Erich Maria Remarque

**Erich Maria Remarque** (22 June 1898 – 25 September 1970) was the pseudonym of **Erich Paul Remark**, a German author.

## Life

Erich Paul Remark was born in Osnabrück, a city in Lower Saxony, Germany.  His parents were of the working-class. The family was Roman Catholic. When he was eighteen, he had to go to war. The Army sent him the front lines of World War I. He was wounded there, by stray shell fragments. After the war, he changed his last name to _Remarque_. This had been the family-name until his grandfather's time. He worked at a number of different jobs. He also took the jobs of librarian, businessman, teacher, journalist and editor, at some time.

In 1929, Remarque published his most famous work, _All Quiet on the Western Front_ (_Im Westen nichts Neues_) under the name _Erich Maria Remarque_. He Changed his middle name to honour his mother. The novel described the utter cruelty of the war from the perspective of a twenty-year-old soldier. A number of similar works followed; in simple, emotive language they realistically described wartime and the postwar years. An opposite view is found in _Storm of Steel_ (_In Stahlgewittern_) by Ernst Jünger.

In 1933, the Nazis banned and burned Remarque's works. They made propaganda materials. In the materials, they said that he was a descendant of French Jews and that his real last name was **Kramer**, his original name spelled backwards. This is still listed in some biographies despite the complete lack of proof. He had been living in Switzerland since 1931, and in 1939 he emigrated to the United States of America with his first wife, **Ilsa Jeanne Zamboui**, whom he married and divorced twice, and they became naturalized citizens of the United States in 1947. In 1948 he went to Switzerland, where he spent the rest of his life. He married the Hollywood actress Paulette Goddard in 1958. He was married to her until his death in 1970, at age 72.  He is buried in the Ronco cemetery in Ronco, Ticino, Switzerland. Goddard is also buried there. Goddard left  $20m to New York University to fund an institute for European study which is named after Remarque.

## Awards

- In 1967, he was awarded the _Great Cross of Merit_ (which is a class of the Bundesverdienstkreuz.  The Bundesverdienstkreuz is the only Order of Merit that Germany currently awards.)
- In 1991, the city of Osnabrück, where he was born, instituted the Erich-Maria-Remarque-Friedenspreis (Peace Prize named after Erich Maria Remarque); It is awarded in the week of his birthday, in the city hall.
- Tony Judt, a historian, founded the Erich-Maria-Remarque institute at the University of New York, in 1995.

## Work

- _Die Traumbude_ (1920) Debut novel
- _Im Westen nichts Neues_ (1929), (_All Quiet on the Western Front_), its _film adaptation_
- _Der Weg zurück_ (1931), (_The Road Back_)
- _Drei Kameraden_ (1937), (_Three Comrades_), its _film adaptation_
- _Liebe deinen Nächsten_ (1941), (_Flotsam_)
- _Arc de Triomphe_ (1946), (_Arch of Triumph_), its film adaptations _Arch of Triumph (1948 film)_ and _Arch of Triumph (1985 film)_
- _Der Funke Leben_ (1952), (_The Spark of Life_)
- _Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben_ (1954), (_A Time to Love and a Time to Die_ )
- _Der schwarze Obelisk_ (1956), (_The Black Obelisk_)
- _Die letzte Station_ (1956, play), (_Full Circle_)
- _Der Himmel kennt keine Günstlinge_ (1961), (_Heaven Has No Favorites_), its film adaptation _Bobby Deerfield_
- _Die Nacht von Lissabon_ (1963), (_The Night in Lisbon_)
- _Schatten im Paradies_ (published posthumously, 1971), (_Shadows in Paradise_)

His books have been translated into at least 58 languages.

## References

- Mariana Parvanova, _"... das Symbol der Ewigkeit ist der Kreis." Eine Untersuchung der Motive in den Romanen von Erich Maria Remarque._ Tenea, Berlin,  (in German)

## Other websites

- Slovak website about Erich Maria Remarque
- picture tomb at Ronco

## Infobox (writer)

- **name**: Erich Maria Remarque
- **image**: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R04034, Erich Maria Remarque (cropped).jpg
- **imagesize**: 220px
- **birth place**: Osnabrück, Germany
- **death place**: Locarno, Switzerland
- **resting place**: Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery
- **occupation**: Novelist
- **nationality**: German people, German
- **notableworks**: _All Quiet on the Western Front_