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Im Westen nichts Neues

3.79 of 5 stars 3.79 · rating details · 113,376 ratings · 3,119 reviews

Will man den Wehrdienst verweigern und Zivildienst ableisten, dann sollte man in der Gewissensprüfung darlegen können, warum man sich denn keinen Dienst an der Waffe vorstellen kann. Und mehr als einmal dürfte dann als Begründung die Lektüre von Erich Maria Remarques Im Westen nicht Neues folgen.

Dieser Roman schildert aufs Eindringlichste die schauerlichen Erlebnisse des

...more

Paperback, 221 pages

Published June 30th 2009 by Kiepenheuer & Witsch (first published January 29th 1929)

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Jul 23, 2009 Daniel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Daniel by: Rose

Shelves: 2009

I don't know why it took me so long to get to "All Quiet on the Western Front," but I'm glad I finally read it and am grateful to my friend Rose for recommending it. The book, first published in the late 1920s, is an absolutely heartbreaking, wonderfully written novel about the permanent damage done to those who fight in wars. Few anti-war novels written since have matched Erich Maria Remarque's unsettling book, and I doubt any have surpassed it.

Given how famous "All Quiet" is, there's little ne...more I don't know why it took me so long to get to "All Quiet on the Western Front," but I'm glad I finally read it and am grateful to my friend Rose for recommending it. The book, first published in the late 1920s, is an absolutely heartbreaking, wonderfully written novel about the permanent damage done to those who fight in wars. Few anti-war novels written since have matched Erich Maria Remarque's unsettling book, and I doubt any have surpassed it.

Given how famous "All Quiet" is, there's little need for me to say much about it here. (Plus, it's so much easier to write negative reviews than positive ones, and I have absolutely nothing bad to say about this book.) There are several heart-rending passages that I expect will stick with me for a long time, though, and that I feel the need to mention: Paul Bäumer's leave, during which he finds it nearly impossible to relate normally to his family after his experiences on the front; Paul's time in a shell hole with French soldier Gérard Duval; the brief interlude Paul and his comrades spend with a group of French girls, and how the gal with whom he'd been paired treats him in the end; and, of course, the scene near the book's end involving Stanislaus Katczinsky, easily "All Quiet"'s most interesting character. (I won't say anything about the scene with Kat so as not to spoil it for those who haven't read the book yet.)

One final thought, which I bring up because of Logan's comment that he didn't like "All Quiet," which he last read in high school. I've talked about this before, most recently in my review of "The Sea Wolf," and I feel the need to bring it up again: Many American readers, it seems, have bad memories of great works of literature they were made to read in school. That they were forced to read the books is, of course, part of the problem, but I also think schoolchildren often are assigned books they're not yet ready for. I don't mean that they're not smart enough to read and understand the books, but rather that they're not mature enough to have the books resonate properly with them. This would definitely be true of "All Quiet." It would be the most unusual of high school students -- one in a hundred, perhaps, if that many -- who could truly appreciate the issues raised in this book.

I would encourage anyone who hasn't read "All Quiet" yet to check it out. And for those who read it in school and were left with a bad taste in their mouths, it's probably time to revisit the book. That means you, Logan.(less)

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Sep 19, 2009 Valerie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, male-protagonist, historical-fiction

This book is so raw and grusome that I'm sure a story like Paul's is real. I wasn't sure what to give this book because, well, it was just so hopelessly depressing. It made me so depressed that at times that I just had to put it down and breath. I don't regret reading it because I learned a lot about what war is really like but I just felt so hopeless about everything. If you are anything like me and can't handle a lot of hopelessness then have something like Winnie the Pooh on hand to cheer you...more

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Mar 14, 2012 Saman added it · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

رمان معروف (در جبهه‌ی غرب خبری نیست) را مهم‌ترین و مطرح‌ترین کتاب درباره‌ی جنگ و اثرات آن بر روی آدمی و عمر وی می‌دانند. رمانی با داستانی که بسیار روان و ساده روایت شده و در اصل سندی است از وحشت جنگ و خشونت و کثافتی که در آن نهفته است. حال فرقی نمی‌کند این جنگ با چه نامی شروع شده باشد: دفاع از وطن، دفاع از دین، جنگ برای به دست آوردن صلح! جنگ برای ایجاد دموکراسی! و... که در واقع همه‌ی این‌ها یک مشت نام هستند که بر روی این عمل گذاشته می‌شود و تاوان و بهای آن را مردم و جوانان و پدران و مادران پرداخ...more

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Oct 02, 2009 Martine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: continental-european, early-twentieth-century, favourites, film, historical-fiction, modern-fiction, war

All Quiet on the Western Front (or, to give it its German title, Nothing New in the West) has been hailed as the best war novel ever, and it's easy to see why. World War I is described in such vivid non-glory in its pages that you are sucked into the story straight away and stay there for the next two hundred pages. It is obvious that the author, Erich Maria Remarque, had first-hand experience of the things he writes about; the details are so right and authentic-sounding that they couldn't possi...more All Quiet on the Western Front (or, to give it its German title, Nothing New in the West) has been hailed as the best war novel ever, and it's easy to see why. World War I is described in such vivid non-glory in its pages that you are sucked into the story straight away and stay there for the next two hundred pages. It is obvious that the author, Erich Maria Remarque, had first-hand experience of the things he writes about; the details are so right and authentic-sounding that they couldn't possibly have been wholly made up. Needless to say, the ring of authenticity adds quite a punch to the reading experience, elevating a good war story into an absolute classic of the genre.

All Quiet is a short book, but remarkably complete. All the aspects of trench warfare are there -- the excitement, the tedium, the horror, the pain, the fear, the hunger, the dirt, the loss, the sense of alienation, the awareness that you may die any minute, and last but not least, the realisation of the futility of it all. All Quiet has a pervasive sense of futility, an initially unvoiced but later fully expressed question of 'Just what is this war all about, and why am I putting my life on the line for it? What could be worth such a sacrifice?' The answer is, obviously, nothing, because if this book has one message, it is that war is awful and young men ought not to be forced to fight them. This is not a book which glorifies the war effort, or portrays soldiers as heroes. It is not a book which tries to justify Germany's involvement in World War I. In Remarque's own words, it is 'an attempt to give an account of a generation that was destroyed by the war -- even those of it who survived the shelling'. As such, it is brutal and confronting, but in the best possible way. Anti-war fiction has seldom been this effective, or this memorable for that matter.

