All Quiet on the Western Front

Chapter 1

Reading Check

1. Paul Bäumer

2. Kemmerich

Short Answer

1. Kantorek is the soldiers’ old teacher. He encouraged his young students to enlist in the war, and the young soldiers feel betrayed and resentful.

2. The soldiers discuss Kemmerich’s boots and who will get them if/when he dies of his injuries.

Chapter 2

Reading Check

1. A writer

2. Corporal Himmelstoss

Short Answer

1. He says that, as young men, they have not “taken root,” so the war has swept them away. By contrast, the war is more like an interruption to the older men, who are able to envision a life after it.

Chapter 3

Reading Check

1. Himmelstoss

Short Answer

1. He admires his “sixth sense,” his intelligence, and his inventiveness.

2. Himmelstoss punished Tjaden for wetting his bed by bunking him with another recruit who also wet his bed, and whoever was on the bottom bunk had “a vile time.”

Chapter 4

Reading Check

1. Muller

2. The searchlights

Short Answer

1. Detering is a farmer and has an affection for horses. He cannot bear to see and hear their suffering.

Chapter 5

Reading Check

1. Albert Kropp

2. Roasting a goose

Short Answer

1. His wife is left to look after the farm on her own, and it is almost harvesting season. Two of his horses have already been taken for the war effort.

Chapter 6

Reading Check

1. Coffins

2. Poplars

Short Answer

1. A recruit who is having a nervous breakdown during the bombardment collapses. Because he is new to the front, he is unable to cope with the trauma and brutality.

Chapter 7

Reading Check

1. Three French girls

2. Seventeen

Short Answer

1. He feels uncomfortable and anxious. He cannot settle into civilian life and is preoccupied with thoughts of his comrades back at the front.

Chapter 8

Reading Check

1. Russians

2. Cigarettes

Short Answer

1. His father and his sister visit him. Paul feels disconnected from them and also bitter as they discuss his mother’s illness and the financial burden it will place on their family.

Chapter 9

Reading Check

1. Russia

Short Answer

1. An enemy soldier falls into Paul’s shell hole, and Paul instinctively attacks with his bayonet.

2. He shows him compassion and tries to help him during his final moments.

Chapter 10

Reading Check

1. Making a meal

Short Answer

1. He asks how far above his knee he was shot. Paul lies and tells him four inches, although it is more like one inch.

2. The “tea-cosy” is one of the nuns who is saying morning prayers outside Albert and Paul’s room at the Catholic Hospital. This metaphor trivializes her and her religious faith, as Albert and Paul are annoyed by the sound of the nuns’ prayers.

Chapters 11-12

Reading Check

1. Detering (Chapter 11)

2. He is killed in combat. (Chapter 12)

Short Answer

1. Muller received the boots after their comrade Kemmerich died at the beginning of the novel. (Chapter 11)