Reading Between the Lines

Once banned, a classic about The Great War became recommended reading

by Chuck Wisman

“All Quiet on the Western Front” encompasses the ongoing struggle for a few yards of territory between France and Germany in WWI. Image credit: Everyman’s Library

The classic, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” is a thoroughly engaging and provocative novel completed in the aftermath of the Great War. Written by Erich Remarque, a German World War I infantry veteran, it was first published in book form in 1929. Within 18 months of publishing, it sold 2.5 million copies across 22 different countries. Written nearly one hundred years ago, it was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. The book remains relevant as one of the greatest war novels of all time.

The majority of literature following WWI glorified the war, its heroes, and the sacrifices of its participants. “All Quiet on the Western Front” took a much different position by illustrating the actual horror of war and its devastating impact on the soldiers, their families, citizens, and country. Almost 10 million soldiers died in WWI and few of the men portrayed in “All Quiet on the Western Front” survived the war.

Written in a first-person narrative style, the story is told from the perspective of the protagonist, Paul Baumer. Remarque describes the experiences of the nineteen-year old Baumer and his classmates—beginning in school, then volunteering for perceived glory in the army, later through training, and ultimately as they participated in the utter brutality and savagery of years in trench warfare.

The story encompassed the ongoing struggle for a few yards of territory between France and Germany, informed from the German perspective of Baumer and about a dozen of his fellow soldiers. The character development is superb, with each becoming very familiar to the reader through their individual personalities. The soldiers’ daily travails and trials are engrossing as they experience battle after battle, involving injuries, poison gas attacks, incessant artillery fire, exhaustion, and the daily struggle to locate food.

Even  the curse of body lice does not escape Remarque’s attention via Baumer’s firsthand description.

“It’s a nuisance trying to kill every single louse when you’ve got hundreds of them. The beasts are hard, and it gets to be a bore when you are forever pinching them between your nails. So Tjaden has rigged up a boot-polish lid hanging on a piece of wire over a burning candle-end. You just have to toss the lice into this little frying-pan—there is a sharp crack, and that’s it.”

The camaraderie of his fellow soldiers was all important to Baumer, given their hellscape living conditions. Death and injury were always around the corner, waiting without warning.

As Baumer relates, “Those voices, those few soft words, those footsteps in the trench behind me tear me with a jolt away from the terrible feeling of isolation that goes with the fear of death, to which I nearly succumbed. Those voices mean more than my life, more than mothering and fear, they are the strongest and most protective thing that there is: they are the voices of my pals.”

One discussion among the men is illustrative of how they viewed the war:

“So why is there a war at all?” asks Tjaden.

Kat shrugs, “There must be some people who find the war worthwhile.”

“Well I’m not one of them,” grins Tjaden.

“No, and nor is anybody else here.”

“So, who, then?” persists Tjaden. “It’s no use to the Kaiser. He’s got everything he needs anyway.”

“No, you can’t say that,” counters Kat, “Up to now he hadn’t had a war. And all top-grade emperors need at least one war, otherwise they don’t get famous. Have a look in your school history books.”

In 1933, less than five years after the book’s introduction, “All Quiet on the Western Front” was banned in Germany and other parts of the world, including Austria, Italy, and parts of the U.S. and Australia. The rising National Socialist party (Nazis) in Germany viewed the book as unpatriotic, and it was vilified by Joseph Goebbels, the German minister of propaganda. The book was deemed illegal to own or possess in Germany and was the lead book in later Nazi book burnings. Remarque had his citizenship revoked and fled the country for Switzerland, and eventually the United States. His sister was executed by the Nazis.

Much later, and despite its violent content, “All Quiet on the Western Front” made its way onto some required and suggested reading lists for high schoolers here in the U.S.

In Erich Remarque’s words, “This book is intended neither as an accusation nor as a confession, but simply as an attempt to give an account of a generation that was destroyed by the war—even those of it who survived the shelling.”

“All Quiet on the Western Front” (1994 translation) is available on order via the Stockbridge District Library.