All Quiet tells the story of Paul Bäumer, a young man who gets talked by an idealistic teacher into joining the German army fighting World War I in Belgium. In short, business-like sentences, Paul tells the reader about his experiences in and around the trenches, plus those of his similarly duped classmates, all of whom end up dead. All Quiet does a brilliant job of evoking the strain of being at the front, providing vivid descriptions of the horrors of night-time shelling, being caught in no man's land, the smell of gangrene in the hospital, etc. Reading the book, you get a good feel for what it must have been like to be a soldier in World War I. Remarque does not spare his reader. He not only tells you what it's like to hide from the shells that are coming your way, but also what it feels like to crawl through a recently dug cemetery where shells have just exposed some body parts, and what it's like to crawl deeper and deeper beneath a coffin so that it will protect you, 'even if Death himself is already in it'. He tells you what it's like to hear friendly voices after having been stuck in no man's land for what seems like an eternity, and what it's like to have an unscratchable itch because there are lice underneath your plaster cast. He tells you what it's like to stare longingly at the picture of a squeaky clean pretty girl when you're absolutely filthy yourself and crawling with lice. He tells you why you need coarse and black humour to deal with the horrors of war, and why you need girls, or at least fantasies about girls. He also tells you what it's like to talk to the parents of a soldier who has died a horrible death. And last but not least, he shows you the aftermath. All Quiet on the Western Front demonstrates quite unequivocally how scarred the soldiers emerged from the trenches, because, as one of Paul's classmates says halfway through the book, 'Two years of rifle fire and hand-grenades -- you can't just take it all off like a pair of socks afterwards.' It shows how alienated the veterans of trench warfare felt from those at home, who could not for the life of them understand what it was like to experience the things they were going through. I guess this was the most powerful part of the book for me -- the part where Paul goes home and finds that he cannot communicate with his family, that he cannot possibly share the horrors of his recent experiences with his loved ones, because (1) they wouldn't understand, and (2) he does not want to upset them any more than their concerns for his well-being have already done. With chilling accuracy, Paul describes how empty his war experiences have made him feel. War, he says, brutalises soldiers, turning them into human animals, to the point where they have nothing to live for, as their former interests, dreams, tenderness and the future have all 'collapsed in the shelling, the despair and the army brothels'. His sense of desolation and isolation is so exquisitely rendered that by the time his leave is over and he has to return to the front, you find yourself agreeing with his classmate Albert: 'The war has ruined us for everything.'

As you can probably tell from the above, I had a strong reaction to All Quiet on the Western Front. From the sparse but effective prose to the expert way in which Remarque builds up the final two deaths, I just loved the book, responding to it unreservedly, jotting down astute observations and sharing passages from it with my boyfriend, who is a World War I buff. I felt like I was experiencing the boys' emotions with them, the good ones as well as the bad ones. I was shocked, horrified and repulsed when Remarque wanted me to be, but also got a few chuckles out of the book, because all the bad stuff really makes the good moments the boys experience stand out. I loved the male camaraderie which occasionally drips off the pages. I loved the descriptions of the little acts of vengeance the boys enact on those who have wronged them, as well as the few moments of genuine happiness they experience at the front, such as when they eat a stolen goose, raid an officers' supply depot or make their way to some girls they are not supposed to visit. These events are drawn so vividly and have such a genuine feel of relief and excitement about them that it's hard not to get drawn in. Mostly, though, I just sympathised with the boys, asking with them why war is necessary, and whether those who wage wars on others have any idea what they're doing to the men who fight the wars for them. I think All Quiet on the Western Front should be compulsory reading for every leader who has ever considered going to war. The fact that the book is eighty years old and deals with events which took place nearly a century ago does not make its message any less valid today.

A note on the Vintage English translation: Brian Murdoch's translation is good but a bit sloppy at times, especially in the second half of the book, where he occasionally uses German-sounding grammar and makes a few typos. It also sounds a bit too British for my taste, to the point where I occasionally had to remind myself that I was reading about German soldiers, as they all sounded so terribly English! I would have preferred a slightly less 'placeable' translation, but really, that's a minor complaint. By and large, Murdoch did a good job. Next time round, though, I think I'll read the book in the original German.(less)

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Oct 16, 2010 Kemper rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: military, classic-lit, war, favorites

My copy of this was a paperback that I had picked up somewhere in my high school years. It was printed in the ‘50s and cost 60 cents per the cover price. The pages were yellowed and an old dog of mine (dead 20 years now) chewed on a corner of it at one point, and his teeth marks are still on it. But I held onto that copy over the years through multiple changes of residence and numerous paperback dumps to used book stores and library donations. When I was trying to organize some of my stuff packe...more My copy of this was a paperback that I had picked up somewhere in my high school years. It was printed in the ‘50s and cost 60 cents per the cover price. The pages were yellowed and an old dog of mine (dead 20 years now) chewed on a corner of it at one point, and his teeth marks are still on it. But I held onto that copy over the years through multiple changes of residence and numerous paperback dumps to used book stores and library donations. When I was trying to organize some of my stuff packed away in the basement, I found my battered old copy and felt the immediate need to read it again.

But I also decided to invest in a better edition. Frankly, I was scared the old one would fall apart, but I’ve carefully packed away that copy again. I’m thinking about putting it in my will that I should be buried with it. That gives you an idea of how highly I regard this book.

My new copy says on the cover that it’s the greatest war novel of all time. I’m not going to argue about that statement. I’ve often thought that this book should be required reading for any politician with the power to declare war. Only a madman or Dick Cheney could send troops into combat after reading this.

