# Paul Bäumer — All Quiet on the Western Front character guide

> Paul Bäumer in All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Bäumer, Paul

**First appearance:** 0001-all-quiet-on-the-western-front

## Snapshot

A twenty-year-old volunteer who narrates the war with unsettling clarity, watching the poems and plays of his old life dissolve into mud, hunger, and survival.

## Who they are

Paul enlisted with his whole school class after a teacher's patriotic lectures, and now fights as a common soldier whose only real roots are the friends beside him. He is caught between the older men, who have wives and trades to return to, and his own generation, whom he calls a waste land — too young to have taken hold of anything before the war swept them away. His plain, unsentimental voice is what makes the early chapters cut: he notices the boots, the beans, the dying friend, and tells it straight.

## In the story

### [Chapter 1](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/all-quiet-on-the-western-front)

Narrator and protagonist; reflects on the loss of innocence and the influence of Kantorek.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/i)

Narrator; reflects on the naturalness of latrine activities, recalls Kantorek's pressure to enlist, and visits the wounded Kemmerich.

### [Chapter II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/ii)

Narrates the chapter; recalls training under Himmelstoss and sits with the dying Kemmerich.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/iii)

Narrates the chapter, observes the new recruits, and participates in reminiscing about Himmelstoss.

### [Chapter IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/iv)

Narrates the chapter, describing the bombardment and the instinctual survival responses.

### [Chapter V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/v)

Expresses hopelessness about the future and feels the war has destroyed his generation's ability to imagine a normal life.

### [Chapter VI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/vi)

Narrates the chapter; reflects on lost youth, confronts Himmelstoss, and endures the bombardment.

### [Chapter VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/vii)

Protagonist; returns home on leave and feels alienated from his former life.

### [Chapter VIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/viii)

Narrator; stationed at the camp on the moors, reflects on the Russian prisoners and his mother's illness.

### [Chapter IX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/ix)

Volunteers for patrol, struggles with fear and guilt after killing a French soldier.

### [The Idyll and the Interruption](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/x)

Narrator and protagonist; participates in the feast and is wounded by a shell.

### [Chapter XI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/xi)

Narrator and protagonist; reflects on the psychological state of soldiers and carries Kat after he is wounded.

### [Chapter XII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/chapters/xii)

The last of his class, reflects on the war's toll and his own despair; dies in October 1918.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/characters/paul_baumer
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/all_quiet_on_the_western_front_se/characters