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A classmate, volunteer, and special friend of Paul, Kropp is a small man. Since he is regarded as the best thinker in the class, no one is surprised that he is the first to make lance-corporal. In group discussions he is the one who offers profound solutions and comments. It is Kropp, for instance, who suggests turning war into a public festival, with the generals fighting it out in an arena while the common people sit and watch. It is also Kropp who sums up their youth, their disillusionment, and their lack of training for the future by observing, \"The war has ruined us for everything.\" With Paul he is sent to a Catholic hospital behind the lines because of wounds suffered during the evacuation of a village.
Scheduled to receive an artificial limb after a leg amputation, he withdraws into long periods of sober silence.
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