As a youth, Erich Paul Remark fought as a recruit on the western front in World War I. He became famous as Erich Maria Remarque with his anti-war novel "Nothing New in the West". He dies in Switzerland on September 25, 1970.
The writer was born Erich Paul Remark on June 22, 1898 in Osnabrück, the son of the bookbinder Remark. This fact, which is disputed 30 years later for political reasons, is documented by a birth certificate from the city. At the end of the 1920s, the National Socialists had spread the word that his real name was Kramer (remark read backwards) - a claim intended to defame the author of the anti-war novel "Nothing New in the West" and portray him as a liar.
Remark becomes Remarque:About detours to the writer
After school, Remark attends the Catholic teacher training college. In 1916 his first text "Of the joys and troubles of the youth militia" was published. When the First World War ended, he passed his teacher's examination and began working as an elementary school teacher in Lohne near Lingen, teaching for a few weeks in Klein Berßen and finally for a month in Nahne near Osnabrück. But the job is not right for him. He resigns from teaching, keeps his head above water with jobs, writes poems and short stories and publishes theater and concert reviews in the "Osnabrücker Tages-Zeitung". During this time he experiments with stage names. He sees the origin of his name Remark in French ancestors and eventually decides - also based on the writer Rainer Maria Rilke - for Erich Maria Remarque. In 1920 his first novel "Die Traumbude" was published.
Remarque as copywriter for Conti in Hanover
In 1922 Remarque moved to Hanover. There he works as a copywriter and responsible editor for the "Echo Continental" of the Continental rubber works. He begins to travel, gets to know Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Italy, England, Belgium and Turkey. In 1925 he moved to the capital Berlin. Here he earns his money as an editor of the magazine "Sport im Bild". Shortly thereafter he married the dancer Jutta Ilse Zambona for the first time. A second time will follow.
"Nothing new in the West":Classics written after work
S. Fischer Verlag rejects the book, and Ullstein Verlag finally turns it into a piece of world literature.After the office closes, a decade after his bad experiences as a soldier, he writes the anti-war novel "Nothing New in the West". In 1928 he initially offered the work to S. Fischer Verlag. He thinks the topic is no longer relevant and rejects it. The Ullstein Group has a happier hand:it signs the work and the author. The novel appears as a preprint in the "Vossische Zeitung", which belongs to Ullstein-Verlag, and then as a book on January 29, 1929. "Nothing New in the West" becomes the greatest success in German literary history up to that point - also because of intensive marketing. The book is translated into 26 languages in the first year. In the summer of 1930, a million copies had already been sold in Germany.
"I always thought everyone was against war"
War opponent Erich Maria Remarque, here around 1930, is a thorn in the side of the Nazis.It's the time when the National Socialists are preparing to take power - and they don't like the book's success. "I always thought everyone was against the war. Until I found out that there are those who are in favor of it. Especially those who don't have to go inside," Remarque later says. National Socialists spread the word that Remarque was actually called Kramer. He should be seen as a liar. They also claim that Remarque is a French Jew and never served as a soldier in World War I.
"Not New in the West" film adaptation after just one year
In 1930, "All Quiet on the Western Front" was filmed in the USA.Meanwhile, an American company is already filming the novel "Nothing New on the West." There was trouble at the premiere in Berlin in 1930. Goebbels, Gauleiter on site at the time, caused the event to be massively disrupted. In December, the Film Oberprüfstelle Berlin bans the film. A few weeks later, Remarque from abroad is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. But this goes to the pacifists Jane Addams and Nicholas Murray Butler.
Remarque goes into exile in Switzerland
In 1931 Remarque bought this villa on Lake Maggiore in Switzerland and moved there.Remarque is divorced from his wife for the time being and travels abroad a lot. In 1931 he bought a villa on Lake Maggiore in Switzerland. There he meets Thomas Mann, Carl Zuckmayer, Else Lasker-Schüler and other authors who have left Germany. "Nothing New in the West" was planned by Remarque as part of a trilogy. In 1931 "The Way Back" was published, the second part. In May 1933, Remarques books were burned in public at the University of Berlin. He continued to live in Switzerland and published the third part of his trilogy in 1937:"Three Comrades". In 1938 the National Socialists revoked his German citizenship. Remarque has now married his first wife for the second time, although he is also in a relationship with Marlene Dietrich.
When World War II begins, the Remarques move to the United States. Here the author meets many publishers and film producers. Movie theater owner and producer Joseph Kennedy, father of the later US President, helped him to establish himself.
Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo &Co.:Chaos in love life
Marlene Dietrich and Erich Maria Remarque were a couple for three years and wrote hundreds of letters to each other.The traumatized war invalid from Osnabrück has become an attractive man of the world, despite the depression that keeps catching up with him. Married to a dancer, in a relationship with Marlene Dietrich and also in a relationship with a photo model, he met the Hollywood star Paulette Goddard, Charlie Chaplin's former wife, in 1940. 18 years later he will marry her. But for the time being, he is also fascinated by Greta Garbo, with whom he soon also begins a close relationship. This is how it goes. Remarque is acquainted with many creative people, meets numerous interesting women. He has no order in his relationships. But that doesn't harm creativity.
Eight film adaptations and one theatrical success
On February 25, 1958, Remarque and Paulette Goddard were married - it was his third marriage."Flotsam", a novel about German refugees, was published in English in the USA in 1941. The fates of refugees are also at the center of the novel "Arc de Triomphe", which was first published in English in 1946. This book will be a worldwide success again. With the later novels "The Spark of Life", "Time to Live and Time to Die", "The Black Obelisk", "The Night of Lisbon" this no longer works. And yet eight works by Remarque are filmed. He was also successful with his 1956 play "The Last Station".
Late honor in Germany
Germany is now proud of him, the US citizen who lives a lot in Switzerland. In 1964 Remarque received the Justus Möser Medal from his native town of Osnabrück, and in 1967 the Great Federal Cross of Merit. In 1968 Remarque was accepted as a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry. This honor in particular is said to have made the 70-year-old very happy. He has been seriously ill for a long time and has suffered several heart attacks. Remarque dies in a clinic in Locarno on September 25, 1970.
Every two years since 1991, the city of Osnabrück has awarded the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize, which is endowed with 25,000 euros. The award is given to works of fiction, science or journalism that deal with the topic of peace. In 2019, the prize was awarded to the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.