Erich Maria Remarque
Photo from the Erich Maria Remarque-Peace Center Osnabrück |
Shortly after his 17th birthday, in 1916, he joined the German army and witnessed first-hand the reality of the battle in World War I. His experiences on the font influenced his work and views for the rest of his life. He made his feelings most most famously known through his first novel, All Quiet on the Western Front in 1929. In 1930 the book was turned into a movie by Lewis Milestone (who would later turn more of his books into films). By the end of the year, however, the film was banned by the Film Review Office in Berlin. Even before that, early in 1929, just a few months after the publication of the book, the nationalistic press issued false propaganda insinuating that Remarque was really a child of French Jews. His real birth name was supposedly Kramer (which, when spelled backwards, gives Remark) -- this lie has never died and if you search Google for Erich Maria Remarque, one of the top ranked web sites offers it as a fact. The persecution continued and in 1933 Remarque's books were publicly burned in Berlin "For literary betrayal of soldiers of the world war, in order to educate the people on how to fight back!" Consequently, Remarque left Germany and emigrated first to Switzerland (he bought a villa there in 1932) and then to the US in 1939.
After World War II, he moved back to Switzerland but he continued to travel to the US. He died on September 25, 1970. He was buried in Ronco in Switzerland.
My favourite book by Remarque so far is The Black Obelisk, which shows a picture of Germany in early 1920's -- a period marked by frustration, collapsed economy and rising nationalism.
For more information, see a website hosted by the University of Osnabrück, which containes a detailed biography, and an extensive list of all writings by Remarque. Alternatively, you may want to consult a briefer article at Wikipedia.
Most of his books are available through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
