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39-508: Although the book follows different characters from those in All Quiet on the Western Front , it can be assumed that they were in the same company, as the characters recall other characters from the earlier novel. Tjaden is the only member of the 2nd Company to feature prominently in both books. Set a few weeks after the end of All Quiet on the Western Front , the novel deals with the fall of

78-696: A Litt.D. from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1992, and was a Fellow at the University of Oxford in 1994 and 2002. Murdoch retired from Stirling as Emeritus Professor in 2007, but is still involved with the school. He continues to write and research. Murdoch is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society , and a member of the editorial board of the Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts series, published by Brill . Murdoch teaches early Germanic and Celtic literature , on which he has authored and edited

117-518: A charming German village. He attended school, where the patriotic speeches of his teacher Kantorek led the whole class to volunteer for the Imperial German Army shortly after the start of the Great War . At the training camp, where they meet Himmelstoß, his class is scattered over the platoons amongst Frisian fishermen, peasants and labourers, with whom they soon become friends. Bäumer arrives at

156-402: A group of student veterans are forced to endure a corny speech by their professor who eulogizes their fallen comrades as having entered a “long sleep beneath the green grasses.” The student veterans mock the professor for his naive platitudes with one, Westerholt shouting, “in the mud of shell holes they are lying, knocked rotten, ripped in pieces, gone down into the bog—Green grasses!" The book

195-536: A number of notable works. He has translated works of medieval literature , such as Kudrun , into the English language . Murdoch is particularly interested in religious texts . His earliest work is concerned with the Altdeutsche Genesis and other German Adam Books, later exploring the same theme in other vernaculars. In several hundred published works he established the centrality of the "popular" (as opposed to

234-558: A simple phrase: "All quiet on the Western Front." Paul's corpse displays a calm expression on its face, "as though almost glad the end had come." "One of the great legacies of World War I is that as soon as the Armistice is signed, the enemy is war itself, not the Germans, Russians, or French. The book captures it and becomes the definitive anti-war statement of the Great War" At the beginning of

273-454: A temporary reprieve from the horrid rations and living conditions of the trenches when they are instead sent to a supply depot in an occupied French town. They enjoy food and luxuries taken from the depot or looted from the town but continue to lose men to Allied shelling, culminating in Paul and Albert being wounded while evacuating civilians and needing to be diverted to a Catholic hospital far behind

312-551: Is a British philologist who is Emeritus Professor of German at the University of Stirling . He specializes in the study of early Germanic and Celtic literature , on which he has authored and edited several influential works. Brian O. Murdoch was born in London , England, on 26 June 1944, the son of Cecil O. and Jane A. Murdoch. He gained his B.A. first class honours from the University of Exeter , and his PhD from Jesus College, Cambridge , in 1969. From 1968 to 1970, Murdoch

351-426: Is glad to return and reunite with his comrades. Soon after, he volunteers to go on a patrol and kills a Frenchman in hand-to-hand combat for the first time. He watches the man die slowly in agony for hours. He is remorseful and devastated, asking for forgiveness from the man's corpse. He later confesses to Kat and Albert, who try to comfort him and reassure him that it is only part of the war. Paul and his company receive

390-416: Is the last straw that finally causes Paul to lose his will to live. In the final chapter he comments that peace is coming soon but he does not see the future as bright and shining with hope. Paul feels that he has no aims left in life and that their generation will be different and misunderstood. In October 1918 Paul is finally killed on a remarkably peaceful day. The situation report from the frontline states

429-655: Is to actually serve in the army. From November 10 to December 9, 1928, All Quiet on the Western Front was published in serial form in Vossische Zeitung magazine. It was released in book form the following year to great success, selling one and a half million copies that same year. It was the best-selling work of fiction in America for the year 1929, according to Publishers Weekly . Although publishers had worried that interest in World War I had waned more than 10 years after

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468-521: The German Empire and details the experience of young men in Germany who have returned from the trenches of World War I and are trying to integrate back into civilian life. Its most salient feature is the main characters' pessimism about contemporary society which, they feel, is morally bankrupt because it has allegedly caused the war and apparently does not wish to reform itself. For example in one scene,

507-526: The armistice , Remarque's realistic depiction of trench warfare from the perspective of young soldiers struck a chord with the war's survivors—veterans and civilians alike—and provoked strong reactions, both positive and negative, around the world. With All Quiet on the Western Front , Remarque emerged as an eloquent spokesman for a generation that had been, in his own words, "destroyed by war, even though it might have escaped its shells." Remarque's harshest critics, in turn, were his countrymen, many of whom felt

