What was the name of the remark full name. Erich Maria Remarque - biography and facts about the writer

The real name of the writer is Erich Paul Remarque.

Erich Remarque was born on June 22, 1898, in the provincial town of Osnabrück (Germany), into a Catholic family. His father, Peter Franz Remarque, worked as a bookbinder. The writer's mother, Anna Maria Remarque, raised children. Erich had two sisters, Erna and Elfrida, and a brother, Theodore, who was destined to live only five years.

From 1904 to 1912, Remarque studied at public schools - Domshule and Johannisshule. Then he receives a three-year preparatory stage for studying at the Catholic Teachers' Seminary, which trains teachers of public schools. From 1915, before being drafted into the army, Remarque studied at the teacher's seminary in Osnabrück. An important role in the life of Remarque was played by the artist, poet and philosopher, Fritz Hörstemeyer. In his circle, "Shelter of Dreams", Remarque, together with everyone, discussed, developed artistic and philosophical views on the problems of being. The entire classical and romantic period in German literature was a miracle for the young Remarque. He carried these books with him and constantly reread them.

The first publication of the writer about the joys and worries of youthful life came out when the writer was 18 years old.

In 1916, Remarque was drafted into the army; On June 17 of the same year, he was sent to the Western Front. A year later, he is wounded in the neck and arms, as a result of grenade fragments hit him. One wound turned out to be so serious that for many years it reminded of itself. In the same year, Remarque's mother dies. In 1918, the writer was discharged from the infirmary and transferred to a reserve battalion of an infantry regiment. Remarque continues his studies at the Catholic Teachers' Seminary, is the secretary of the student association. At the age of nineteen, Remarque, now a former soldier, began to think about how to transform the impressions received into a “novel”, turning to his comrades who still remained in the trenches for help. The attempt to create a literary text dragged on for ten years.

After passing the teacher's qualification exam, Remarque works as a teacher in various schools. After the end of the war, Remarque had to master various professions - an accountant, correspondent, employee, journalist. He writes reviews for newspapers, composes short stories and poems for the Schönheit magazine. At this time, his novel "Shelter of Dreams" was published.

In 1921, Remarque wrote a desperate letter to Stefan Zweig asking for an impartial assessment of his literary ambitions and merits. Zweig answered the completely unfamiliar author with understanding and benevolence.

In 1922, Remarque moved to Hanover to take the place (until 1924) of the editor of the Echo Continental magazine. In it, for the first time, he signs the name Erich Maria Remarque - Remark. Throughout the year, the writer has been working on the novel "Gam".

In 1924, Remarque met with Edith Derry, the daughter of Kurt Dery, the founder of the Sport im Bild publication. Subsequently, Edith will contribute to Remarque's move to Berlin. Their marriage did not take place, because. the girl's parents prevented this. Soon Remarque marries the dancer Ilse Yutte (Jeanne) Zambona. Big-eyed, thin Jutta - she suffered from tuberculosis - will become the prototype for several of his literary heroines, including Pat from "Three Comrades".

In 1928, Remarque became the editor-in-chief of the Berlin magazine "Sport im Bild" and the "Journal of High Society". Remarque, together with his predecessor as chief editor, E. Elert, turned the glamorous magazine into the mouthpiece of the leading writers of the Weimar Republic.

From 1916 to 1928, 250 separate publications by Erich Maria Remarque were published.

In 1928, the writer begins work on his main work - All Quiet on the Western Front. The main and best work in Remarque's life was written in four weeks, in the evenings, in his free time from editorial work. Then, for six months, the writer worked on the text. As the writer noted: "The manuscript should lie down."

In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque depicted the tragedy of a generation forced to kill their own kind in order to survive. The soldiers who survived the war could not fully live because of the crippled psyche. Remarque wrote: "The shadows of war overtook us even when we were mentally far from it." In his book, Remarque explains the impending danger - the danger of self-destruction. Awareness of this threat is the first step to overcome it. Subsequently, the writer received confirmation of this in numerous responses to the novel.

