In the autumn of 1918, after the bloodiest summer in Paul’s wartime experience, Paul is the only living member of his original group of classmates. The war continues to rage, but now that the United States has joined the Allies, Germany’s defeat is inevitable, only a matter of time. In light of the extreme privations suffered by both the German soldiers and the German people, it seems likely that if the war does not end soon, the German people will revolt against their leaders.
After inhaling poison gas, Paul is given fourteen days of leave to recuperate. A wave of intense desire to return home seizes him, but he is frightened because he has no goals; were he to return home, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. He fears that his generation will yield no survivors—that they will return home as living corpses, shells of human beings. He cannot bear the thought. Something that is essentially human in them must survive the years of bombardment, but he feels that his own life has been irrevocably destroyed.
After years of fighting, Paul is finally killed in October of 1918, on an extraordinarily quiet, peaceful day. The army report that day contains only one phrase: “All quiet on the Western Front.” As Paul dies, his face is calm, “as though almost glad the end had come.”
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