All Quiet on the Western Front
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50 free All Quiet on the Western Front trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Erich Maria Remarque's novel follows a class of German schoolboys from the classroom to the trenches of the First World War, and it has been read, taught, argued over and filmed ever since. Its plain, urgent voice makes the reader live the war alongside one young soldier, Paul Bäumer, instead of watching it from a safe distance. This quiz covers the whole book: who the soldiers are and what becomes of them, the scenes people remember, the lines that get quoted most, and the ideas the story keeps returning to. There are also questions on the author's own life and on the screen versions of 1930, 1979 and 2022. It suits students revising for a test, book groups, and anyone who has just finished the novel or one of the films. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or use the questions with a class.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is Paul reaching for when a sniper kills him in the 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front?
A butterfly
A butterfly just beyond the trench draws Paul's hand over the sandbags, an ending the novel does not have. The 1979 TV version has him sketching a bird instead.
Q 02Which belongings of the mortally wounded Franz Kemmerich does Müller covet in All Quiet on the Western Front?
His boots
His boots are English airman's boots of soft yellow leather, and they outlive one owner after another. Kemmerich's watch, by contrast, is stolen while he lies unconscious.
Q 03In All Quiet on the Western Front, Albert Kropp wants ministers and generals to fight with clubs, dressed in what?
Bathing drawers
Bathing drawers are the costume in Kropp's plan to turn a declaration of war into a public festival with tickets and bands, like a bullfight. Whoever survives the arena wins for his country.
Q 04What did Joseph Goebbels's rioters set loose in Berlin cinemas showing the 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front?
White mice
White mice ran loose while stink bombs and sneezing powder filled the air, and the riots worked. German authorities banned the film in response.
Q 05Which document describes the day Paul Bäumer dies with the single sentence 'All Quiet on the Western Front'?
An army report
An army report covering the whole line has no space for one soldier, which is the irony of the title. Paul falls in October 1918, only weeks before the war ended.
Q 06What must Paul Bäumer scrub the Corporals' Mess with during training in All Quiet on the Western Front?
A toothbrush
A toothbrush is one of the drill corporal's pettier punishments. He also sets Paul and Kropp to clear snow from the barrack square with a hand-broom and a dustpan.
Q 07Which streaming service released the German-language 2022 film All Quiet on the Western Front, winner of four Oscars?
Netflix
Netflix put it online in October 2022, weeks after a festival premiere in Toronto. Its four Oscars included the international feature prize for Germany.
Q 08Which bird do Paul Bäumer and Kat steal from a headquarters shed and roast in All Quiet on the Western Front?
A goose
A goose, roasted for hours in a deserted lean-to while the guns thunder nearby, gives Paul and Kat one of the novel's gentlest scenes of friendship.
Q 09In All Quiet on the Western Front, the screams of which wounded creatures horrify the soldiers during a bombardment?
Horses
Horses, says the farmer of the group, are the vilest thing to use in a war, and he begs for the wounded ones to be shot. Paul hears in their cries 'the moaning of the world'.
Q 10All Quiet on the Western Front opens by calling itself neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all what?
An adventure
An adventure is the last thing the book wants to be, 'for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it'. The short note sets the tone before the story begins.
Q 11Which schoolmaster's patriotic lectures march Paul Bäumer's whole class off to enlist in All Quiet on the Western Front?
Kantorek
Kantorek is later called up himself as a lowly Territorial, and one of his former pupils takes great pleasure in drilling him on the parade ground.
Q 12Which grand name does a former teacher's letter give Paul Bäumer's class in All Quiet on the Western Front?
The Iron Youth
The Iron Youth is how he flatters them from the safety of home, and the three who hear it only smile bitterly. None of them is over twenty, yet Paul feels their youth is long gone.
Q 13Which former postman is the feared drill corporal who trains Paul Bäumer's class in All Quiet on the Western Front?
Himmelstoss
Q 21Why does Paul Bäumer's company get double rations in the opening chapter of All Quiet on the Western Front?
Nearly half were casualties
Nearly half were casualties: the cook had drawn food and tobacco for 150 men, and only 80 returned from the line. Ginger, the cook, has to be argued into serving it all out.
Q 22Which part of Germany does Tjaden say 'cannot offend' its French equivalent in All Quiet on the Western Front?
