so bleak that Paul is reduced to
reciting lists. The men see only:
Shells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks- shattering, corroding,
death. Dysentery, influenza, typhus- scalding, choking, death.
Trenches, hospitals, the common grave- there are no other possibilities.
In one attack the company commander, Bertinck, a superb front-line
officer, dies shooting a flamethrower team about to ignite the
oil in his companions' trench. A final fragment that shatters
Bertinck's chin plows on to tear open Leer's hip. It takes Leer
only minutes to bleed to death. Still the bloody and terrible
summer wears on. Weeks of rain leave rifles caked with mud, uniforms
sodden, the earth an oily, dripping mass. Tormenting rumors of
an armistice make the front even more unbearable. Then one late
summer day, Kat is hit. Paul bandages his smashed shin and struggles
to carry him to an aid station. But there the medics shake their
heads; Kat has died on Paul's back, killed by a stray splinter
to his head. Paul reels in shock. How is it that he can see and
move- with Katczinsky dead? He faints at this loss, his last and
best friend.
CHAPTER 12
Soon it is autumn. Paul has been on two weeks' rest because of
gas poisoning. On leave, he sat in the sun listening to news that
the Armistice would come soon. But now he is back at the front
alone, confronting the future dully, without even fear. Still
he believes there is some bit of life within him that will seek
its way out. And then we come to a break in the text. The narration
switches to third person- someone else, not Paul, is speaking.
The narrator tells us that Paul fell on an October day, an October
day so quiet that the army report confined itself to the single
line: "All quiet on the Western Front." His face was
calm, almost glad. He did not appear to have suffered long. Our
feeling is almost one of relief. In the last two chapters the
misery has been so relentless that we are convinced of the hopelessness
of the chance that Paul (or any of his friends) could create a
good life after the war. The bitter irony is that he should have
survived so much terror and died so quietly- only one month before
the Armistice.
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