Erich Maria Remarque(born Erich Paul Remarque) is one of the most famous and widely read German writers of the 20th century. In 1939, the writer went to the United States, where in 1947 he received American citizenship. His older sister Elfriede Scholz, who remained in Germany, was arrested for anti-war and anti-Hitler statements. At the trial, she was found guilty and on December 16, 1943 she was executed (guillotined). Remarque dedicated his novel The Spark of Life, published in 1952, to her. 25 years later, a street in her hometown of Osnabrück was named after her.
Born on June 22, 1898 in Germany, in Osnabrück. He was the second of five children of bookbinder Peter Franz Remarque and Anna Maria Remarque.
In 1904 he entered a church school, and in 1915 - in a Catholic teacher's seminary. From childhood he was interested in the works of Zweig, Dostoyevsky, Thomas Mann, Goethe and Proust.
In 1916, at the age of 18, he was drafted into the army. After multiple wounds on the Western Front, July 31, 1917 was sent to the hospital, where he spent the rest of the First World War.
After the death of his mother in 1918, he changed his middle name in her honor.
In the period from 1919, he first worked as a teacher, and at the end of 1920 changed many professions, including working as a seller of tombstones and a Sunday organist in the chapel at the hospital for the mentally ill.
In October 1925 he married Ilse Jutta Zambona, a former dancer. Jutta suffered from consumption for many years. She became the prototype for several heroines of the writer's works, including Pat from the novel Three Comrades. The marriage lasted a little over 4 years, after which they divorced. However, in 1938, the writer married Jutta again - to help her get out of Germany and get the opportunity to live in Switzerland, where he himself lived at that time, and later they left for the USA together. Officially, the divorce was issued only in 1957. Until the end of his life, Jutta was paid a cash allowance.
From November 1927 to February 1928, his novel "Station on the Horizon" was published in the magazine Sport im Bild where he worked at the time. In 1929, Remarque published his most famous work, All Quiet on the Western Front, describing the brutality of the war from the perspective of a 19-year-old soldier. Several more anti-war writings followed; in simple, emotional language, they realistically described the war and the post-war period.
In 1933, the Nazis banned and burned the author's works, and announced (although this was a lie) that Remarque was allegedly a descendant of French Jews and his real name was Kramer (the word Remarque spelled backwards). After that, Remarque left Germany and settled in Switzerland.
Erich Maria Remarque(given the name at birth Erich Paul Remarque) is a German writer, one of the most famous and popular national writers of the twentieth century. Born in Saxony, in Osnabrück, June 22, 1898; his father was a bookbinder, and in total there were 5 children in their family. Since 1904, Remarque has been a student of a church school, since 1915 - a Catholic teacher's seminary. In his younger years, Remarque was especially interested in the work of such writers as F. Dostoevsky, Goethe, M. Proust, T. Mann.
In 1916, after graduating from high school as a conscript, he went to the front in the army, where he happened to spend two years. In June 1817, Remarque was on the Western Front, in July he was wounded, and the rest of the war he was treated in a German military hospital. After his mother died in 1918, he changed his middle name in memory of her.
In the years after the war, Erich Maria Remarque tried a variety of activities: he was a teacher, he sold tombstones, he worked as an organist in a chapel on weekends, an accountant, a librarian, a reporter. In 1921, he took the chair of the editor of the Echo Continental. One of his letters contains an indication that at that time he took the literary pseudonym Erich Maria Remarque with a slightly different spelling of the surname from the original.
From the end of the autumn of 1927 to the end of the winter of 1928, the novel "Station on the Horizon" was published in parts in the magazine Sport im Bild, of which he was at that time an editorial staff member. However, real fame, and immediately world-class, came to the writer after the publication in 1929 of the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, in which wartime events, its cruelty, and hard-hitting sides are described through the eyes of a young soldier. In 1930, a film was made based on this novel, which allowed Remarque, along with the income from the book, to become a fairly wealthy person. It is known that he spent quite a lot of money on the acquisition of paintings by famous painters. In 1931, with his novel, Remarque was nominated for the Nobel Prize, but the committee did not accept his candidacy.
In 1932, the writer moved to France, and later to the USA. The Nazis who came to power imposed a ban on Remarque's writings and defiantly set them on fire. After that, living in Germany for Erich Maria became impossible. The elder sister who remained at home was arrested and executed for anti-fascist statements; there is evidence that at the trial regret was expressed at the impossibility of subjecting her brother to the same punishment. The novel "Spark of Life", written in 1952, the writer dedicated to his dead sister.
