Im Westen nichts Neues

"Paul's visit on leave to his home highlights the cost of the war on his psyche. The town has not changed since he went off to war; however, he finds that he does 'not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world.' He feels disconnected from most of the townspeople. His father asks him 'stupid and distressing' questions about his war experiences, not understanding 'that a man cannot talk of such things.' An old schoolmaster lectures him about strategy and advancing to Paris, while insisting that Paul and his friends know only their 'own little sector' of the war but nothing of the big picture. Indeed, the only person he remains connected to is his dying mother, with whom he shares a tender, yet restrained relationship. The night before he is to return from leave, he stays up with her, exchanging small expressions of love and concern for each other. He thinks to himself, 'Ah! Mother, Mother! How can it be that I must part from you? Here I sit and there you are lying; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it.' In the end, he concludes that he 'ought never to have come [home] on leave.'"

Paul Baumer dies on an otherwise uneventful day near the end of the novel. His face has "an expression of calm, as though almost glad that the end had come."

All Quiet on the Western Front

Nothing New in the West
Wikipedia:

Im Westen nichts Neues is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front.


The 1930 English translation by Arthur Wesley Wheen gives the title as All Quiet on the Western Front. The literal translation of "Im Westen nichts Neues" is "Nothing New in the West," with "West" being the war front; the phrase refers to the contents of routine dispatches sent by the German Army.


Brian Murdoch's 1993 translation would render the phrase as "there was nothing new to report on the western front" within the narrative. Explaining his retention of the original book-title, he says:


Although it does not match the German exactly, Wheen's title has justly become part of the English language and is retained here with gratitude.


The phrase "all quiet on the western front" later became popular slang for lack of action.