The Samuel Fischer Verlag publishing house refuses Remarque to publish a book with comments that no one will be interested in reading about the war. Remarque is helped by his friend, Fritz Meyer, who shows the manuscript to a relative of the Ulsteins. So the novel makes its way, and in August 1928, the Ulstein concern accepts the manuscript All Quiet on the Western Front with the condition that if the novel is unsuccessful, then Remarque will work out his initial fee advance in the concern. A trial fragment of the novel is published in the Vossiye Zeitung newspaper, owned by the concern. Almost immediately, Remarque receives a notification that he has been fired from the post of editor-in-chief.

All Quiet on the Western Front was a huge success. The circulation of the book, in Germany alone, amounted to one million two hundred thousand. To the question - what is the actual total circulation of the book - Remarque found it difficult to answer. Since 1929, the novel has been published with a total circulation of approximately 10 to 30 million copies; has been translated into 50 languages. Already in 1929, the novel appears in Russia. Remarque will say about publications in our country later: “In Russia, everything I write is stolen, publishing my books in colossal editions, they don’t pay money.” Russian publishers turned to Remarque only with requests to write introductions to translations of the novel and send photographs.

And Remarque, after his literary triumph, continued to live in a two-room apartment for several more years; the writer only allowed himself to buy a new car.

From an interview with Remarque: “How funny I would look if I considered one single book a sufficient basis for self-delusion. First, I need to soberly assess my own abilities. And for this I need to work, namely, to work, and not to talk and discuss. In various articles about myself, I come across the expression "successful author Remarque." Hateful word! How I would like to be called "writer Remarque." And that's positive." He knew that a high level of skill was expected of him. And as he himself admitted in an interview with Friedrich Luft, "skill is still missing."

In 1930, Hollywood made a film based on the novel All Quiet on the Western Front. The film received an Oscar. The director of the film is a 35-year-old native of Ukraine, Lev Milshtein, known in the USA as Lewis Milestone. In December 1930, the German premiere took place and, almost immediately, the film was banned by the censor. Goebbels promises Remarque protection from the Nazi Party in return for the fact that the writer will blame the release of the film on "Jewish firms" - the Ulstein concern and Universal. The writer refuses these intrigues.

Remarque is hinted that he needs to write a second book, although his desire has already matured. Remarque's initial creative path was an attempt to grope for his own style, and now, the groped style is fixed in the writer's work and remains almost unchanged. Remarque is eager to write a second book - "Return". Despite the author's suggestion that the new book would be blown to smithereens, the book received positive reviews. A purely human theme was raised in the novel - eighteen-year-old young people, whose lives should be turned to the future, rush towards death.

In 1931, under pressure from the Nazis, Remarque, realizing a threat to his own life, was forced to leave Germany with his wife and move first to Switzerland, to the city of Tessin, and then to France. Remarque opened the gates of his villa in Porto Ronco to provide shelter for German refugees: having received financial assistance, they continued on their way.

In 1933, both Remarque's books were publicly burned. The pacifism of a truthful, cruel book did not please the German authorities. Hitler, who was already gaining strength, declared the writer a French Jew Kramer (reverse reading of the surname Remarque). The writer was also accused of being an agent of the Entente, and that he had stolen the manuscript from a murdered comrade. Remarque never spoke out with a refutation of any lie. In one letter, he wrote: “My surname is Remarque, her family has been wearing it for several hundred years, this surname was corrected only once: according to the German phonetic tradition, “Remarque” appeared in the form of Remark. I am neither Jewish nor leftist. I am a militant pacifist." And after Hitler officially came to power, the novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" was banned as "undermining the national spirit and belittling the heroism of the German soldier."

The new novel "Pat" was completed by the author in 1933; it took another three years for the novel to appear under the new title "Three Comrades". Male friendship and love as a last resort against hostile forces is the tragic concept of the novel.

The main woman in Remarque's life was the famous movie star Marlene Dietrich, whom he met in the south of France. A compatriot of Remarque, she also left Germany, and since 1930 she has been successfully filmed in the USA. Their romance was incredibly painful for the writer, but Remarque was desperately in love.

In 1938, Remarque was officially deprived of citizenship. His ex-wife (divorced 1929), Ilza, was also deprived of citizenship. But he was not threatened with expulsion from Switzerland, which could not be said about his ex-wife, and he remarries her. In 1939, with the help of Dietrich, Remarque received visas to America for himself and Ilse. War in Europe was already on the threshold. In 1941, the writer takes American citizenship, and is already legally residing in the United States. Finally breaking up with Marlene Dietrich, Remarque moved to New York (1942).