546-508: The 1930 film adaptation set to do so in 2026. The English translation by Arthur Wesley Wheen gives the title as All Quiet on the Western Front . The literal translation of " Im Westen nichts Neues " is "Nothing New in the West," with "West" being the Western Front ; the phrase refers to the content of an official communiqué at the end of the novel. Brian Murdoch 's 1993 translation rendered

585-535: The Western Front All Quiet on the Western Front ( German : Im Westen nichts Neues , lit.   'In the West, nothing new') is a semi-autobiographical novel by Erich Maria Remarque , a German veteran of World War I . The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental trauma during the war as well as the detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home from

624-527: The Western Front for personal reasons, not for profit, as Friedlaender had charged. All Quiet on the Western Front was followed in 1931 by The Road Back , which follows the surviving characters after the Treaty of Versailles, and the two are considered part of a trilogy alongside the narratively unrelated Three Comrades , released in 1936 and set well into the post-war era. Brian O. Murdoch Brian Oliver Murdoch FRHistS (born 26 June 1944)

663-405: The Western Front with his friends and schoolmates (Albert, Kemmerich, Kropp, Leer, Müller, and a number of other characters). There they meet Stanislaus Katczinsky, an older recalled reservist, nicknamed Kat, who becomes Paul's mentor. "We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing from ourselves, from our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and

702-507: The book were met with Nazi-organized protests and mob attacks on both movie theatres and audience members. Objections to Remarque's portrayal of the World War I German soldiers were not limited to those of the Nazis in 1933. Dr. Karl Kroner  [ de ] was concerned about Remarque's depiction of the medical personnel as being inattentive, uncaring, or absent from frontline action. Kroner

741-543: The book denigrated the German war effort, and that Remarque had exaggerated the horrors of war to further his pacifist agenda. The strongest voices against Remarque came from the emerging Nazi Party and its ideological allies. In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, All Quiet on the Western Front became one of the first degenerate books to be publicly burnt; in 1930, screenings of the Academy Award-winning film based on

780-480: The book have been made, each of which was lauded. The 1930 American adaptation , directed by Lewis Milestone , won two Academy Awards . The 1979 British-American adaptation , a television film by Delbert Mann , won a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award . The 2022 German adaptation , directed by Edward Berger , won four Academy Awards. The book entered the public domain in the United States in 2024, with

819-401: The book, Remarque writes, "This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped (its) shells, were destroyed by the war." The book does not focus on heroic stories of bravery, but rather gives a view of

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858-539: The boys were not forced to join the war effort against their will, but rather by a sense of patriotism and pride. Kantorek called Paul's platoon the "Iron Youth", teaching his students a romanticized version of warfare with glory and duty to the Fatherland. It is only when the boys go to war and have to live and fight in dirty, cramped trenches with little protection from enemy bullets and shells while contending with hunger and sickness that they realize just how dispiriting it

897-443: The conditions in which the soldiers find themselves. The monotony between battles, the constant threat of artillery fire and bombardments, the struggle to find food, the lack of training of young recruits (meaning lower chances of survival), and the overarching role of random chance in the lives and deaths of the soldiers are described in detail. Another major theme is the concept of blind nationalism . Remarque often emphasizes that

936-410: The contrast with civilian life highlights the cost of the war on his psyche. The town has not changed since he went off to war, but he has: he finds that he does "not belong here any more, it is a foreign world". Paul recovers the books and writings he had left in his childhood room, but finds his passion for literature to have been completely erased by the trauma of war. He feels disconnected from most of

975-439: The exegetical) understanding of the " protoplasts " in far wider areas of medieval thought than had hitherto been appreciated. He demonstrated that an awareness of Adam motifs allows an entirely new reading of some of the classics of medieval literature, most notably Hartmann's Gregorius . The broader impact of these studies has been to raise awareness of vernacular Bible traditions in many aspects of Medieval Studies. Murdoch

1014-501: The lines. Albert eventually has his leg amputated, whilst Paul is deemed fit for service and returned to the front. By the closing months of the war, German morale is almost nonexistent as the men realize they are only fighting to delay an armistice. The Americans have recently joined the war as both they and the English begin outperforming the far more poorly equipped Germans. In despair Paul watches as his friends fall one by one. Kat's death