Paul is a 19 year old German soldier in World War I. Living though artillery shellings, gas attacks, trench warfare and seeing a generation of men blown to bits has made Paul old before his time. He has a soldier’s profound weariness and cynicism. Some of the more heartbreaking parts of this are when Paul and his fellow soldiers realize that they’ve been changed far too much to ever care about anything but survival again. Paul and the other soldiers try to find small comforts where they can since there’s almost no chance they’ll survive the war unscathed.

On the very short list of books that I think everyone should read at least once.

Trivial Side Note or No, I Don’t Work for the Kansas City Tourism Board

The National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial is something I recommend to anybody who likes this book, or has any interest at all in these types of things. (My wife is usually not interested in war stories or memorabilia at all, but she found this museum fascinating.) It’s got tons of actual equipment from the war, interactive multi-media displays, and some truly eye-opening exhibits.

For example, there’s one room you walk into that is a recreation of what it looked like when a large shell hit a French farm house from the basement perspective. So you walk in and it feels like you’re in a giant crater with house debris above you. There are also recreations of the trenches and one battlefield set done below a wide screen documentary playing that gives a vivid and eerie feeling of what a hellish landscape was created by the war.

Check it out here: http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/new/...(less)

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Aug 27, 2007 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone who has seen war firsthand

This book is short, but a must-have read for those understanding the humanity of war. While I cannot even imagine fighting deep in the trenches of WWI, braving shell shock and constant, brazen assaults on my front lines, I can sincerely identify with his feelings as a two-tour veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

All military differences aside (at least this guy knew what his enemy looked like), the deep feelings when you lose one of your own are still dead on--even after all these years. Along wi...more

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Nov 12, 2008 Bettie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, classic

ETA - just sniffed out the film - 1930 and all that! Banned Books
Because All Quiet on the Western Front offered a gruesome portrayal of a war lost by the Germans, it infuriated Adolph Hitler, who ordered the book banned and destroyed throughout Germany. Many critics, however, consider it the best antiwar novel ever written.

The French banned it until 1962 - that must have something to do with Vichy and De Gaulle (the gall of it)

---

It's about time I read this - and it is Rememberance Day after al...more

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Sep 28, 2011 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 1001-books, 5-star-reads, world-war-one

The edition I read was one with a fine Introduction by one Harry Hansen, who apparently had also served in The War to End All Wars. In it, he quotes Remarque:

I was suffering from rather severe attacks of despondency. In an effort to overcome them I sought quite consciously for the cause of my depression. By this intentional analysis I came back to my life during the war. I was able to observe something quite similar in many friends and acquaintances. The shadow of the war hung over us even when

...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Pedro Martins rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Não é preciso insultar como Brecht ou ter alguma mania semelhante do início do século vinte para consagrar a sua intervenção social. E percebe-se perfeitamente o porquê deste livro ter sido queimado pelos nazis em 1933 numa manifestação quase religiosa do culto, inquisidora.
Não há quem fique indiferente à guerra nesta obra. Não se consegue fugir dela, nem diluí-la.

A escrita é descritiva, pelo menos para o contexto literário em que se insere, mais virado para os devaneios da mente e consequência...more

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Oct 08, 2012 S©aP rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: letteratura-francese, 1900, storia

Esiste, a mio parere, un aspetto che non viene valutato, nel pesare questo romanzo: il contesto in cui fu pubblicato. Il testo di Remarque esce nel 1929. Noi tutti, oggi, abbiamo un'idea della guerra e dell'orrore mutuata attraverso letture, racconti, trattati, filmati, reportages; fino ai servizi in diretta della CNN (da Baghdad ad es.). Il nostro concetto di orrore e la nostra abitudine si sono strutturati con la IGm; la IIGm; le guerre successive; le pulizie etniche; le atrocità svelate etc e...more Esiste, a mio parere, un aspetto che non viene valutato, nel pesare questo romanzo: il contesto in cui fu pubblicato. Il testo di Remarque esce nel 1929. Noi tutti, oggi, abbiamo un'idea della guerra e dell'orrore mutuata attraverso letture, racconti, trattati, filmati, reportages; fino ai servizi in diretta della CNN (da Baghdad ad es.). Il nostro concetto di orrore e la nostra abitudine si sono strutturati con la IGm; la IIGm; le guerre successive; le pulizie etniche; le atrocità svelate etc etc. Ma, soprattutto, con il '900 e ciò che il secolo breve ha contribuito a stratificare nelle nostre personali esperienze e culture. Siamo fatalmente altro rispetto a l'uomo del 1929, grazie a questo.
"Au contraire", l'umanità di inizio secolo restò sconvolta dalla IGM, soprattutto per il fatto che certe atrocità, lo scempio e la guerriglia (oltre alle dimensioni del conflitto) fossero diventate sistema diffuso e incontrollato. Bieca ferocia sistematica. Fino ad allora, le guerre - pur con tutta la crudeltà - si erano limitate a scontri tra eserciti in arme, preannunciati e svolti in campi di battaglia. Si è sempre, nella storia, esercitato il disgustoso diritto di saccheggio da parte dei vincitori, dopo. Ma le popolazioni civili, generalmente, avevano un relativo tempo tecnico per scappare, connaturato ai "modi" stessi della battaglia (due eserciti che si affrontano in campo aperto). La IGM segnò la caduta di questo ultimo baluardo di pudore, e fu la prima a essere condotta senza regole fisse, a tutto campo, coinvolgendo apertamente la popolazione civile, e servendosi della sua debolezza nel modo più subdolo e atroce. Violenze stupri e razzie, esercitati prima ancora delle battaglie, al solo avanzare, dall'esercito prussiano sono restati nell'immaginario e nei racconti dei vecchi mitteleuropei fino a 20/30 anni fa. Quando uscì, il romanzo di Remarque divenne istantaneamente il luogo geometrico dei racconti di un'umanità destinata a sparire nel giro di pochi anni. In questa sua delicatezza, il valore.(less)

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Jul 21, 2012 Angie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this very moving story last week and across the Remembrance Day dates made it feel even more poignant for me.