In the novels Love thy neighbor (1939-1941) and Arc de Triomphe (1945), Remarque develops the theme of personal revenge. The outcasts of Europe are left with only one choice - "to take their rights into their own hands." In the novel Arc de Triomphe, Remarque gave the main character, named Joan Madou, many of Marlene's features. The novel broke all previous circulation records. Hollywood made a film version of the novel starring Ingrid Bergman.

Remarque turned from a purely German writer into an international writer. Fees flowing to him from all over the world ensured financial independence. In America, the writer supports the victims of National Socialism: he helped the writer, Albert Ehrenstein, until his death.

Only at the beginning of 1946 did Remarque find out that two and a half years ago, on the basis of a denunciation and accusations, the so-called People's Court of Justice sentenced his sister, Elfrida, to death. Judge Roland Freisler said: "Your brother has escaped us, but you will not succeed." Twenty-five years later, a street in her hometown of Osnabrück will be named after Elfriede Scholz.

Remarque started the novel The Spark of Life in 1946; he dedicated it to his executed sister. The novel tells about the crimes of National Socialism on the example of one of the concentration camps. It was the first book about what he himself had not experienced. However, the writer collected such extensive and reliable material, attracted such a number of witnesses that he even had to weed out and limit himself in the selection of information. Every detail of this story is true.

At the peak of the Cold War, the Swiss publisher refused to publish this novel: he was afraid of a boycott of his publishing houses; other publishers pressed for a remake of the novel. But the book was nevertheless printed on the initiative of the publisher Josef Kaspar Witsch (1952). The reaction to the novel was hostile, cautious and reserved. The fact is that Germany wanted to quickly forget the period of time 1933-1945. Forget without repentance...

Since 1948, when Remarque returned to Europe, he spent some time annually in Germany. From the same time, the writer began to collect German textbooks. They are too sparingly about what happened at that time, so the writer writes again and again about old Germany. For thirteen years the writer was prevented from publishing his books in his own country. Remarque had to focus on translations, but not a single translation can match the original in all respects: the rhythm and sound of the native language cannot be translated into a foreign language.

The writer's novels The Spark of Life, A Time to Live and a Time to Die (1954), The Black Obelisk (1956), the play The Last Stop (1956) and the script for the film The Last Act (1955), which depicts Hitler's last days in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery, is the author's effort to educate and re-educate the Germans by purely creative methods. This program continues in the writer's essay "Be vigilant!", "The temptation of the look."

In the 50s, Remarque returned to his original literary delights: “The sky knows no favorites” (Life on loan) (1959-1961), the continuation of the novel “Station on the Horizon” (1927-1928).

Remarque met his future wife, Paulette Godard, in 1951 in New York. Paulette was 40 at the time. Her ex-husbands were the wealthy industrialist Edgar James, the famous Charlie Chaplin and Burges Meredith. Superstar, Clark Gable, offered her a hand and a heart, but Paulette preferred Remarque. The writer believed that this cheerful, clear, spontaneous and uncomplexed woman had character traits that he himself lacked. The writer was happy with her, but wrote in his diary that he suppresses his feelings, forbids himself to feel happiness, as if it were a crime. The novel "A Time to Live and a Time to Die" - a collective image of the "lost generation" of the Second World War" he dedicated to Paulette. A film was made based on the book, in which the writer also took part.

Remarque, against his own will, who became a citizen of the world, lost contact with his homeland for 30 years. And now he himself chose this status: he looked at Germany not only as a German, but also as an American, as a Swiss. He said that the FRG, even 30 years later, had not resolved the issue of the citizenship of emigrants. Remarque considered himself "exiled, deprived of the protection of the law."

The novels "Night in Lisbon" (1961-1962) and "Shadows in Paradise" (1971) Remarque linked with his works about emigration - "Love your neighbor" and "Arc de Triomphe". "Night in Lisbon" was published in Russia on the basis of a publication in the newspaper "Welt am Sontag". Remarque noted that the version that saw the light does not correspond to the author's.

In 1954, Remarque bought a house near Locarno on Lago Maggiore, where he spent the last sixteen years. In the last years of his life, Remarque limited himself to his interviews, where he criticized the practice of rehabilitating Nazi leaders.

