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Remarque, Erich Maria

By Thomas Schneider
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Remarque, Erich Maria
(Erich Paul Remark)
German born writer and pacifist
Born 22 June 1898 in Osnabrück, Germany
Died 25 September 1970 in Locarno, Switzerland
Erich Maria Remarque was a German writer and pacifist who became world-famous for his anti-war novel Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) (1928).

Biography

Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) was born to a working-class family in Osnabrück, Germany. In November 1916 he was drafted, and after military training at Osnabrück and Celle he was sent to the Western Front in June 1916, where he served in an entrenchment unit at the Somme and in Flanders. On 31 July 1917 Remarque was severely wounded near Houthulst, Flanders, and sent to a military hospital in Duisburg, where he stayed until the armistice. After the war Remarque worked as an elementary school teacher and then after 1921 as a journalist in Hannover and Berlin.

His anti-war novel Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front), first published in 1928, became an international success and provoked a controversial discussion on the representation and interpretation of World War I in Germany. The subsequent banning of the movie All Quiet on the Western Front (USA 1930), directed by Lewis Milestone (1895-1980) in December 1930 as a consequence of National Socialist protests forced Remarque to go into exile in Switzerland in 1931.

In May 1933 Remarque’s books were burnt by the National Socialists, and in 1938 he lost his German citizenship. Remarque remained in exile, living in Switzerland, France, and the U.S., where he became a U.S. citizen in 1947. He returned to Europe in 1948, and lived in Switzerland, New York and Italy until his death.

In the novels, short stories, plays, and film scripts he wrote after Im Westen nichts Neues, Remarque focused on the fate of ordinary people in times of war, persecution and inhumanity. His immense international success and reputation was shaped by his strong commitment to pacifism and humanism.

Other selected writings

Der Weg zurück / The Road Back, novel 1930, Drei Kameraden /Three Comrades, novel 1936, Arc de Triomphe /Arch of Triumph, novel 1945, Der Funke Leben / Spark of Life, novel 1952, Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben / A Time to Live and a Time to Die, novel 1954, Der letzte Akt /The Last Act, film script 1955, Die Nacht von Lissabon / The Night in Lisbon, novel 1961.

Thomas F. Schneider, Erich Maria Remarque Peace Center/Osnabrück University, Germany

Section Editor: Christoph Nübel
Thomas Schneider: Remarque, Erich Maria, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.10079

This text is licensed under: CC by-NC-ND 3.0 Germany - Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivative Works.

Note

Images2

Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 December 1930
On 16 December 1930, the front page of the “Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung” featured an article on the official ban of Lewis Milestone’s filmadaption “All Quiet on the Western Front” from 11 December. The title reads: “Auswärtiges Amt schweigt. Remarques Filmverbot vor dem Landtag. Überall Kopfschütteln.” (“The foreign ministry remains silent. The ban of Remarque’s film before the Prussian state parliament. General disapproval.”) The article criticizes the state’s stance of shying away from street pressures. It also bemoans the loss of Prussian police and state authority inflicted by having protected the showing of a, post-ban, “anti-German” film.
Unknown author: Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 December 1930, front page; source: Deutsches Historisches Museum, Do2 2008/4005, http://www.dhm.de/datenbank/dhm.php?seite=5&fld_0=VLT06589.
© DHM (Do2 2008/4005), Berlin.

Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970)
The novelist Erich Maria Remarque is visiting Hotel Curhaus, Davos, in 1929.
Unknown photographer: Erich Maria Remarque, black-and-white photograph, Davos, Switzerland, 1929; source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R04034, via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-R04034,_Erich_Maria_Remarque.jpg.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en.

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