Product Description

Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other--if only he can come out of the war alive.
"The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first trank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9840 in Books
• Published on: 1987-03-12
• Released on: 1987-03-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 304 pages

Language Notes
Text: English, German (translation)

From the Inside Flap
Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other--if only he can come out of the war alive.
"The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first trank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

About the Author
Erich Maria Remarque became known internationally after the publication of All Quiet on the Western Front in 1928/9. Exiled from Nazi Germany he lived in America and Switzerland. He died in 1970.

Customer Reviews

a moving read
I read this in hight school, and yes it was an assignment,(fortunately my literature always made us think about the books we read instead of gripe about them in ignorance) but I loved it. Basically, it pulls no punches, sugarcoats nothing. The author is telling it like he knows it from being there - war is hell, no matter what it's fought for, no matter whose side you're on. Reading a book from the point of a German fighter and seeing how they were all just lost kids too brings it home. This is not Tolkien (no offense to a great author, of course); when we make war, we're fighting against other humans, not some scary enemy who has no feelings and is pure evil.
Overall the writing was captivating and the story is still relevant. It really opens your mind if you let it. All leaders should read it before considering such a grave undertaking as war.

"A line, a short line, trudges off into the morning."
I first read this book when I was quite young. Too young, I think, to understand it. What I took away with me then was the anti-war message and a lingering sense of the grim awfulness of the Front. Sort of, at least-- I'm pretty sure that I didn't know what a Front was besides some general sense of the Front Line. I certainly wasn't really old enough to feel the poignancy of my own mortality-- death at that age was restricted to grandfathers and other people. I honestly think that I felt more for the dying horses than for the dying men.

Reading it now as I approach middle age, this feels like a good place to appreciate the book more. I say "appreciate", since I am not sure that anyone who hasn't been in a battle situation can claim understanding. The doomed and fatal youth of Paul, Haie and Albert mean something to me now. Boys that age shouldn't die on the battlefield. If you have a decent sense of teenagers and young adults and then try to imagine them in these situations which required such patience and bravery-- it makes the casual reader feel small. And the dying horses still upset me, but I guess that's hard-wired into my personality.

All Quiet on the Western Front is possibly the most influential modern novel of war. Its repeated message of the patterns of boredom and casual violence find its echoes through later books and film. It finds its modern heirs in films like Jarhead. It isn't a terribly complex book; many plot points feel obvious. It tends to be worth celebrating more for the honesty (raw) of its story than for the craft and distance of the writer.

Recommended, particularly to those with an interest in WWI or the military novel.

A Great Work
I am a soldier with the US Army who has been deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom twice and Operation Enduring Freedom once. And yes I have lost some close friends to these wars.

I must say this is one of my favorite books on war that I have read next to the Red Badge of Courage. Yes soldiers are opened minded, I do know that this book focuses on the darker side of War and is considered an Anti-War Novel. I do not want to go into specific details of the book; it is something you should experience for yourself.

I will say that it is interesting how this is the German Army in World War I and yet there are many similarities of things that I have gone through that are almost 100 years later in the American Army. These are the same trials and tribulations that a soldier is put through no matter what time period you are in, the interpersonal relationships where the people around you become your family and the tragedy that you experience.
And the fear of being in combat and how after awhile you become numb from it.

"This does not mean that you are war mongers. On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato that wisest of all philosophers, 'Only the dead have seen the end of war." General Douglas MacArthur