The futility and horror of war is so tangible here; Paul, the narrator and his group of friends, all mostly aged just 19, are suffering the brutality of the trenches during the Great War. At times harrowing and stomach-churning in its graphic description, Paul sees more horror than he could imagine was possible. He sees bitter little men abuse their newly found...more

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Oct 25, 2009 Laurel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fiction, historical-fiction

I thought this book was exceptional. As with any book dealing with the horrors of war, it is not exactly a pleasant book to read. It is not supposed to be. It is full of violence and death and loss and a kind of perpetual suffering and terror that most of us have never and will never experience. What I thought was so extraordinary about this book was the author's ability to so vividly place the reader right there on the front line with the main character -- not just in terms of what he physicall...more I thought this book was exceptional. As with any book dealing with the horrors of war, it is not exactly a pleasant book to read. It is not supposed to be. It is full of violence and death and loss and a kind of perpetual suffering and terror that most of us have never and will never experience. What I thought was so extraordinary about this book was the author's ability to so vividly place the reader right there on the front line with the main character -- not just in terms of what he physically experienced and witnessed, but all the complicated and intense (and often completely numbed) emotions that came with those experiences. There is no glory here. This book is RAW. But it is also deeply poignant, striking, and beautifully written.

Though the book is told through the eyes of a German soldier during WWI, as I read it, I of course could not help but think of our own troops currently fighting in (or just returned home from) Iraq and Afghanistan. While there is no way for me to ever come remotely close to fully comprehending what any individual soldier has gone through, this book, I think, does the best job at describing all the ranges of experiences than any other war book I've read.

Whenever I hear the news of a newly fallen soldier, I am always struck by how young they are. Eighteen years old. Nineteen. Early 20's. These are fully grown men and women in terms of their bravery, courage, honor and sacrifice; however, they really are still just children. Ten years previous they were still in elementary school. They haven't had a chance to fully live life before they are surrounded by death.

Remarque writes:

"We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world, and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. "

and

"I am young. I am twenty years old. Yet, I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.... What would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our account? What do they expect of us, if a time ever comes when the war is over? ...Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterward, and what shall come out of us?"

This last question struck a chord with me, particularly with the high rates of suicide among our troops returning from the Middle East. What happens to our brave men and women soldiers once the war is over is something I don't think is considered to the degree it needs to be. For many of them, the war (the memories, loss, and trauma, etc.) continues even when they have safely returned home.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a difficult book in terms of subject matter and intensity, but I highly recommend it.(less)

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Nov 17, 2007 Fenixbird SandS rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: ALL! Truths of war...

Shelves: requiredschoolreading

Rough translation from the German. Remarque's writing is very deep, and he gives rich characterizations. "All Quiet" made me get to know most of these soldiers rather intimately, for war if nothing else, reminds us of the very basic passion each of us feels for being granted another day or another moment alive. However, a lot the "flow" I believe was lost in this translation. [My essay is below] This book depicts the tragic waste of WWI aka The Great War...never knew anything about it really bef...more Rough translation from the German. Remarque's writing is very deep, and he gives rich characterizations. "All Quiet" made me get to know most of these soldiers rather intimately, for war if nothing else, reminds us of the very basic passion each of us feels for being granted another day or another moment alive. However, a lot the "flow" I believe was lost in this translation. [My essay is below] This book depicts the tragic waste of WWI aka The Great War...never knew anything about it really beforehand (except that it started over a dispute in Austria?? Who shot whom?)

[Note: I am renting the movie taken from this fiction novel. If YOU are also a war buff like myself, I recommend these films: "Joyeaux Noel (Merry Christmas)" (World War I) and "The Pianist" (World War II) Somehow their music themes belonged on the silver screen!

[From my essay on this book: "What was most moving of this literary work was the immediacy each solder faced. In particular when faced with the impending death of a fellow soldier, it became clear that each person’s needs were not their first priority but a clear second as they expressed empathy and compassion through extreme valor in trying to keep their wounded comrades alive when on the battlefield-- and as they face what might be their own demise.

A soldier’s perspective certainly moved this reader to retain her belief in pacifism. As "All Quiet" illustrates, there is no apparent glory in war, but rather as Remarque depicts this day-to-day acknowledgment of necessity, sheer robotic conformity and determination to meet that struggle, one has to feel admiration for these young soldiers’ incredible heart in battle. These soldiers, most of them barely more than boys, have their complete outlook changed by the war. Louis Kronenberger aptly expressed:

“It almost certainly had no such fascination for these soldiers; yet All Quiet remains, essentially, a document of men who--however else their lives were disrupted--could endure war simply as war. . .It is about youngsters who were half-puzzled over what it all meant: who were not driven to mental torture because they could not endure what they knew or check their imaginations at what they saw. They sit around, half shrewd, half näive, and speculate now and again....But there is no sense of terrible knowledge, of moral responsibility.” Source: Louis Kronenberger, "War's Horror as German Private Saw It," in The New York Times Book Review, (© 1929 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), June 2, 1929, p. 5.

This writer shares Mr. Kronenberger’s view of the soldiers lacking remorse or a sense of moral responsibility. The young age of the soldiers naturally makes them more programmable to the mechanics of battle and partially as a result of this does change the youths’ outlook on their future. Paul Baumer’s thoughts while he is on leave show how his emotions are juxtaposed between the reality of war and the now seemingly strange hopefulness and familiarity of home and family.

“I bite into my pillow. I grasp the iron rods of my bed
with my fists. I ought never to have come here. Out
there I was indifferent and often hopeless—I will never
be able to be so again. I was a soldier, and now I am
nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for
everything that is so comfortless and without end.

