All Quiet on the Western Front All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the greatest war novels of all time. It is a story, not of Germans, but of men, who even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war. The entire purpose of this novel is to illustrate the vivid horror and raw nature of war and to change the popular belief that war is an idealistic and romantic character. The story centers on Paul Baümer, who enlists in the German army with glowing enthusiasm. But in the course of war, he is consumed by it and in the end is "weary, broken, burnt out, rootless