Very early on in the novel we learn of those in Paul’s company. Paul Baumer himself is just 19 years old at the start of the war. He had entered under extreme pressure from Kantorek (their teacher) along with the rest of his classmates and enlisted. Stanislaus Katczinsky (known to the men as Kat) is a soldier in Paul’s Company and becomes Paul’s best friend in the army. He is forty years old at the start of the novel and has a wife and children back at home. Throughout the war, he proves

to be the resourceful and inventive/creative man. Paul and Kat remain as best friends, exchanging home information when Kat is injured (and will soon be sent away) and carrying Kat to what he believed was safety only to find out that he had been hit by a splinter in the rear of the head and has died on the way. Paul finds himself nearly unable to go on at this point, ending his time with Kat and saying, “Do I walk? Have I feet still?…Then I know nothing more” (p245).

After receiving just over 2 weeks leave, Paul finds life even that much harder. He returns to his hometown, everything looking almost new to him. Finding his ill mother and hearing his sisters’ voice scream his name he nearly breaks down-just as trained to do so, Paul has learned to hide his emotions and only now do they pour out. From the initial questions that mother asks to Paul of the war he hides. He cannot find the words to describe what he has seen nor does he feel right in doing so. With every question asked his mind runs through first reality and then snaps back to where Paul just nods his head saying, “…it isn’t so bad” (p140). After going into town, and encountering a Major on the streets, Paul is given order upon order, building up an appalling rage inside of him. He returns home soon after, and attempts to disguise himself in his old civilian clothes. Paul finds himself unable to identify with anyone around him. Father seems to be asking these ridiculous questions that are just unanswerable and almost dangerous to answer. These civilians he finds himself dealing with have no clue. “They have worries, aims, desires, that I cannot comprehend…I find I do not belong here any more, it is a foreign world” (p146). Returning home never seemed this hard when at war yet now that he is there, Paul does not relate to home as it was. His room and old lifestyle is no longer who he is. The books and poems and collections that sit before him are those of a stranger. Home is back at the front, back with Kat and the others.

Paul’s experiences throughout the war include some other men, both in his Company and on the outside. Corporal Himmelstoss was a training officer who lets power go to his brain and nearly tortures Paul and his friends throughout the train

Some topics in this essay:
Naval Academy, Paul’s Company, Land Paul, Quiet Kemmerich, Paul Kat, World War, Corporal Himmelstoss, , Company Paul’s, Paul Baumer, paul’s company, shell hole, quiet western front, french soldier, throughout war, western front, quiet western, killed duty, died paul, imagine life, friends mine,