The main condition for the existence of self-esteem remained for the writer Remarque the history of his life, closely connected with his undying memories of her.

In 1967, when the German ambassador to Switzerland presented him with the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany, the writer already had two heart attacks. German citizenship was never returned to Remarque. When the writer turned 70, Ascona made Erich Maria Remarque her honorary citizen. Remarque spent the last two winters of his life with Paulette in Rome. In the summer of 1970, the writer's heart failed again, he was admitted to a hospital in Locarno. There Remarque died on September 25. Erich Maria Remarque was buried in the Swiss cemetery of Ronco, in the canton of Ticino.

A year later, the last novel of the writer, Shadows in Paradise, was published.

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One of the popular writers of the German Empire of the twentieth century is Erich Maria Remarque. The publicist, whose statements became immortal, represented the "lost generation" - a period when, at the age of eighteen, very young guys were called to the front, and they were forced to kill. This time later became the main motive and idea of ​​​​the writer's work.

Childhood and youth

Erich Maria Remarque was born on June 22, 1898 in Osnabrück (German Empire). The writer's father worked as a bookbinder, so the house of the future publicist was always full of a large number of books. From an early age, little Erich was fond of literature. Especially the young genius was attracted by creativity, and.

From the biography of the literary genius, it is known that in childhood Remarque was also fond of music, loved to draw, collected butterflies, stones and stamps. Relations with his father were strained due to different views on life. When Erich was nineteen years old, his mother died of cancer, with whom the writer always had a warm, trusting relationship.

Erich Maria studied at a church school, after which the young man entered a Catholic seminary. This was followed by years of study at the Royal Teachers' Seminary. There the writer became a member of a literary circle, in which he found friends and like-minded people.

In 1916 Remarque went to the front. A year later, he received five wounds and spent the rest of the time in the hospital. Upon returning to his native land, Erich equipped an office in his father's house, in which he studied music, drew and wrote. It was here that in 1920 his first work, “The Shelter of Dreams,” was created.

For a year, Erich taught at a local school, but later abandoned this profession. The writer changed many jobs before he began to earn money by writing. So at various times he worked as an accountant, tutor, organist, and even traded tombstones.

In 1922, Remarque left Osnabrück and went to Hannover. There he got a job in the Echo Continental magazine, in which he wrote slogans, PR texts and various articles for a couple of months.

It is known that Erich also published in other magazines. So work in the publication "Sport im Bild" opened the door to the literary world for him. In 1925, the self-taught journalist left for Berlin to become the editor of the magazine's illustrations.

Literature

In 1928, Stopping at the Horizon was published. According to a friend of the writer, it was a book about first-class radiators and beautiful women. A year later, the novel All Quiet on the Western Front saw the light of day. Remarque in it described all the horror and ruthlessness of the war through the eyes of a nineteen-year-old youth.

The work was translated into thirty-six languages, it was published forty times. In Germany, the book made a splash (one million copies were sold in a year). In the 1930s, based on the work, a film was made.

1931 was marked by the publication of the novel "Return", which tells about the life of yesterday's schoolchildren who returned from the war. Five years later, the book "Three Comrades" appears on the shelves. It was published in Danish and English.

In 1938, Remarque began work on the work Love thy neighbor, which was completed in 1939. At the same time, Collier's magazine began to print the writer's creation in parts.

In May 1946, the novel Arc de Triomphe was published in Zurich in German, and in the middle of summer Remarque completed work on the work The Spark of Life. The following year, the premiere of a new film based on the story "The Other Side" (the picture was called "Another Love") took place.

1950 was the year of breaking off relations with Natasha Pale (Brown) after ten years of constant meetings, quarrels and reconciliations. In the same period, work began on the novel The Promised Land (Shadows in Paradise) and The Black Obelisk.

In 1954, the anti-war novel A Time to Live and a Time to Die was published, in 1959 the Hamburg magazine Kristall published the work Life on Borrowed, and in 1962 a separate edition of the novel Night in Lisbon appeared on the shelves.

Personal life

In 1925, Remarque reached Berlin. There, the daughter of the publisher of a prestigious magazine, in which he worked for a short time, fell in love with a handsome provincial. True, the girl's parents prevented their wedding, despite the fact that the writer received an editor's position in the publication.

