A Brief Summary Of The Opening Chapter Of All Quiet On The Western Front

“The Great War”, over ten million military men were killed in World War One, and a numerous amount were left injured, physically and mentally. The war novel All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, was originally published in German in 1928, and is an excellent example of what catastrophic events happened during the war. The story follows Paul Bäumer, a young German man who enlisted into the war, and his companions as they go from tragic event to event throughout the war, and eventually, all end up dead. The novel’s central theme revolves around war’s horrific effect on the soldiers and the robbery of their youth, this being most prominently displayed in the novel in chapter two, chapter seven, and chapter eleven.
The second chapter of the novel is a retelling of Paul and company’s experience in the German training camp, and the first death

The chapter starts off with Paul stating that “their early life was cut off from the moment they came [to the training camp]” (Remarque 19). What Paul is stating is that, once they signed up and arrived at their basic training, they would no longer be able to go back to who they were before enlisting, as he war was going to change them forever. This would prevent them from reliving and relishing in their youth, as their innocence and their youth was now stripped of them, and they would face the atrocities of the war. This process was almost immediate because at the time of arrival, they were “soldiers with eagerness and enthusiasm, but they had done everything to knock that out of [them]” (Remarque 22). At this time, Paul and his friends still saw war as a heroic, and something of which to be proud, so they were naturally willing and enthusiastic to server their fatherland. They soon became aware, however, of the hardships they would have to face through the basic training, and soon after they faced their