Since 1939, Remarque lived in America, since 1947 he had the status of a US citizen. During this period of creative activity, the famous novels "Three Comrades" (1938), "Arc de Triomphe" (1946) were written. For some time, Remarque was depressed, he had a period of creative downtime associated with a dramatic novel that appeared in his life after meeting Marlene Dietrich. The meeting in 1951 with the actress Paulette Godard breathed new strength into Remarque and allowed him to return to literary activity, which did not stop until the end of his life. So, in 1956, he wrote the novels "A Time to Live and a Time to Die", "The Black Obelisk", one way or another touching on the theme of the Second World War. In 1958, Remarque married Godard, who remained his companion until his death. From the same year, his biography was associated with Switzerland, where he found his last refuge.
The famous countryman was not forgotten at home. In 1964, he received a medal of honor from a delegation from his hometown. In 1967, the German ambassador to Switzerland presented him with the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany, although Remarque remained without German citizenship. Remarque remained true to the principles of truthful coverage of events and humanity in his latest works: they were the novels Life on Loan (1959) and Night in Lisbon (1963). 72-year-old Erich Maria Remarque died in Locarno, Switzerland in September 1970; they buried him in the canton of Ticino, in the cemetery of Ronco.
Biography from Wikipedia
Erich Maria Remarque(German: Erich Maria Remarque, born Erich Paul Remarque Erich Paul Remark; June 22, 1898, Osnabrück - September 25, 1970, Locarno) - German writer of the XX century, representative of the "lost generation". His novel All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the big three Lost Generation novels published in 1929, along with A Farewell to Arms! Ernest Hemingway and "Death of a Hero" by Richard Aldington.
Erich Paul Remarque was the second of five children of bookbinder Peter Franz Remarque (1867-1954) and Anna Maria Remarque, nee Stalknecht (1871-1917). In his youth, Remarque was fond of the work of Stefan Zweig, Thomas Mann, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Marcel Proust and Johann Wolfgang Goethe. In 1904 he entered a church school, and in 1915 - in a Catholic teacher's seminary.
On November 21, 1916, Remarque was drafted into the army, and on June 17, 1917 he was sent to the Western Front. July 31, 1917 was wounded in the left leg, right arm, neck. He spent the rest of the war in a military hospital in Germany.
After the death of his mother, in her honor, Remarque changed his middle name to Maria. Since 1919, he first worked as a teacher. At the end of 1920, he changed many professions, including working as a seller of tombstones and a Sunday organist in a chapel at a hospital for the mentally ill. The impressions of this period of life subsequently formed the basis of the writer's novel "The Black Obelisk".
In 1921 he began working as an editor in a magazine Echo Continental. At the same time, as one of his letters testifies, he takes a pseudonym Erich Maria Remarque, written according to the rules of French orthography - which is an allusion to the Huguenot origin of the family.
In October 1925, Remarque married Ilsa Jutta Zambona, a former dancer. Jutta suffered from consumption for many years. She became the prototype for several heroines of the writer's works, including Pat from the novel Three Comrades. The marriage lasted a little over four years, after which the couple divorced. In 1938, Remarque married Jutta again - to help her get out of Germany and get the opportunity to live in Switzerland, where he himself lived at that time. They later moved to the US together. Officially, the divorce was issued only in 1957. Remarque paid Jutta a cash allowance until the end of his life, and also bequeathed to her 50 thousand dollars.
From November 1927 to February 1928 his novel station on the horizon» is published in the journal Sport im Bild where the writer worked at the time.
All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 1929, describing the brutality of war from the perspective of a 20-year-old soldier. This was followed by several more anti-war writings: in simple and emotional language, they realistically described the war and the post-war period.
Based on the novel The film of the same name was released in 1930. The profit from the film and book allowed Remarque to earn a decent fortune, a significant part of which he spent on buying paintings by Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Renoir. For this novel, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1931, but when considering the application, the Nobel Committee rejected this proposal. The Union of German Officers protested against the nomination, arguing that the novel offended the German army.
In 1932, Remarque left Germany and settled in Switzerland. In 1933, the Nazis banned, and students burned his works, chanting “No - to the hacks who betray the heroes of the World War. Long live the education of the youth in the spirit of genuine historicism! I set fire to the works of Erich Maria Remarque".