Soon, Erich married the dancer Ilsa Jutta Zambone, with whom the marriage lasted four years. The big-eyed, thin young lady became the prototype for a couple of his literary heroines, including Pat from Three Comrades.

Then the metropolitan journalist behaved as if he wanted to quickly forget his raznochinnoy past: he dressed elegantly, wore a monocle, often attended concerts, theaters, fashionable restaurants with his wife, and even bought a baronial title from an impoverished aristocrat for 500 marks.

In January 1933, on the eve of coming to power, Remarque's friend advised the writer to leave the city as soon as possible. Erich immediately got into the car and, in what he was, left for Switzerland. In May of the same year, the Nazis betrayed the novel All Quiet on the Western Front to public burning, and its author was deprived of German citizenship.

In 1938, the writer made a noble deed. To help his ex-wife Jutta get out of Germany and give her the opportunity to live in Switzerland, he again entered into a marriage with her, which was annulled only in 1957.

The main woman in the life of the writer was the famous movie star, who is the prototype of the heroine of the novel "Arc de Triomphe" - Joan Madu. A compatriot of Remarque, she also left Germany and since 1930 has been successfully filmed in the United States. From the point of view of generally accepted morality, Marlene did not shine with virtue.

Their romance was incredibly painful for the writer. Marlene came to France with her teenage daughter, husband and husband's mistress. It was said that the bisexual actress, whom Remarque nicknamed Puma, cohabited with both of them. In front of Remarque, she also made a connection with a wealthy lesbian from America.

Because of his love bordering on insanity, Erich was ready to forgive the artist everything, starting life from a blank sheet. When the literary genius proposed to Marlene to marry him, the woman told the unfortunate gentleman that she had an abortion. The father of the child was actor Jimmy Stewart, with whom the freedom-loving person starred in the film Destry Back in the Saddle.

When Dietrich learned that Remarque had moved a collection of paintings to America (including 22 works), Marlene wished to receive at least one painting as a birthday present. After countless humiliations, Remarque had the courage to refuse.

It is worth noting that in Hollywood the writer did not feel like an outcast. His financial affairs were excellent. He was successful with famous actresses, among whom was the famous one. True, the tinsel shine of the film capital irritated Remarque. People seemed to him false and exorbitantly conceited.

Finally breaking up with Marlene, he moved to New York. Here in 1945 the Arc de Triomphe was completed. Impressed by the death of his sister, he began to work on the novel The Spark of Life, dedicated to her memory. It was the first book about what he himself had not experienced - about a Nazi concentration camp.

In 1951, in New York, the writer met Paulette Godard, who at that time was 40 years old. Her maternal ancestors were descended from American farmers, emigrants from England, and on her paternal side were Jews.

In 1957, Remarque officially divorced Jutta, paying her $25,000 and assigning her a lifetime allowance of $800 per month. The following year, Remarque and Goddard legalized relations.

Death

Remarque spent the last two winters of his life with Paulette in Rome. In the summer of 1970, the writer's heart failed again, and he was admitted to a hospital in Locarno. There, the writer died on September 25 of the same year. The grave of the creator of the work "Spark of Life" is located in the Swiss cemetery of Ronco.

It is known that on the day of the funeral, the ex-wife sent roses to the ex-wife, but Goddard did not put them on the coffin.

For the first 5 years after the death of her husband, Paulette was diligently engaged in his affairs, publications, staging plays. In 1975, she became seriously ill. The tumor in the breast was removed too radically (several ribs were taken out), and the woman's hand swelled up.

The writer's beloved lived another 15 years, but those were sad years. Paulette became strange, moody, and took too many medications. During another depression, the young lady donated $ 20 million to New York University, and then began to sell the collection of Impressionist paintings collected by Remarque.

It is also known that the ex-wife repeatedly tried to commit suicide. The owner of the house in New York, where she rented an apartment, did not want to rent housing to an alcoholic and asked her to leave for Switzerland.

On April 23, 1990, Paulette demanded that she be given an auction catalog in bed that sold her jewelry that day. The sale brought $ 1 million, and 3 hours after the end of the auction, the actress died. The Oscar nominee was buried next to her husband at the Ronco cemetery in Switzerland.

