Еrich Maria Remarque

(1898 – 1970)

- Born Erich Paul Remark on 22 June 1898. in Osnabruck, a town in Germany near Munster

- Belonged to a lower-class family

- His mother was a housewife, therefore, his father, a bookbinder had to support little Eric and his two sisters.

- His childhood was poor

- The Remark family could not afford a house of its own, and by the time young Erich was 14, his family switched over 9 apartments.

- Also, by the time he reached 14, he started writing essays, poems and, the most important thing – a diary, which will soon become material for his anti-war novels.

-When he turned 15, he joined a poets society, along with his friends

- The central figure of the group, called “Die Traumbude”, or “The Dream Room” was Franz Hörstemeier (on the left).

- Hörstemeier will later become a model for Remark’s lifestyle, for he was also his best friend.

- Hörstemeier was a hard-drinker, even though he led a quiet and modest life of a poet and a painter.

- In this period, Remark’s main form of expressing himself was writing poetry, which he never took seriously, for it was merely an adolescent’s way of expressing himself.

- Once he turned 18 years old, in 1916. he was recruited and sent to the Western Front, in Belgium and France.

- Even in war, he could not live without a friend dog, so he “adopted” Wolf (on the picture) whom he found homeless in Belgium and with whom he returned home in 1918.

- Remark went to join the army along with his classmates from High School. 34 of them left, and Remark was the only one to return alive.

- He was “lucky” to get wounded by a schrapnell in the trench, so he was hospitalized until the late days of the war, so technically, he spent almost a year in the hospital.

- His friend, Fritz Hörstemeier was in his squad, and was killed. That is the part in his diary where he emphasizes the fact that Wolf was his only company at the time.

-After he had returned home, he found a job as a librarian, which he left soon, to get involved in black market and smuggling food and cigarettes, for Germany was slowly, but certainly collapsing, and such goods were a rarity.

- After that, he became a teacher, the only job that would pay off, and for which a war veteran was capable to do on a short notice.

- However, he would not find his peace, and he changed his profession once more, only to become a writing technician for Continental Rubber Company.

- Soon after, in 1925. he married Jutta Ilse Zambona (on the picture), an actress and a dancer.

-Their marriage was passionate, but not monogamous, since both of them had lovers outside the marriage, but none of them cared for that.

-After being even a race-car test driver for the same company, Remark decided to become a journalist. As such, he visited many European countries, such as Italy, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, England, Turkey… This was merely a continuing of his everlasting search for home (which he never had).

- In 1929. he published “All Quiet on the Western Front”, which will be sold in over 2 million copies worldwide in less than a year. He published it under the name of Erich Maria Remarque, where he changed his middle name to Maria, after his mother, and spelled his name as his grandparents did (they had French origins).

- All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that tells a story of Paul Baumer and his generation that went to fight in the World War I, not knowing why, facing the cruelties of the war and the absence of sense and logic where only instincts can save your life.

- Needless to say that the novel is autobiographic (the main character is even named Paul, which was Remarque’s birth middle name).

-Film was made by the novel, (1930) and it was the third movie in the history of Academy Awards to win a Best Picture Oscar.

-Remarque was often criticized for his simple writing style, even though he was a master of describing the surroundings of the scene, not to mention his rich vocabulary only journalists posess.

- The following year, he divorced Jutta.

- In 1931. he published his second novel, “The Road Back”, a story of soldiers coming back from war, a generation lost in the massacre which can do nothing but fight and kill. This is yet another autobiographical novel, in which Remarque describes his visit to school, and becoming a teacher, as well as losing the few of his friends he had left, since many of them committed suicide, unable to bear the consequences of the war.

-Apparently, that year would be the last one he would live in peace for a long time.

- Soon after the filming of The Road Back, Remarque bought himself a villa in Porto Ronco, in Switzerland, where he moved, evading the rising power of the Nazis.

- In Switzerland, he lived with Marlene Dietrich (pictured on the right with Remarque) for almost 5 years. Their relationship had almost led to marriage a lot times, but neither of them wanted to do it.

- When the Nazi party came to the throne of Germany, they ordered public burning of all of Remarque’s books. He was declared a national enemy, his passport and citizenship were annuled. Remarque could now never return to Germany.

-In the meantime, two of his other published novels Three Comrades (1937) and Love Thy Neighbor (1941) were filmed and proven to be extremely successful, both artistically and economically.

- Three Comrades (cast from the film on the left) is a story that can be seen as a final part of the war trilogy (even though all of his novels are connected in a way). It is a telling of the three friends from the war who run a small mechanic shop during the Great Depression, as well as tragic love between one of them and a girl suffering from tuberculosis.

- Love Thy Neighbor is a unique story of a Jewish runaway who has been banished from Germany for his origin, and who now wanders the European countries without passport which meant a right to live. In this novel, Remarque emphasizes the meaningless of life without a piece of paper with your name and picture on it.

