Profile of Erich Maria Remarque on Famous Like Me

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

Remarque was born in Osnabrück, Germany into a working-class Catholic family. At the age of eighteen he went as a soldier to the front lines of World War I, where he was wounded several times. After the war he worked at a number of different jobs, including librarian, businessman, teacher, and editor.

In 1929, Remarque published his most famous work, All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues), which described the utter cruelty of the war from the perspective of a nineteen-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, and issued propaganda (falsely) stating 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 or evidence to confirm this. 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. He married the Hollywood actress Paulette Goddard in 1958 and they remained married until his death in 1970.

In 1948 he returned to Switzerland, where he spent the rest of his life until his death at age 72. He is interred in the Ronco cemetery in Ronco, Ticino, Switzerland, where Goddard is also interred.

Well-known works

• Im Westen nichts Neues (1929)
• Der Weg zurück (1931)
• Drei Kameraden (1938)
• Liebe deinen Nächsten (1941)
• Arc de Triomphe (1946)
• Der Funke Leben (1952)
• Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben (1954)
• Der schwarze Obelisk (1956)
• Der Himmel kennt keine Günstlinge (1961)
• Die Nacht von Lissabon (1963)
• Schatten im Paradies (published posthumously, 1971)

Remarque in English translation

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• The Road Back
• Three Comrades
• Flotsam (book)
• Arch of Triumph
• The Spark of Life
• Time to Love and a Time to Die
• The Black Obelisk
• Heaven Has No Favorites
• The Night in Lisbon
• Shadows in Paradise
• Full Circle, a play

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