There is a legend that the Nazis declared: Remarque is a descendant of French Jews and his real name is Kramer(the word "Remarque" is reversed). This "fact" is still given in some biographies, despite the complete absence of any evidence to support it. According to data obtained from the Writer's Museum in Osnabrück, Remarque's German origin and Catholic religion have never been in doubt. The propaganda campaign against Remarque was based on changing the spelling of his last name from Remark on Remarque. This fact was used to make claims: a person who changes the spelling of German to French cannot be a real German.
In 1937, Remarque met the famous actress Marlene Dietrich, with whom he began a stormy and painful romance. Many consider Dietrich a prototype Joan Madu- the heroine of the writer's novel "Arc de Triomphe".
In 1939, Remarque went to the United States, where in 1947 he received American citizenship.
His younger sister Elfrida Scholz, who remained in Germany, was arrested in 1943 for anti-war and anti-Hitler statements. At the trial, she was found guilty and guillotined on December 30, 1943. big sister Erne Remarque an invoice was sent to pay for the maintenance of Elfrida in prison, legal proceedings and the execution itself, in the amount of 495 marks and 80 pfennigs, which needed to be transferred to the appropriate account within a week. There is evidence that the judge told her: Your brother unfortunately hid from us, but you can't get away.". Remarque found out about the death of his sister only after the war and dedicated his novel The Spark of Life, published in 1952, to her. 25 years later, a street in her hometown of Osnabrück was named after Remarque's sister.
In 1951, Remarque met Hollywood actress Paulette Goddard (1910-1990), Charlie Chaplin's ex-wife, who helped him recover from his break with Dietrich, cured him of depression and, as Remarque himself said, " had a positive effect on him.". Thanks to improved mental health, the writer was able to finish the novel " spark of life”And continue creative activity until the end of his days. The novel “A Time to Live and a Time to Die” is dedicated to Paulette. She made him happy, but he still could not completely free himself from his former complexes. Remarque tried to suppress his feelings and continued to drink. In his diary, he wrote that, being sober, he could not communicate with people and even with himself.
In 1957, Remarque finally divorced Jutta, and in 1958 he married Paulette. In the same year, Remarque returned to Switzerland, where he lived the rest of his life. He remained with Paulette until his death.
In 1958, Remarque played the cameo role of Professor Polman in the American film A Time to Love and a Time to Die based on his own novel A Time to Live and a Time to Die.
In 1963, Remarque had a stroke. Paulette was in Rome at that time: she starred in a film based on Alberto Moravia's book The Indifferent. Remarque managed to defeat the disease. In 1964, a delegation from the writer's hometown presented him with an honorary medal. Three years later, in 1967, the German ambassador to Switzerland presented him with the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany (but, despite the assignment of these awards, German citizenship was never returned to the writer).
Remarque's health was deteriorating, and in 1967, at the ceremony of presenting the German order, he had another heart attack.
In 1968, on the writer's 70th birthday, the Swiss city of Ascona, where he lived, made him an honorary citizen.
The last two winters of Remarque's life he and Paulette spent in Rome. After another cardiac arrest, in the summer of 1970, Remarque was admitted to a hospital in Locarno.
Erich Maria Remarque died on September 25, 1970, at the age of 73. The writer is buried in the Swiss cemetery "Ronco" in the canton of Ticino. Paulette Goddard, who died twenty years later on April 23, 1990, is buried next to him.
Remarque bequeathed $ 50 thousand to Ilse Jutta, his sister, as well as the housekeeper, who took care of him for many years in Ascona.
Remarque refers to the writers of the "lost generation". This is a group of "angry young people" who went through the horrors of the First World War (and saw the post-war world at all as it was seen from the trenches) and wrote their first books that shocked the Western public. These writers, along with Remarque, included Richard Aldington, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
Selected bibliography
Novels
- Shelter of Dreams (translation option - “Attic of Dreams”) (German: Die Traumbude) (1920)
- Gam (German: Gam) (1924) (published posthumously in 1998)
- Station on the horizon (German: Station am Horizont) (1927)
- All Quiet on the Western Front (German: Im Westen nichts Neues) (1929)
- Return (German: Der Weg zurück) (1931)
- Three Comrades (German: Drei Kameraden) (1936)
- Love thy neighbor (German: Liebe Deinen Nächsten) (1941)
- Arc de Triomphe (German: Arc de Triomphe) (1945)
- Spark of Life (German: Der Funke Leben) (1952)
- A Time to Live and a Time to Die (German: Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben) (1954)
- Black obelisk (German: Der schwarze Obelisk) (1956)
- Borrowed Life (1959):
- German Geborgtes leben - magazine version;
- German Der Himmel kennt keine Günstlinge ("There are no chosen ones for heaven") - full version
- Night in Lisbon (German: Die Nacht von Lissabon) (1962)
- Shadows in Paradise (German: Schatten im Paradies) (published posthumously in 1971. This is an abridged and revised version of the novel The Promised Land by Droemer Knaur.)
