Context
Erich Maria Remarque was born
in Osnabrück, Germany, in 1898 into
a lower-middle-class family. In 1916, he
was drafted into the German army to fight in World War I, in which
he was badly wounded. Ten years after the war ended, he published Im
Westen Nichts Neues, translated into English a year later
as All Quiet on the Western Front, a novel about
the experiences of ordinary German soldiers during the war.
Though other books, most notably Stephen Crane's The
Red Badge of Courage (1895), had
explored the violence and brutality of war in a realistic light,
the literary tradition of war stories still tended overwhelmingly
toward romanticized ideals of glory, adventure, and honor. In presenting
his grimly realistic version of a soldier's experience, Remarque
stripped the typical romanticism from the war narrative in the staunchly
antiwar All Quiet on the Western Front. The novel
instantly became an international, critically acclaimed success.
An American movie based on the book was released in 1930.
After Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany in the early 1930s, the
fiercely nationalistic Nazi regime attacked All Quiet on
the Western Front and Remarque as unpatriotic. Remarque
made no attempt to resist the Nazis' attacks on his reputation because
he feared retaliation. Despite Nazi hostilities toward him, in 1931 Remarque
published a sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front, entitled The
Road Back, which details the postwar experience of German
citizens. This work provoked further Nazi opposition, and Remarque
fled to Switzerland with his wife, Jutta Zambona, in 1932.
In 1933, the Nazis banned Remarque's two
novels and held a bonfire to burn copies of the books.
Remarque and his wife divorced in Switzerland but eventually remarried
so that she could retain her Swiss residency. In 1939,
he followed the path of many persecuted German intellectuals and immigrated
to the United States, where he obtained citizenship in 1947.
His family was not so lucky: the Nazis killed his sister during World
War II, in part because of her relationship to him. Remarque and
his wife had separated; in 1951, they finally
ended their estranged marriage.
In the Unites States, Remarque had a tempestuous affair
with the actress Marlene Dietrich, which inspired his novel Arch
of Triumph. In 1958, he married
another film star, Paulette Goddard. They eventually left the United
States and moved to Porto Ranco, Switzerland, where Remarque died
on September 25, 1970.
Most of Remarque's novels deal with political and social upheaval
in Europe during the First and Second World Wars. Several of his
novels were adapted to film. However, All Quiet on the Western
Front remains his masterpiece; none of his other works approaches
its critical acclaim and popularity. The novel and its first film
adaptation are still influential as antiwar works and important chronicles
of World War I. One of the remarkable aspects of the book's success
in England and America is that, unlike most other works dealing
with World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front deals
with the experiences of German soldiers—detested enemies of the
English and Americans during World War I and World War II. That
American and English reception of the book was so positive from
the outset testifies to its ability to speak for all soldiers who
suffered through the horrors of World War I.
