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Major characters

Paul Bäumer

Paul Bäumer is the narrator and main character of the novel, representing Remarque's own experience in World War I. With a number of his eighteen year old classmates, Paul, who is an amateur writer of several poems and a play, enlists in the German Army for World War I. He is deployed to the western front, where he experiences the devastating physical and psychological effects of intense combat, including the horrific wounding or death of his friends. Paul reflects on the war as he witnesses the dehumanizing conditions of combat and the robbing of soldiers of their individuality and love of life.

"The life that has borne [Bäumer] through these years" fails at the end of the novel, in October 1918. At the time the western front was sufficiently quiet that the army dispatches for the day read that there was nothing new to report, and the book's German title refers to this. In the end, his body has a look of calm that showed "that he could not have suffered long."

Albert Kropp

Kropp was in Paul's class at school and is described as the clearest thinker of the group. Kropp is wounded towards the end of the novel and undergoes an amputation. Both he and Bäumer end up spending time in a Roman Catholic hospital together, Bäumer suffering from shrapnel wounds to the leg and arm. Though Kropp initially plans to commit suicide if he requires an amputation, the book suggests he postponed suicide because of the strength of military camaraderie. Kropp and Bäumer part ways when Bäumer is recalled to his regiment after recovering.

Haie Westhus

Haie is described as being tall and strong, and a peat-digger by profession. Overall, his size and behavior make him seem older and more mature than Paul, yet he is the same age as Paul and his school-friends (roughly 19 at the start of the book). Haie also has a good sense of humor. During combat, he is injured in his back, fatally (see Chapter 6) — the resulting wound is large enough for Paul to see Haie's breathing lung when Himmelstoss carries him to safety.

Müller

Müller is about 19 years of age, and one of Bäumer's classmates, when he also joins the German army as a volunteer to go to the war. Carrying his old school books with him to the battlefield, he constantly reminds himself of the importance of learning and education. Even while under enemy fire, he "mutters propositions in physics". He became interested in Kemmerich's boots and inherits them when Kemmerich dies early in the novel. He is killed later in the book after being shot point-blank in the stomach with a flare gun. As he was dying "quite conscious and in terrible pain", he gave his pocket-book and the boots he inherited from Kemmerich to Bäumer.

Stanislaus Katczinsky

Also known as Kat, he has the most positive influence on Paul and his comrades on the battlefield. Katczinsky was a cobbler in civilian life; he is older than Paul Bäumer and his comrades, about 40 years old, and serves as their leadership figure. He also represents a literary model highlighting the differences between the younger and older soldiers. While the older men have already had a life of professional and personal experience before the war, Bäumer and the men of his age have had little life experience or time for personal growth. When Katczinsky is killed it is as though a great hero has died.

Kat is also well known for his ability to scavenge nearly any item needed, above all, food. At one point he secures four tins of lobster. Bäumer describes Kat as possessing a sixth sense. One night, Bäumer along with a group of other soldiers are holed up in a factory with neither rations nor comfortable bedding. Katczinsky leaves for a short while, returning with straw to put over the bare wires of the beds. Later, to feed the hungry men, Kat brings bread, a bag of horse meat, a lump of fat, a pinch of salt and a pan in which to cook the food.

Kat is hit by shrapnel at the end of the story. Bäumer carries him back to camp on his back, only to discover upon their arrival that a stray splinter had hit Kat in the temple and killed him on the way. He is thus the last of Paul's close friends to die in battle. It is Kat's death that eventually makes Bäumer careless whether he survives the war or not, but that he can face the rest of his life without fear. "Let the months and the years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear."

Tjaden

One of Bäumer's non-schoolmate friends. Before the war Tjaden was a locksmith. A big eater with a grudge against the former postman-turned corporal Himmelstoss (thanks to his strict 'disciplinary actions'), though, manages to forgive him later in the book. Throughout the book, Paul frequently remarks on how much of an eater he is, yet somehow manages to stay as "thin as a rake". Tjaden survives the War and becomes a well-liked school teacher in the sequel, The Road Back.