- The Promised Land (German: Das gelobte Land) (published posthumously in 1998. The novel remained unfinished.)
stories
Collection "Annette's Love Story" (German: Ein militanter Pazifist):
- Enemy (German Der Feind) (1930-1931)
- Silence around Verdun (German: Schweigen um Verdun) (1930)
- Karl Broeger in Fleury (German: Karl Broeger in Fleury) (1930)
- Josef's wife (German Josefs Frau) (1931)
- Annette's Love Story (German: Die Geschichte von Annettes Liebe) (1931)
- The Strange Fate of Johann Bartok (German Das seltsame Schicksal des Johann Bartok) (1931)
Other
- The Last Act (German: Der letzte Akt) (1955), play
- Last Stop (German: Die letzte Station) (1956), screenplay
- Be carefull!! (German: Seid wachsam!!) (1956)
- Episodes at the Desk (German: Das unbekannte Werk) (1998)
- Tell me that you love me... (German: Sag mir, dass du mich liebst...) (2001)
Data
- At the time of mid-2009, Remarque's works were filmed 19 times. Of these, most All Quiet on the Western Front- three times. Remarque also advised the authors of the script for the military epic "The Longest Day", which tells about the landing of the Allied troops in Normandy.
- The phrase "One death is a tragedy, thousands of deaths are statistics", erroneously attributed to Stalin, is actually taken out of the context of the novel " Black obelisk”, but the writer, in turn, according to some sources, borrowed it from the publicist of the times of the Weimar Republic Tucholsky. The full quote looks like this: It's strange, I think, how many dead we saw during the war - everyone knows that two million fell without meaning and benefit - so why are we now so excited about one death, and almost forgotten about those two million? But, apparently, it always happens: the death of one person is a tragedy, and the death of two million is just a statistic».
Erich Remarque was born in Osnabrück on June 22, 1898. The first education in Remarque's biography was received at a church school. He then studied at a Catholic seminary. In 1916 he went to war and was wounded. In the post-war period, several professions were tried in the biography of Erich Remarque. He was a journalist and correspondent, and also tested himself as a librarian, teacher, accountant.
The first works of Remarque were written in 1916. Later, the writer took the pseudonym Erich Maria Remarque - in honor of the deceased mother. Remarque depicted his impressions of the brutality of the war in the work “All Quiet on the Western Front” in 1929. In addition, he published several more similar works, but they were all burned by the Nazis in 1933. In the same year, Remarque moved to Switzerland.
Remarque wrote the novel Arc de Triomphe in 1945 under the impression of his relationship with Marlene Dietrich. In 1939, in the biography of Erich Maria Remarque, he moved to the United States, where eight years later he received citizenship. In 1958 he married a second time, now to actress Paulette Godard (Remarque's first wife was the dancer Jutta Zambona). Immediately after that, together with his wife, he settled in Switzerland, lived there until the end of his life.
Among other famous works of Erich Maria Remarque: "Three Comrades", "A Time to Live and a Time to Die", "Black Obelisk", "Life on Loan" and many others.
Biography score
New feature! The average rating this biography received. Show rating
The future writer was born in the family of a bookbinder, so from early childhood he had access to any works. When the boy grew up, he began to dream of a career as a teacher, but 1916 made its own adjustments: Remarque became a soldier. In 1917 he was seriously wounded and remained in the hospital until the end of the war. In 1918, the writer learned about the death of his mother and, in memory of her, changed his middle name Paul to Maria.
Ilsa Jutta Zambona is the first wife of the writer Erich Maria Remarque.
After the end of the First World War, Remarque tries to return to normal life, working either as a teacher, or as a tombstone seller, or as a magazine editor. Later, his literary heroes will get the characters of real people with whom the writer happened to encounter. Remarque's first wife, Ilse Jutta Zambona, became the prototype of Pat, the beloved of the protagonist from the novel Three Comrades.
