All Quiet on the Western Front () is a 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.
The novel was first published in November and December 1928 in the German newspaper and in book form in late January 1929. The book and its sequel, The Road Back (1930), 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.
Title and translation
The English translation by Arthur Wesley Wheen gives the title as All Quiet on the Western Front. The literal translation of "" 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 "" has become a colloquial expression meaning stagnation, or lack of visible change, in any context.
Murdoch also explains how, due 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. At the start of the book, Paul lives with his parents and sister in a charming German village. He attends school, where the patriotic speeches of his teacher Kantorek lead 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 (Leer, Müller, Kropp, Kemmerich and a number of other characters). There, they meet Stanislaus Katczinsky, an older soldier 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 seem to have little overall significance, except for the impending possibility of injury or death. 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. "We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing from ourselves, from our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces".
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 anymore, it is a foreign world". He feels disconnected from most of the townspeople. His father asks him "stupid and distressing" questions about his war experiences, not understanding "that a man cannot talk of such things". An old schoolmaster lectures him about strategy and advancing to Paris while insisting that Paul and his friends know only their "own little sector" of the war 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. The night before he is to return from leave, he stays up with her, exchanging small expressions of love and concern for each other. He thinks to himself, "Ah! Mother, Mother! How can it be that I must part from you? Here I sit and there you are dying; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it." In the end, he concludes that he "ought never to have come [home] on leave".