All Quiet on the Western Front
Analysis of historical accuracy in the 1978 television production

The 1979 film, All Quiet on the Western Front, is based on the 1929 novel by World War I German veteran, Erich Maria Remarque. The narrative portrays the nature of WWI from the perspective of a young German boy from his enlistment and deployment to the Western Front in 1916. It explores many concepts of the war including trench warfare, total war, and the overall long term mental and physical effects of war. Minus minor flaws where minimal information is given, the film appears to be a historically accurate portrayal of Trench Warfare and Total War.
The film accurately portrays major elements of WWI, giving historically accurate insight into life in the trenches, war tactics, and gas warfare. The film accurately depicts the trenches as home to, not only the soldiers, but also to disease spreading rats and lice. Those fighting in WWI faced the devastating trench foot condition which was treatable only by amputation; the film truthfully portrays this issue as the duckboards which were used in an attempt to avoid this are shown on the trenches’ muddy and puddled ground. “No Man’s Land”, the term referring to the gap of land between the trenches of the opposing armies, is distinctly portrayed as lifeless, with smoking artillery induced craters, and the bodies of fallen soldiers left strewn across it. As the war progressed, bodies had to be left as it became too dangerous to collect them. Precisely as it was during the war, the film shows soldiers going “over the top”, as they attempted to climb out of the trenches to attack many are gunned down even before clearing their own bunker and if they were lucky enough to make it out they were likely killed shortly after. These futile tactics are both historically documented and displayed in this film as being used throughout