I ought never to have come on leave.” Excerpt, pp. 184-5)
. . . "](less)

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Aug 28, 2010 Jason Pettus rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: early-modernism, classic, military, memoir, personal-favorite, europe

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label

Essay #47: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), by Erich Maria Remarque

The story in a nutshell:
Originally published serially the year before, Erich Maria Remarque'...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Venus rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

چيزي كه باعث مي شود آدم به نظر اين قدر فراموشكار بيايد ، عادت است . ديروز باران آتش به سرمان مي باريد ، امروز با هم شوخي مي كنيم و توي كوه و صحرا پرسه مي زنيم و فردا دوباره به سنگرها و زير آتش برمي گرديم .
یک فرمان نظامی این انسان های ساکت و آرام را دشمن ما کرده است و فرمان دیگری می تواند آن ها را دوست ماکند

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Oct 16, 2012 arcobaleno rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: letteraturastraniera, storia, guerraedintorni

«Che sarà di noi?»
Del tutto casualmente l’ho letto subito dopo aver visitato il “Museo a cielo aperto” di Monte Piana (BL) e calpestato luoghi di aspri combattimenti: altri Paesi a scontrarsi (Italia-Austria qui, Francia-Germania nel romanzo di Remarque), quindi altri fronti, diverse le conformazioni dei territori (di montagna dolomitica questo, di pianura francese quello), ma la stessa "Grande Guerra" a tessere le fila, dunque lo stesso periodo, la stessa generazione impegnata: giovani, di tutt...more «Che sarà di noi?»
Del tutto casualmente l’ho letto subito dopo aver visitato il “Museo a cielo aperto” di Monte Piana (BL) e calpestato luoghi di aspri combattimenti: altri Paesi a scontrarsi (Italia-Austria qui, Francia-Germania nel romanzo di Remarque), quindi altri fronti, diverse le conformazioni dei territori (di montagna dolomitica questo, di pianura francese quello), ma la stessa "Grande Guerra" a tessere le fila, dunque lo stesso periodo, la stessa generazione impegnata: giovani, di tutte le parti coinvolte, con le stesse domande sull’assurdità della guerra.
Una suggestione amplificata dunque, durante la lettura, per aver visto immagini tangibili e partecipato a ricordi ancora vivi, per aver seguito le stesse tracce.
Non giudica, Remarque: racconta molto semplicemente la storia di un gruppo di studenti, una storia comune ai tanti giovani che, coinvolti nell’orribile gorgo per motivi a loro incomprensibili, rischiano di perdere ogni umanità e ogni volontà, nel terrore continuo della morte; che sono obbligati a uccidersi per sopravvivere (cominciavamo ad amare il mondo, l'esistenza: ci hanno costretto a spararle contro.); destinati a non essere più gli stessi, con un passato non più loro, un futuro inconsistente e un presente di orrore; impastati di insensibilità e … dell’indifferenza dei selvaggi , perché i sentimenti al fronte sono pericolosi e fanno soffrire.
Non accusa né una parte né l’altra, Remarque, eppure induce una forte denuncia della guerra, disegnando una intensa invocazione all’amicizia che diventa cameratismo (abbiamo tutti lo stesso terrore e la stessa vita, siamo legati fra noi in un modo semplice e solenne) e a nuovi veri valori dell'esistenza (quello che mi appariva nell'ordine delle cose - professione, studii, stipendio, eccetera - mi dà la nausea: tutta roba che c'era prima, ne ho schifo).
Racconta la sua verità, vissuta con i suoi occhi di diciannovenne, con le sue riflessioni e le sue esperienze.
E scrive senza retorica e senza ipocrisia, senza urlare; usa toni pacati e semplici; denuncia con ancor più forza, per effetto del contrasto, la falsità roboante della politica belligerante dei governi.
Pagine intense, le sue, che raggiungono l’apice nel colloquio silenzioso col ragazzo appena ucciso: Solo ora vedo che sei un uomo come me … Perché non ci hanno mai detto che voi siete poveri cani al par di noi, … che abbiamo lo stesso terrore, e la stessa morte e lo stesso patire… Perdonami, compagno, come potevi tu essere mio nemico?
Parole forti e coraggiose, contrarie ad ogni retorica interventista, lanciate da Remarque nella Germania alle soglie del nazismo (il romanzo fu lì pubblicato nel 1929) e che gli costarono, dieci anni dopo, la perdita della cittadinanza tedesca e l’esilio negli Stati Uniti prima e in Svizzera poi.
--------------

Tra i tanti confronti e analogie possibili con Un anno sull'altipiano di Emilio Lussu, ne ho scelto uno sulla descrizione dei profughi:

"Niente di nuovo sul fronte occidentale" (pag. 204)
Per la strada incontriamo i profughi. Trascinano con sé la loro roba in carrette, in carriole da bimbi, o in spalla. Sono curvi, i loro volti sono pieni di tristezza e di scoramento, di ansia e di rassegnazione. I bambini si aggrappano alle madri, spesso una bambina più grandicella conduce i più piccini, che camminano inciampando e continuano a voltarsi indietro. Qualcuno porta seco una povera bambola. Tutti tacciono, quando passano accanto a noi.

"Un anno sull'altipiano" (pag.20)
La strada, ora, si faceva ingombra di profughi. Sull'Altipiano d'Asiago non era rimasta anima viva. La popolazione dei Sette Comuni si riversava sulla pianura, alla rinfusa, trascinando sui carri a buoi e sui muli, vecchi, donne e bambini, e quel poco di masserizie che aveva potuto salvare dalle case affrettatamente abbandonate al nemico. I contadini, allontanati dalla loro terra, erano come naufraghi. Nessuno piangeva, ma i loro occhi guardavano assenti. Era il convoglio del dolore. I carri, lenti, sembravano un accompagnamento funebre.
La nostra colonna cessò i canti e si fece silenziosa. Sulla strada non si sentiva altro che il nostro passo di marcia e il cigolio dei carri.(less)

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Mar 04, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010)

Shelves: 1001-core, war

A good companion to Timothy Findley's The Wars. Why? Both of them are novels about WWI. But All Quiet on the Western Front is the German side and The Wars is the Allied side. Put them side by side in your mind. Run the stories in a parallel manner. You have a whole new novel with complete casts and both warring sides represented. How un-different the young soldiers thoughts are. How much they think that the same war, where their young comrades die left and right, to be senseless. Neither of them...more A good companion to Timothy Findley's The Wars. Why? Both of them are novels about WWI. But All Quiet on the Western Front is the German side and The Wars is the Allied side. Put them side by side in your mind. Run the stories in a parallel manner. You have a whole new novel with complete casts and both warring sides represented. How un-different the young soldiers thoughts are. How much they think that the same war, where their young comrades die left and right, to be senseless. Neither of them does not have any idea of what the other thinks. But as I reader, I know because I happened to have just read both of their stories. This is just awesome experience!

