THE TITLE OF THIS CHAPTER, which considers Remarque's two novels of the First World War, is a literal translation of the German phrase aus der Froschperspektive, which is usually translated as “worm's eye view,” although frogs, unlike worms, have harsh voices as well as eyes. Remarque treated the First World War in both novels from this perspective, and although the second of them is set for the most part after the cessation of hostilities, the war informs it so completely that Der Weg zurück (The Road Back), is not simply a sequel to Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front), but almost a second part of its famous predecessor.

Im Westen nichts Neues made its first appearance in serial form in Germany in 1928, and then, with a great deal of sometimes not entirely truthful publicity (its composition and the revision process had taken longer than was claimed), in a slightly changed and expanded book version in January 1929. It sold a million copies by 1930, was translated into an enormous number of languages, and provoked personal attacks, parodies, and imitations. It remains a bestseller and has been filmed twice, both times in English, and the first version remains one of the classics of early sound cinema. When it was first shown in Berlin in 1930 it was famously disrupted, on the orders of Goebbels, by Nazi activists releasing mice. Remarque was later condemned by the Nazis for “betraying the front-line soldier” and his novel was publicly burned in May 1933.

The popularity of the novel seems sometimes to have baffled the critics. In 1985, for example, Jost Hermand wrote a piece with the revealing title “Versuch, den Erfolg von Erich Maria Remarques Im Westen nichts Neues zu verstehen” (An attempt to understand the success of Erich Maria Remarque's Im Westen nichts Neues), while a few years earlier, Alan Bance, having noted that “perhaps because of its phenomenal commercial success, it has received relatively little serious discussion,” went on to state that “no one would want to claim for the novel a place in the ranks of first-class literature.” But there precisely is a case for placing the work in the category of first-class literature.