Bibliography

• 1920 - Shelter of Dreams
• 1924 - "Gam"
• 1927 - "Station on the horizon"
• 1929 - All Quiet on the Western Front
• 1931 - "Return"
• 1936 - "Three comrades"
• 1941 - "Love your neighbor"
• 1945 - "Arc de Triomphe
• 1952 - "Spark of Life"
• 1954 - "Time to live and time to die"
• 1956 - Black Obelisk
• 1959 - "Life on loan"
• 1962 - Night in Lisbon

Quotes

“The greatest hatred arises for those who managed to touch the heart, and then spit in the soul”

"The most wonderful city is the one where a person is happy"

“Love does not tolerate explanations. She needs action."

“It is a mistake to assume that all people have the same ability to feel”

“It is better to die when you want to live than to live to the point that you want to die”

😉 Hello my dear readers! In the article "Erich Maria Remarque: biography, interesting facts" - the main stages in the life of an outstanding German writer.

One of the popular writers of the German Empire of the twentieth century is undoubtedly Remarque. He represented the "lost generation" - a period when, at the age of eighteen, very young guys were called to the front, and they were forced to kill. This time later became the main motive and idea of ​​​​the writer's work.

Biography of Remarque

In the city of Osnabrück of the German Empire on June 22 (zodiac sign - Cancer), 1898, the future literary genius, Erich Paul Remarque, was born into a large family.

His father worked as a bookbinder, so their house was always full of lots of books. From an early age, little Erich was fond of literature and read with enthusiasm a lot and often. He was especially attracted by the work of Goethe, Marcel Proust.

As a child, he was fond of music, loved to draw, collected butterflies, stones and stamps. Relations with his father were difficult, they had different views on life with him. With his mother, everything was different - he did not look for souls in her. When Erich Paul was nineteen years old, she died of cancer.

Erich was very upset by the loss. This tragedy prompted him to change his name from Paul to Maria (that was the name of his mother).

Erich Maria studied at a church school (1904). Upon graduation, he entered a Catholic seminary (1912), followed by years of study at the Royal Teachers' Seminary.

Here the writer becomes a member of one of the literary circles, where he finds friends and like-minded people. In 1916, Remarque went to the front. A year later, he received five wounds, and the rest of the time he was in the hospital.

The beginning of creativity

In his father's house, Erich equipped a small study where he studied music, drew and wrote. It was here in 1920 that his first work, Shelter of Dreams, was written. For a year he worked as a teacher in Lohne, but later abandoned this profession.

He changed many jobs in his city before he began to earn money from writing. Erich worked as an accountant, taught to play the piano, worked as an organist in the chapel, and even was a seller of tombstones.

In 1922 he leaves Osnabrück for Hannover, where he begins work for the Echo Continental magazine. He wrote slogans, PR texts and various articles. Remarque was also published in other journals.

Work in the magazine "Sport im Bild" opened the door to the literary world for him. In 1925 he went to Berlin and began working as an illustration editor for this magazine. His novel "Station on the Horizon" is being printed here.

In 1926, one of the magazines published his novels From Youthful Times and The Woman with Golden Eyes. This was the beginning of his creative path. From that moment on, he did not stop writing, creating new masterpieces.

Literary career

In 1929, the novel All Quiet on the Western Front was published. Remarque in it described all the horror and ruthlessness of the war through the eyes of a nineteen-year-old youth. The work was translated into thirty-six languages, it was published forty times.

In Germany, the book made a splash. More than one million of its copies were sold in just one year.

In 1930, for this book, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize. However, the German officers were against this, as they believed that this work offended their army. Therefore, the proposal for the award was rejected by the committee.

In the same period, based on the novel, a film was made. This allowed the writer to get rich, and he began to buy paintings by Renoir, Van Gogh and other artists. In 1932 he left Germany and settled in Switzerland.

In 1936, another work of the writer was published, which became popular - "Three Comrades". It was published in Danish and English. Based on the novel A Time to Live and a Time to Die, a film was made in which Erich plays in one of the episodes. In 1967, for his services, the writer was awarded the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Meser medal.

Remarque: personal life

The first wife - Ilsa Jutta Zambona was a dancer. They cheated on each other, so their marriage lasted only four years. In 1937, Remarque began a passionate affair with a popular actress

Marlene Dietrich and Erich Maria Remarque

She helped the writer get an American visa, and he went to Hollywood. Here his life was quite bohemian. A lot of money, alcohol and various women, including

Paulette Goddard and Erich Maria Remarque

In 1957 he married the actress Paulette Goddard, an ex-wife with whom he remained until his death. She had a positive effect on her husband, helped restore strength and get rid of depression.

