The company moves farther behind the lines than usual, where they eat, sleep, and spend time with willing French girls, whom they shower with gifts of food. Paul returns home for a seventeen-day leave. Alienated by battle trauma, he lacks ambition and is unable to enjoy the pleasures of his youth. He despairs at his mother's weakness but enjoys the humor of Mittelstaedt tormenting Kantorek, now a member of the home guard and a poor specimen of a soldier.
Paul receives additional training at a camp on the moors, where he observes the sufferings of Russian prisoners of war, who must barter and scavenge garbage in order to stave off hunger. He thinks of them as pathetic human beings rather than adversaries and wishes that he could know them better.
Back with his unit, Paul feels more at home with comrades than he did with family. Inspected by the Kaiser, Second Company returns to the front. While on patrol, Paul becomes separated from the others and fatally wounds Gérard Duval, a French soldier, in self-defense. Face to face with a dying enemy, Paul is remorseful and tries to ease the man's sufferings. Returned to the dugout with his comrades, he confesses to the killing, then calms himself by concluding that "war is war."