The real relationship between Erich Maria and his wife was not easy. After four years of marriage, a divorce followed, then marriage again (the only way Ilse could leave Germany), and again a divorce.
The novel All Quiet on the Western Front brought Remarque worldwide recognition. The author wrote it literally in one breath - in just 6 weeks. Only in Germany in one year (1929) the book sold 1.5 million copies. The novel described all the horrors and cruelty of the war through the eyes of a 20-year-old soldier. In 1933, the Nazis who came to power decided that a representative of the German race could not have a decadent mood, they declared Remarque a “traitor to the motherland”, deprived him of German citizenship and staged a demonstrative burning of his book.
Erich Maria Remarque and Marlene Dietrich.
A real persecution began on Erich Maria Remarque. The Nazis declared him allegedly a descendant of French Jews. As if he deliberately changed the name "Kramer" and wrote it the other way around - "Remarque". And the author of everything on everything changed the spelling of his surname in the French manner (Remarque). The writer hastily left Germany and settled in Switzerland. For this, the Nazis took revenge on his sister. In 1943, Elvira Scholz was detained for anti-Hitler remarks. At the trial, the woman was taunted: “Unfortunately, your brother hid from us, but you can’t leave.” Remarque's sister was executed by guillotine.
While in Switzerland, Erich Maria Remarque met Marlene Dietrich. It was a passionate, but at the same time painful romance. The windy beauty, then moved away, then brought the writer closer to her. In 1939, they leave together for Hollywood.
Erich Maria Remarque and Paulette Godard.
In America, Erich Maria Remarque continues to create new works, film studios film his five novels. It would seem that what else is needed for happiness ... but the writer gets depressed. From this state he was brought out by a new love - Paulette Godard. Remarque called it salvation. Oddly enough, but the three main women in his life were of the same type: big eyes, chiseled figures, a soulful look.
Erich Maria Remarque and his women.
In 1967, the German ambassador to Switzerland solemnly presented Remarque with the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany. But the whole irony is that after the awarding of awards, German citizenship was never returned to the writer. Erich Maria Remarque died on September 25, 1970 at the age of 72. Marlene Dietrich sent flowers to the writer's funeral, but Paulette Godard did not accept them, remembering how painful Remarque's affair with Marlene Dietrich was.
(ratings: 2
, average: 5,00
out of 5)
Erich Maria Remarque was born on June 22, 1898 in Prussia. As the writer later recalls, little attention was paid to him as a child: his mother was so shocked by the death of his brother Theo that she practically did not pay attention to her other children. Perhaps it was this - that is, in fact, constant loneliness, modesty and insecurity - that made Erich an inquisitive nature.
From childhood, Remarque read absolutely everything that came into his hands. Not understanding books, he literally swallowed the works of both classics and contemporaries. Passionate love for reading awakened in him the desire to become a writer - but his dream was not accepted by his relatives, teachers, or peers. No one became Remarque's mentor, no one suggested which books to give preference to, whose works should be read, and which should be thrown away.
In November 1917, Remarque went to fight. When he returned, he seemed not at all shocked by the front-line events. Rather, on the contrary: it was at this time that writer's eloquence wakes up in him, Remarque begins to tell incredible stories about the war, "confirming" his valor with other people's orders.
The pseudonym "Maria" first appears in 1921. Remarque thus emphasizes the significance of the loss of a mother. At this time, he conquers Berlin at night: he is often seen in brothels, and Erich himself becomes a friend of many priestesses of love.
His book became literally the most famous at the time. She brought him true fame: now Remarque is the most famous German writer. However, political events during this period are so unfavorable that Erich leaves his homeland ... for as much as 20 years.
As for the novel by Remarque and Marlene Dietrich, it was more of a test than a gift of fate. Marlene was charming but fickle. It was this fact that hurt Erich the most. In Paris, where the couple often met, there were always those who wanted to stare at the lovers and gossip.
In 1951, Remarque meets Paulette - his last and true love. Seven years later, the couple got married - this time in the USA. Since then, Remarque has become truly happy, because he found the one he had been looking for all his life. Now Erich no longer communicates with the diary, because he has an interesting interlocutor. Luck smiles at him in creative activity: critics highly appreciated his novels. At the peak of happiness, Remarque's disease again makes itself felt. The last novel, The Promised Land, remained unfinished... On September 25, 1970, the writer died in the Swiss city of Locarno, leaving his beloved Paulette alone.