When All Quiet came out in 1928, Hitler forces banned it as it an anti-war book and for them betrayed their ideologies. The Wars, published in 1977, won awards but as it was peacetime, did not create any controversies. All Quiet was originally written in German so somehow the cadence of its sentences was affected. The Wars was written, brilliantly at that, by a native English-speaker so the narrative is sweeping yet succinct, melodious yet gripping. However, I think that The Wars would not have been written if there was no All Quiet in the first place as it was the book that started all these. So, even if The Wars is definitely better in most aspects than All Quiet, we should give due credits to this Erich Maria Remarque's masterpiece.

Paul Baumer is a 19-y/o German soldier who, together with his 4 other classmates, is encouraged by his teacher to join the army and find himself fighting in the French warfare. He is the first-person narrator in All Quiet. Robert Ross, also 19, decides to join the Canadian army due to the death of his sister and finds himself in the same trench as Paul. Robert is also the first-person narrator this time of The Wars. All Quiet has more characters and gave more pages in the actual battlefield scene particularly the bombings and the scattering of human bodies to bits and pieces and rats, lice, stumps and men squatting at night because of diarrhea. I particularly liked the first time Paul killed a man and he has to talk to its corpse. However, Robert in The Wars fought and rebelled, in his own way, against the stupidity of war. Paul died and the new unknown narrator takes over at the last chapter of the book and deriving my own conclusion dampened the beauty of what I thought to be its striking message: War is stupid but does it have to be proven by death? Does it have to be proven at all?(less)

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Feb 26, 2013 Mikey B. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Over-rated...

Although this is an intriguing book, I feel that it has been historically over-rated. It is more a series of vignettes describing in detail, events of the war (one could almost say pornographically; but this is admittedly a little harsh): there are scenes of wounded horses screaming, hospital with agonizing amputations, soldiers struggling in the mud…
All of this seems to be pure descriptive; almost like biographical journalistic anecdotes – and none are lengthy. The characters surr...more

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May 06, 2013 Zelda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: rereading, 2013

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. As it turns out, the literal translation of the title is actually, “Nothing New From the West”. It is in many ways a shame that the literal translation was not retained, for it carries the tone of terse, unsparing exposition and starkly scathing indictment that runs through the novel. It is a powerful statement about the human condition during war but its implications are only fully understood upon completion of the book. This is perhaps the reason why an interpretation of the literal meaning wa...more As it turns out, the literal translation of the title is actually, “Nothing New From the West”. It is in many ways a shame that the literal translation was not retained, for it carries the tone of terse, unsparing exposition and starkly scathing indictment that runs through the novel. It is a powerful statement about the human condition during war but its implications are only fully understood upon completion of the book. This is perhaps the reason why an interpretation of the literal meaning was chosen for the title.

Remarque’s language is simple and restrained. His words tend to be short and plain. His sentences are almost truncated giving the overall text a halting effect at times. This does not prevent him from writing beautiful prose. In fact, placing these limits upon his word choice means that the author must select every word with the utmost attention to the layers of meaning that it conveys. The work is shot through with vivid imagery and is heavy with allegory, metaphor and symbolism. Boots, for example, serve as a particularly important symbol of well-being both physical and psychological. And a scene in which the soldiers hide from death by bombardment in the shelter of a graveyard is rife with poetic significance. The book is not unlike poetry in its economic use of language and the resulting challenge of saying much while saying little, and it reads like poetry in many places.

The primary setting is the World War I area of intense fighting between German and Allied forces known as the Western Front. It was marked by systems of fortified trenches that ran from the North Sea into Switzerland. While the front serves as the primary setting, it is in many ways also one of the book’s characters. Remarque frequently anthropomorphizes the front in his descriptions of it.

Remarque tells his story through the first-person perspective of the German soldier, Paul Baumer. Paul is a 19-year old front veteran serving in a company with several of his childhood friends and other men from his hometown. Paul’s immediate goal is to survive the war one battle or bombardment at a time. The action of the book consists largely of scenes of intense action resulting from Allied bombardments and attacks. The descriptions are unflinchingly graphic, appalling and deeply disturbing even while the language itself is unadorned. Remarque seems to understand that the horrors of war speak for themselves and require no embellishment. And, of course, he would understand as well as anyone, having himself served at the front.

Paul’s greatest fear is that he will survive the war but never be able to leave the war behind him. That his body will go home but that his spirit or whatever makes him fully human will have been killed and left at the front. Already he senses that his ability to make connections is deeply and irrevocably damaged. Before his leave, he tries but fails to make an emotional connection to a French woman living in a village captured by the Germans. While home on leave he struggles to make any meaningful contact with the boy he was before the war and finds that he cannot. His father, who represents all of the civilian men who tout the glory of war from the relative comfort of home, is no comfort to him. His mother, who possibly represents his ability to connect to the human experience, is dying. Eaten away slowly by an unstoppable cancer. Up until his leave, he is able to make a connection to only two things: his comrades-in arms and the earth.

The earth is another character in the book. In the beginning earth gives succor to the soldiers. It offers protection and comfort during the bombardments. And sometimes it reverses itself and threatens and punishes them. It trembles. It thunders. It falls heavily on them. In one passage, Paul refers to the earth as “thee”. The earth seems to be an allegory for God who both comforts and terrorizes in unpredictable and not readily explained ways.