1053-504: The phrase as "there was nothing new to report on the Western Front" within the narrative. However, in the foreword, he explains his retention of the original book title: Although it does not match the German exactly, Wheen's title has justly become part of the English language and is retained here with gratitude. The phrase " all quiet on the Western Front " has become a colloquial expression meaning stagnation, or lack of visible change, in any context. Murdoch also explains how, owing to

1092-460: The populations of occupied territory?" A fellow patient of Remarque's in the military hospital in Duisburg objected to the negative depictions of the nuns and patients and to the general portrayal of soldiers: "There were soldiers to whom the protection of homeland, protection of house and homestead, protection of family were the highest objective, and to whom this will to protect their homeland gave

1131-487: The soldier. Much of the literary criticism came from Salomo Friedlaender , who wrote a book Hat Erich Maria Remarque wirklich gelebt? "Did Erich Maria Remarque really live?" (under the pen name Mynona), which was, in its turn, criticized in: Hat Mynona wirklich gelebt? "Did Mynona really live?" by Kurt Tucholsky . Friedlaender's criticism was mainly personal in nature—he attacked Remarque as being egocentric and greedy. Remarque publicly stated that he wrote All Quiet on

1170-405: The strength to endure any extremities." These criticisms suggest that experiences of the war and the personal reactions of individual soldiers to their experiences may be more diverse than Remarque portrays them; however, it is beyond question that Remarque gives voice to a side of the war and its experience that was overlooked or suppressed at the time. This perspective is crucial to understanding

1209-421: The time it was published, Wheen's translation was obliged to Anglicise some lesser-known German references and lessen the impact of certain passages while omitting others entirely. Murdoch's translation is more accurate to the original text and completely unexpurgated. The book centers on Paul Bäumer, a German soldier on the Western Front during World War I. Before the war, Paul lived with his parents and sister in

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1248-459: The townspeople, who ask him "stupid and distressing" questions about his experiences or lecture him about strategy and advancing to Paris while insisting that Paul and his friends know only their "own little sector" but nothing of the big picture. Indeed, the only person he remains connected to is his dying mother, with whom he shares a tender yet restrained relationship. In the end, he concludes that he "ought never to have come [home] on leave". Paul

1287-433: The true effects of World War I. The evidence can be seen in the lingering depression that Remarque and many of his friends and acquaintances were suffering a decade later. The book was also banned in other European countries on the grounds that it was considered anti-war propaganda; Austrian soldiers were forbidden from reading the book in 1929, and Czechoslovakia banned it from its military libraries. The Italian translation

1326-576: The war. It is billed by some as "the greatest war novel of all time". The novel was first published in November and December 1928 in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung and in book form in late January 1929. The book and its sequel, The Road Back (1931), were among the books banned and burned in Nazi Germany . All Quiet on the Western Front sold 2.5 million copies in 22 languages in its first 18 months in print. Three film adaptations of

1365-430: The world; and we had to shoot it to pieces" While fighting at the front, Bäumer and his comrades engage in frequent battles and endure the treacherous and filthy conditions of trench warfare . The battles fought here have no names and only meager pieces of land are gained, which are often lost again later. Remarque often refers to the living soldiers as old and dead, emotionally drained and shaken. Paul visits home, and

1404-408: Was also banned in 1933. When the Nazis were re-militarizing Germany, the book was banned as it was deemed counterproductive to German rearmament. In contrast, All Quiet on the Western Front was trumpeted by pacifists as an anti-war book. Remarque makes a point in the opening statement that the novel does not advocate any political position, but is merely an attempt to describe the experiences of

1443-491: Was banned during Nazi rule . Under the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 , the book will enter the public domain in the United States in 2027 . This article about a World War I novel first published in the 1930s is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page . All Quiet on

1482-410: Was lecturer in German at the University of Glasgow . From 1970 to 1972, he was Assistant Professor of German at the University of Illinois at Chicago . From 1972 to 2007, he served as lecturer, senior lecturer and from 1991 professor of German at the University of Stirling . He received an A.Mus. from Trinity College London in 1982, was Visiting Fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge , in 1989, received

1521-465: Was specifically worried that the book would perpetuate German stereotypes abroad that had subsided since the First World War. He offered the following clarification: "People abroad will draw the following conclusions: if German doctors deal with their own fellow countrymen in this manner, what acts of inhumanity will they not perpetuate against helpless prisoners delivered up into their hands or against

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