A mountain
A mountain cannot be insulted, Tjaden reasons, so he fails to see how one country offends another. He decides he has no business at the war, since he does not feel offended himself.
Q 23Whose review of Paul Bäumer's regiment brings new uniforms, soon returned, in All Quiet on the Western Front?
Himmelstoss, the 'terror of Klosterberg', is proud of being the strictest disciplinarian in camp. His recruits take revenge one night by throwing a bedcover over him and thrashing him.
Q 14What is the peacetime trade of Kat, the forty-year-old scrounger of Paul's group in All Quiet on the Western Front?
Cobbler
Cobbler is only Paul's guess, because Kat 'understands all trades'. When food runs short, he strolls off and returns with two loaves and a sandbag of horseflesh.
Q 15The 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front was the first to pair the directing Oscar with which other award?
Best Picture
Best Picture, then called Outstanding Production, went to Universal's Carl Laemmle. It was also the first winner of that prize to be based on a finished novel.
Q 16Where is Paul Bäumer hiding when a French soldier tumbles in and Paul stabs him in All Quiet on the Western Front?
A shell hole
A shell hole in no man's land traps Paul for hours beside the man he has stabbed, and he has to watch him die slowly. It is the first time he has killed someone with his own hands.
Q 17Which illness does Paul Bäumer's mother have when he comes home on leave in All Quiet on the Western Front?
Cancer
Cancer keeps her in bed for much of his leave, yet she has saved a jar of whortleberries for him and presses two pairs of underpants on him as he goes.
Q 18What does Paul Bäumer call 'the finest thing that arose out of the war' in All Quiet on the Western Front?
Comradeship
Comradeship, Paul says, grew out of the bullying of the parade ground, which taught the recruits to stick together. He first calls it a practical sense of esprit de corps.
Q 19Which farmer in Paul Bäumer's company deserts after seeing a cherry tree in blossom in All Quiet on the Western Front?
Detering
Detering thinks only of his farmyard and his wife, and the blossom is too much for him. He makes straight for Germany, which is hopeless, and the military police catch him.
Q 20Which creatures does Paul Bäumer's unit bait with bread and kill by torchlight in All Quiet on the Western Front?
Rats
Rats so fat the men call them corpse-rats gnaw at every loaf. One soldier reads their growing numbers as a sure sign that a bombardment is coming.
The Kaiser
The Kaiser disappoints Paul, who expected a bigger man with a thundering voice. He hands out medals, and the visit sets the soldiers arguing about who actually wants a war.
Q 24Gérard Duval, the Frenchman Paul Bäumer kills in All Quiet on the Western Front, earned his living as what?
A printer
A printer, Paul learns from the dead man's pocketbook, which also holds snapshots of a woman and a little girl. He promises the corpse that he will write to the wife.
Q 25According to Paul Bäumer in All Quiet on the Western Front, what means more to a soldier than to any other man?
The earth
The earth is 'his only friend, his brother, his mother' when a soldier presses himself into it. He buries his face and limbs in it from the fear of death by shellfire.
Q 26Which Remarque novel, a sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front, follows soldiers who survived the war into peacetime?
The Road Back
The Road Back came out in 1931, and two years later the Nazis burned it alongside the first book. A third novel set after the war later completed a loose trilogy.
Q 27Lew Ayres, who played Paul in the 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front, declared himself what in World War II?
A conscientious objector
A conscientious objector from 1942, Ayres still went to war as a medic, landing under fire at Leyte. He gave his service pay to the Red Cross.
Q 28In the 2022 film All Quiet on the Western Front, Daniel Brühl's character, absent from the novel, negotiates what?
The armistice
The armistice talks are led by Matthias Erzberger, a real German politician. The film cuts between his train to Compiègne and the trenches.
Q 29Prisoners of which nationality does Paul Bäumer guard at a camp on the moors in All Quiet on the Western Front?
Russian
Russian prisoners pick over the garbage tins for scraps, and Paul finds he cannot see them as enemies. He breaks each of his cigarettes in two and shares them out.
Q 30Where does a bombardment catch Paul Bäumer's unit after a night laying wire in All Quiet on the Western Front?
A graveyard
A graveyard gives the only cover, and the explosions heave coffins out of the ground around the living. Paul crawls under one for shelter, then struggles into his mask as the gas rolls in.