They left for war as boys, never to return as men.

A devastating story of war and a generation destroyed. In 1914 a group of German schoolboys, idealistic and inflamed with youthful patriotism, set off to fight in the "glorious" war. During their brutal basic training disenchantment begins; then, boarding a train for the front, they see the wounded being rushed back to hospitals. They begin to grasp the grim reality of war.

On their first night in action they come under heavy attack. In the trenches, they begin to fall. Their youth is stripped away by the violence, and the boys become as sullen as veterans.

When Paul (Richard Thomas) shoots a Frenchman and watches him die, he realizes the futility of the war. Wounded, he returns home to a different world, a place where he cannot fit in. Sent back into battle, he meets destiny on a day when the German High Command Communiqué states simply, All Quiet On The Western Front.