All Quiet on the Western fron

Chapter 1 The chapter begins with German soldiers at rest after fourteen days of fierce battle on the Western Front. A double ration of food has been prepared so the soldiers are eating their fill. Paul Baumer, the protagonist and narrator of the novel, watches in amazement as his friends, Tjaden and Muller, eat another helping; he wonders where Tjaden puts all the food, for he is as thin as a rail. Baumer is only nineteen …

…Baumer would also be lost; then when he lost his last and best friend, Kat, it was almost more than Baumer could bear. As a result, his death is almost a relief. In dying Baumer will be permanently re-united with his friends. Perhaps that is why Remarque chose the day of his death to be "All Quiet on the Western Front;" it is not a frightening and brutal end for Baumer, but a peaceful beginning.