- Picture on the left shows numerous fake passports and ID’s Remarque used in order to get to Portugal, from where he sailed to Panama, where he was granted asulym, along with his wife whom he re-married, Jutta Ilse Zambona. Their marriage was now merely a formality, a way for her to get out of war-torn Europe.

- The next station for Remarque was Hollywood, where he managed to settle after Marlene Dietrich intervened with the American authorities.

- In Hollywood, Remarque led a boemic and loose life. The only changes that would now occur to him where when he would taste new sorts of alcohol and actresses, which Hollywood was full of.

- While there, he spent time with many German writers on the run from Nazis, such as Thomas Mann and Bertold Brecht, who had effect on him to turn back to writing.

- Back in Germany, the Nazis would not cease to pursue his relatives and destroy every trace that was left of his existence. Therefore, in 1943. his older sister, Elfriede (on the picture), was guillotined after being charged for treason.

- In 1945. after the end of the World War II, Remarque came back to the literary world with his magnificent novel Arch of Triumph, which tells a story of a surgeon of Jewish origin, who lived underground in Paris, operating instead of famous French surgeons in order to survive. It also covers the beginning of the WWII in Paris, and is also a tragic love story between the surgeon and an actress.

- The novel was filmed as well, starring Ingrid Bergmann and Charles Boyer.

- It is also interesting to list only known love affairs of Remarque’s, all supreme actresses, such as: Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich (once again), Lupe Velez, Ingrid Bergmann, Margaret Sullavan, Paulette Goddard…

-The picture features Remarque with two young women circa 1944. That was the age of his alcohol abuse.

- In 1948. he received American citizenship, but still did not have sense of home. He lived in a foreign country, and his constant usage of alcohol and short and meaningless relationships with various women were a way of self-destruction.

- In 1957. he divorced Juta Ilse Zambona, this time for good. Since this did not help his image of a drunk, Remarque found his peace with Paulette Goddard, whom he married in 1958.

- The same year they moved to Locarno, where they would remain until his death.

- However, until then, he made his living by publishing three eponymous novels.

- First one of them, published in 1952. Spark of Life is a horrific story of a fictional concentration camp in Germany during the last days of WWII with the dying prisoners as main characters and their showing of strength to rise against for the last time before the SS troops kill them all.

- The second one, A Time to Live and a Time to Die, published 2 years later, was also a WWII story, of a soldier who comes on a leave during the last year of the war, only to find his town destroyed by the bombings by Allied troops. Another love story and horrors of the civillian “Nazi Germany”.

- The third, and maybe the best out of the three is the Black Obelisk, a tragicomedy set up in Germany during the Great Depression, in which Remarque explores the causes that led to the rise of the Nazis in 1920s.

- Paulette Goddard had completely changed him. He became a reasonable and ellegant man. While they lived in Locarno, mainly during the 60s, Remarque had a fine collection of artworks, including Cezanne, Dega, Renoir, Rubens, and his favourite: Van Gogh.

- Remarque also collected racing cars, they were his passion ever since he worked as a test driver. And that part of his history inspired him to write Heaven Has no Favourites, and publish it in 1961. Chronologically, it would fit at the end of his bibliography, since it is post WWII era, featuring a race-car driver who falls in love with a woman suffering (yet again) from tuberculosis. The novel was later filmed as Bobby Deerfield, starring Al Pacino.

-A year later, in 1962. he wrote Night in Lisbon, a 1942. story of a man who wants to emmigrate to the USA, but has no passport. A stranger offers him his passport, visa, money and tickets if he would listen to his story.

- By his death, Remarque wrote another two novels, The Promised Land, which could be treated as a sequel to the Night in Lisbon. It is his only novel not to be translated into any language other than German, for it was his last will, at least they say so. However, the novel that was published posthumously, Shadows in Paradise, perhaps the crown of his literary life, is a tale of an immigrant in the USA who falls in love with an actress of russian origin, but fails to keep her, not realizing she was the best thing that happened to him.

-Remarque’s works are filled with his own experiences. He was a soldier, a journalist, a test car driver, a librarian, a teacher, an immigrant, man who was stripped of his citizenship and right to live, man who could never find home, for he never had one. He could never love a woman truly for his youth was stopped when it was at its best, and he was sent to fight in the war that did not concern him in no way. 20 year old man came back home not knowing what to do, therefore, he wrote what will become the greatest anti-war novel of all times. Remarque lived through almost every one of his novels. Only after you read them all can you understand the man Erich Maria Remarque was.

- He left 12 novels, the chronicles of the horrors the 20th century brought with it, and he tried to define man who wanted to live free in a century where no freedom was allowed. He was trying to define himself: a member of a generation lost in the trenches of the Western Front.