Paul’s fellow soldiers make up the corps of main characters. Of particular metaphorical significance are a cobbler and a farmer; hearkening back to the themes of boots and earth. A particularly important turning point for Paul occurs in a scene involving Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky, the 40-year old cobbler and figurative group leader. The characters of Kantorek and Himmelstoss serve as the book’s antagonists. They represent the tension between officers and soldiers, between old and young, between ancient ideals upheld by high-minded philosophers and the innocent sacrificial lambs who are sent to implement those ideals. Himmelstoss in particular also symbolizes the way in which power corrupts.

There are other important interactions for Paul with a Russian POW, fellow convalescents in a hospital ward, and a dying French solider. But they are minor characters. The book focuses on the relationships between the soliders.

Though, Paul’s quest for a path to a meaningful post-war existence does not find its resolution during his leave he is lead to the realization that his comrades are his lifeline. They alone understand and share his experiences and concerns. He is anxious to return to them at the front.

However, once reunited with them, he discovers to his dismay that he has become an outsider. He has lost the rhythm of the front. It is the critical turning point of the novel.

The book does resolve Paul’s dilemma and it is satisfying in a way. Unless one thinks back to an earlier scene in the book in which Paul lies to the mother of fellow soldier and childhood friend. The reader who does recall this scene will then have reasonable doubt as to whether or not they have been lied to as well.

There is much more symbolism in the book than I have explored here and yet the book reads as a simple narrative with the straight forward task, as asserted by the author in the very beginning, of telling the story of a generation of men destroyed by war. It discharges its self-proclaimed task in the best possible way and yet it is so much more than that. (less)

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May 05, 2008 Brittany rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Brittany by: I found it on my own.

Shelves: bedtime-books

This book shows you a different side of war. Instead of the books that show you have great or how noble war is this book does not. This book tries to show how teens the same age as me were more or less tricked into fighting a war they didn't even believe in. Unlike world war two, World War one did not really have a reason to begin. (basically ww1 started when countries made pacts with each other to fight with each other. This with the arms race that had been going on, as well as each country so...more

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Dec 30, 2008 Rose added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

Fantastic, and great to read a book set during the Great War from the "other side"; it only demonstrates how little difference the side they were on - supposedly the be-all and end-all of war - made to the soldiers themselves. Paul seems to see the main difference between them as one of equipment and supplies, rather than nationality, philosophy, patriotism, or any of the more abstract concepts similar to those his teacher expounded upon to encourage the class to enlist. It's humane while being...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Nazish rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-d-kill-for, classics, history-bites, takes-me-to-another-place, world-war-i

I feel like quoting the whole book. It is so simple and direct that it hits right upon the mark! My review can never bring justice to how I read and felt for this book. It was like I was there at the Front myself…with no direction or ambition like those soldiers I met in the text.

“This book…will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.”

One of the most popular books to be publically burned and banned in the Nazi era...more I feel like quoting the whole book. It is so simple and direct that it hits right upon the mark! My review can never bring justice to how I read and felt for this book. It was like I was there at the Front myself…with no direction or ambition like those soldiers I met in the text.

“This book…will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.”

One of the most popular books to be publically burned and banned in the Nazi era due to its anti-war content , this sure is hell of a bomb to explode with echoes through the century. There are a very few books and I say a very small number indeed of literary masterpieces which can depict reality in its ultimate horror and truth with no exaggeration and uplift the curtain of stilted images in the most lucid way possible and Remarque did this very job perfectly.
"All Quiet" is set around World War I and portrays the plight of the young soldiers who are motivated to be offended by the reasons unknown for their youthful innocent heads to comprehend and are dragged at the Front to fight an almost interminable war. The story focuses around a 19 year old German man, Paul Baumer, with his gang of class fellows who fight with death, kill, and rage against young innocent people like themselves who have no idea why and what they are fighting. And it really does not make a difference whose side they fight for, either.

“Tjaden reappears. He is still quite excited and again joins the conversation, wondering just how a war gets started. "Mostly by one country badly offending another," answers Albert with a slight air of superiority. Then Tjaden pretends to be obtuse. "A country? I don't follow. A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France. Or a river, or a wood, or a ﬁeld of wheat."
"Are you really as stupid as that, or are you just pulling my leg?" growls Kropp, "I don't mean that at all. One people offends the other--"
"Then I haven't any business here at all," replies Tjaden, "I don't feel myself offended."

This isn't exactly like one of your swaggering tale of conquer and triumph that is so often sought by the people who think war is thrilling rather it actually unveils all the dirt and forlorn that takes place behind the scene that makes it all the more ugly as condemnable. It is really hard not to relate to this book as the horror which it unleashes is still a part of our lives. The play of death is seen everyday on our television screen which is watched with a peculiar detachment since we are so much oblivious to the agony of the young boys fighting in the trenches. As the character quotes ..

“I am young. I am twenty years old. Yet, I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.... What would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our account? What do they expect of us, if a time ever comes when the war is over? ...Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterward, and what shall come out of us?"

(less)

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Feb 02, 2009 The other John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to The other John by: Sonlight

Shelves: historical-fiction, schoolbook, classic, war

What can I say to do justice to this book? The cover blurb calls this "The Greatest War Novel of All Time." It's certainly the best that I've ever read. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the other war stories I've read haven't used All Quiet as part of their research. It's an account of World War I, as seen through the experiences of Paul Bäumer, a young German man serving in France--the "Western front" to the German army. Through his eyes we see the brutality, absurdity, sorrow...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Sara Sbaraglia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1900-1949, sf_alph_challenge, germania

"Avevamo diciott'anni, e cominciavamo ad amare il mondo, l'esistenza: ci hanno costretti a spararle contro."

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May 03, 2013 Tina rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: buddy-reads, historical-fiction

„Im Westen nichts Neues“ erschien erstmals 1929 und hat auch heute noch eine erschreckende Wirkung. Durch die nüchterne, sachliche und vor allem einfache Darstellungsweise vom Soldatendasein und dem Tod erscheint der Krieg so nah und greifbar, dass man man es kaum fassen, aber dennoch nicht wegsehen kann.