Thanks to Paulette, he was able to continue his writing career. In total, he wrote 15 novels, 6 short stories, a play, and a screenplay.

The literary genius died at the age of seventy-three in 1970 in Switzerland, where he was buried. Paulette, who died twenty years later, rests next to him.

Erich Maria Remarque: biography (video)

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.

June 22, 1898 was born Erich Maria Remarque, a German writer, author of famous works about the First and Second World Wars, a representative of the "lost generation".

First novel

Erich Paul Remarque was born in the family of a bookbinder in Prussia. The middle name - Maria - in the creative pseudonym took on the second name of the mother. From childhood he was fond of literature. A graduate of a Catholic school, a former seminarian, in 1916 he was drafted into the army on the Western Front. He served in the excavation company. After a shrapnel wound to the arms and neck, the German command did not return Remarque to the front. Erich remained a clerk at the hospital. In letters home, he said that he now lives well, walks in the garden, they feed heartily, you can go out wherever you want. But there was something else. He wrote that sometimes it seems like a crime to sit like this in warmth and silence. Remarque's novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" appeared in 1928, much of it is based on autobiographical episodes of the author's life. The publishers did not believe that anyone could be interested in a novel about the war, but, published in 1929, it immediately aroused heated discussions. It was discussed on the pages of periodicals, at rallies, Austria even banned the novel for soldiers' libraries, and made every effort to prevent the book from crossing the Italian border. In 1930, the American film adaptation of this novel saw the light of day. The Nazis in Germany had not yet come to power, but they had enough power to disrupt film screenings, and eventually got the film banned. The fact is that the novel was perceived as undermining the patriotic spirit of the youth and the entire nation, as well as the desire for a feat. Remarque noted that he was driven by love for the motherland in the broadest, and not narrow, chauvinistic sense. in Berlin, among other "harmful" books, Remarque's books were also burned. By that time, he had already moved to Switzerland.

Second war

In 1941, his first anti-fascist novel, Love Thy Neighbor, was published, describing the suffering of Jews deprived of their homeland. Remarque lost his sister Elfrida in December 1943, when the Soviet troops were crushing the retreating Germans with might and main. The sister worked as a dressmaker in Germany and, in the presence of a client, spoke sharply about the war and Hitler. A denunciation and a death sentence followed. To some extent, this was the revenge of the Nazi government for the hated writer who managed to escape. Remarque did not immediately find out about the death of his sister: while living in Switzerland, he in every possible way removed himself from international politics. Later in his diary, he admitted that he had given nothing to his family, he could have saved his sister, but he did not want everyone to live at his expense in Switzerland. He dedicated the novel The Spark of Life (1952) to the memory of his sister. Remarque was horrified by the Nazi deeds, along with the whole world, when the liberation of Europe began. At the beginning of 1945, he takes on "A Time to Live and a Time to Die" - an anti-war book about the Russian war against fascism, about ours,. Remarque said that he was writing a "Russian book".

Militant pacifist

In 1944, the US intelligence agencies asked Remarque to express his opinion on the measures that would need to be taken in Germany after the end of the war. Thus he was confronted with the question he intended to approach in his novel. He gave the answer in "Practical educational work in Germany after the war." Here are just the smallest part of his proposals: every German is fully responsible for what happened; the Germans need to be shown all the horrors of Nazi crimes, and the truth should be so shocking that not only the thirst for revenge does not settle in the hearts of the stricken, as happened after the First World War, but also a feeling of horror, shame and hatred for what happened. And you should start from school: destroy the myth about the race of masters, educate humanity (“in order to educate children, you need to educate teachers”). The writer called himself a militant pacifist. Erich Maria Remarque died on September 25, 1970, at the age of 73, in Switzerland. Remarque is attributed to the writers of the “lost generation”, who went through the horrors of the First World War and saw the post-war world by no means as it seemed from the trenches, who created their first books that shocked Western readers between the First and Second World Wars. Ernest Hemingway, Francis Scott Fitzgerald and others are also referred to as writers of the "lost generation".