Es ist nicht verwunderlich, dass die Nazis dieses Buch verboten haben. Der Krieg wird in aller Grausamkeit geschildert und auch wenn man ihn nie selbst erleben musste, erhält man einen Eindruck...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Tina rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, read-for-school, recommended

This book, which was filled from cover to cover with vivid imagery, strong emotions, and realistic-sounding which characters thrilled me. I read this book for class too but I just couldn't help reading ahead of my classmates, gulping down each of Paul's experiences and emotionally feeling them as if they were my own.
I really liked this book because it made me think, not just because it was a book I was reading for school, but because it captured my mind in a way that very few books can. I was st...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Sintija Alksne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Erihs Marija Remarks, īstajā vārdā Erihs Pauls Remarks, fantastiskas grāmatas autors. Vārds "fantastiskas" citādā nozīmē. Šī romānista darbs "Rietumu frontā bez pārmaiņām" ir pret militārismu un fašismu vērsta proza. Kā viens no grāmatas mērķiem varētu būt ilūziju un cerību mijiedarbība ar reālo eksistenci.

Jaunu puišu neziņa par turpmāko dzīvi pēc skolas beigšanas un velēšanās iegūt cieņu sabiedrības acīs. Uzstādītās ilūzijas un cerības, kuras iznīcina cietsirdība un tukša cīņa par teritoriju, k...more

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Mar 16, 2013 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1920-38, 20th-century-literature

An extraordinary book. The story centres on a young teenager, Paul Baumer, who with his friends from school, is persuaded by the propaganda and his teacher to volunteer for the German army. Erich Maria Remarque creates the world of the ordinary German soldier in the Great War, spanning around late 1916 to just before the armistice of November 11th, 1918. It is an awesome world of slaughter by gas burning from your insides, by mortar shells tearing your body apart, by bayonet and with wounded men...more An extraordinary book. The story centres on a young teenager, Paul Baumer, who with his friends from school, is persuaded by the propaganda and his teacher to volunteer for the German army. Erich Maria Remarque creates the world of the ordinary German soldier in the Great War, spanning around late 1916 to just before the armistice of November 11th, 1918. It is an awesome world of slaughter by gas burning from your insides, by mortar shells tearing your body apart, by bayonet and with wounded men caught on barbed wire, as well as hundreds of thousands dying of their wounds in the inadequate field hospitals. Out of a total of about 68 1/4 million combatants about 38 million were casualties (either dead, missing, or wounded in action). The casualty rate of nearly 57% is one of the highest ever recorded.

All Quiet On The Western Front has no anti-war message, indeed Remarque deliberately chose not to write to that end. The result is, arguably, the most powerful account ever written of the experience of ordinary soldiers in the German army, an experience that would be recognised by ordinary soldiers in any army that fought in the Great War. It has passages that are some of the most emotionally charged of any that I have read, like the day and a half Baumer spends in a shell hole with the soldier he has stabbed, it is a mortal wound but the soldier takes an agonisingly long time to die - both for him and Baumer as the witness of his pain.

Cheek by jowl, are other passages that verge on farce. The goose he and his mate steal from a farm, and take all night to cook, eating it the next mornming. Or the visits across the canal, in a town they are resting up in, to visit the local prostitutes.

'All Quiet on the Western Front' shows how, by degrees, Baumer and his friends increasingly cut off the human responses to their time at the front. Because it is all so ugly (not only the landscape, but what they do and have done to them) and people you know and are friendly with can die horribly by your side, this is the only way of getting through what is, by any standards, a waking nightmare that went on for over four years. Th soldiers reserve what passes for a life with some little feeling for the times they are not at the front. Sitting in the sunshine, smoking a cigarette with your friends, and chatting about how they're going to get some 'contraband' extra food, is a joy. They cannot in the end think about the past or the future, their humanity is on hold till the end of the war.

By the story's end there are few survivors from their original class, but this is presented as an unavoidable fact without pathos or any sense of tragedy. In creating the story of one man and his friends Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' becomes a 'tour de force' of millions of ordinary mens' tragedies. Oh, did I mention, unputdownable. Superb, superb, superb! (less)

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Oct 31, 2011 Jo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-smishtory, good-grief, of-epic-proportions, gorgeous-prose, library

"Let the months come, and the years, they'll take nothing more from me, they can take nothing more from me...But as long as life is there it will make its own way, whether my conscious self likes it or not."

This review is part of my Poppies & Prose feature. You can find out more here.
So when I first decided to dedicate my reading this November to books either set in or written during the two World Wars, I decided re-visit some books that I had already read.
But it was only when I picked up...more

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Sep 11, 2008 Joy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Joy by: Mary

It says right on this cover that it's the greatest war novel of all time.
I agree even though I have not read them all.
Among the reasons why I loved the writing along with the character was the concept of food and/or the event of eating. They're getting shot at, shells are exploding, and the guy is flipping the last of his pancakes to go with the huge score of a roasted pig. They found food and said pig in an evacuated French village and set up a comfy home between bomb blasts.

So what does that m...more

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beautiful and disturbing	30	136	Jun 09, 2013 09:42pm
Symbolism of the death?	5	43	Apr 19, 2013 04:38am
SCLA Boston Book ...: March's book is "All Quiet on the Western Front"	3	7	Mar 12, 2013 10:49pm
Why is this a classic?	12	249	Feb 18, 2013 01:41pm

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About Erich Maria Remarque

Erich Maria Remarque is one of the best known and most widely read authors of German literature in the twentieth century.

Remarque's biography is essentially marked and his writing fundamentally influenced by German history of the twentieth century: Childhood and youth in imperial Osnabrück, World War I, the Weimar Republic, and most of all his exile in Switzerland and the United States. With the...more

More about Erich Maria Remarque...

Books by Erich Maria Remarque

Three Comrades: A Novel of Germany Between the Wars

Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country

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Quotes from Im Westen nichts Neues

“I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.” — 207 people liked it

“But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?” — 101 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1192995.Im_Westen_nichts_Neues?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1363970301l/1192995.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1192995.Im_Westen_nichts_Neues?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Im Westen nichts Neues by Erich Maria Remarque[/url]

Im Westen nichts Neues

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