Erich Maria Remarque (his real name was Erich Paul Remarque) was born on June 22, 1898 in Osnabrück.
Remarque is a French surname. Erich's great-grandfather was a Frenchman, a blacksmith born in Prussia, near the French border, who married a German woman. Erich was born in 1898 in Osnabrück. His father was a bookbinder. For the son of a craftsman, the path to the gymnasium was closed. The stage directions were Catholic, and Erich entered the Catholic Normal School. He read a lot, loved Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Goethe, Proust, Zweig. At the age of 17 he began to write himself. He joined the literary “Circle of Dreams”, which was led by a local poet - a former painter.
But we would hardly know the writer Remarque today if Erich had not been drafted into the army in 1916. His unit did not end up in the thick of it, on the front line. But he drank through front-line life in three years. He carried a mortally wounded comrade to the hospital. He himself was wounded in the arm, leg and neck.
After the war, the former private behaved strangely, as if asking for trouble - he wore a lieutenant's uniform and an Iron Cross, although he had no awards. Returning to school, he became known as a rebel there, heading the union of students - war veterans. He became a teacher and worked in village schools, but his superiors did not like him because he “could not adapt to those around him” and for his “artistic tendencies.” In his father's house, Erich equipped himself with an office in the turret - there he drew, played the piano, composed and published his first story at his own expense (later he was so ashamed of it that he bought up the entire remaining edition).
Not having settled down in the state teaching field, Remarque left his hometown. At first he had to sell tombstones, but soon he was already working as an advertising writer for a magazine. He led a free, bohemian life, was fond of women, including those of the lowest class. He drank quite a bit. Calvados, which we learned about from his books, was indeed one of his favorite drinks.
In 1925 he reached Berlin. Here the daughter of the publisher of the prestigious magazine “Sports in Illustrations” fell in love with the handsome provincial man. The girl's parents prevented their marriage, but Remarque received an editor's position in the magazine. Soon he married dancer Jutta Zambona. Big-eyed, thin Jutta (she suffered from tuberculosis) would become the prototype of several of his literary heroines, including Pat from Three Comrades.
The capital's journalist behaved as if he wanted to quickly forget his “raznochinsky past.” He dressed elegantly, wore a monocle, and tirelessly attended concerts, theaters, and fashionable restaurants with Jutta. I bought a baronial title from an impoverished aristocrat for 500 marks (he had to formally adopt Erich) and ordered business cards with a crown. He was friends with famous racing drivers. In 1928 he published the novel Stopping on the Horizon. According to one of his friends, it was a book “about first-class radiators and beautiful women.”
And suddenly this dapper and superficial writer, with one spirit, in six weeks, wrote a novel about the war, “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Remarque later said that the novel “wrote itself”). For six months he kept it in his desk, not knowing that he had created the main and best work of his life.
It is curious that Remarque wrote part of the manuscript in the apartment of his friend, the then unemployed actress Leni Riefenstahl. Five years later, Remarque's books will be burned in public squares, and Riefenstahl, having become a documentary director, will make the famous film "Triumph of the Will", glorifying Hitler and Nazism. (She has safely survived to this day and visited Los Angeles. Here a group of her fans honored the 95-year-old woman who put her talent in the service of the monstrous regime and presented her with an award. This, naturally, caused loud protests, especially from Jewish organizations ...)
In defeated Germany, Remarque's anti-war novel became a sensation. One and a half million copies were sold within a year. Since 1929, it has gone through 43 editions all over the world and has been translated into 36 languages. In 1930, Hollywood made a film based on it, which received an Oscar. The director of the film, 35-year-old native of Ukraine Lev Milstein, known in the USA as Lewis Milestone, also received the award.
The pacifism of the truthful, cruel book did not please the German authorities. Conservatives were outraged by the glorification of the soldier who lost the war. Hitler, who was already gaining strength, declared the writer a French Jew, Kramer (a reverse reading of the name Remarque). Remarque stated:
I was neither Jewish nor leftist. I was a militant pacifist.
The literary idols of his youth, Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann, also did not like the book. Mann was irritated by the advertising hype around Remarque and his political passivity.
Remarque was nominated for the Nobel Prize, but the protest of the League of German Officers prevented him. The writer was accused of having written a novel commissioned by the Entente, and of stealing the manuscript from a murdered comrade. He was called a traitor to his homeland, a playboy, a cheap celebrity.
The book and film brought Remarque money, he began collecting carpets and Impressionist paintings. But the attacks brought him to the brink of a nervous breakdown. He still drank a lot. In 1929, his marriage to Jutta broke up due to the endless infidelities of both spouses. The next year, he made, as it turned out, a very right step: on the advice of one of his lovers, an actress, he bought a villa in Italian Switzerland, where he moved his collection of art objects.
In January 1933, on the eve of Hitler's rise to power, Remarque's friend handed him a note in a Berlin bar: “Leave the city immediately.” Remarque got into the car and, in what he was wearing, drove off to Switzerland. In May, the Nazis publicly burned the novel All Quiet on the Western Front "for literary betrayal of the soldiers of the First World War," and its author was soon deprived of German citizenship.
The bustle of metropolitan life gave way to a quiet existence in Switzerland, near the town of Ascona.
Remarque complained of fatigue. He continued to drink heavily, despite his poor health - he suffered from lung disease and nervous eczema. He was in a depressed mood. After the Germans voted for Hitler, he wrote in his diary: “The situation in the world is hopeless, stupid, murderous. Socialism, which mobilized the masses, was destroyed by these same masses. The right to vote, for which they fought so hard, eliminated the fighters themselves. Man is closer to cannibalism, than he thinks."
However, he still worked: he wrote “The Way Home” (the continuation of “All Quiet on the Western Front”), and by 1936 he finished “Three Comrades.” Despite his rejection of fascism, he remained silent and did not denounce it in the press.
In 1938, he committed a noble act. To help his ex-wife Jutta get out of Germany and give her the opportunity to live in Switzerland, he married her again.
But the main woman in his life was the famous film star Marlene Dietrich, whom he met at that time in the south of France. A compatriot of Remarque, she also left Germany and, since 1930, successfully acted in the USA. From the point of view of generally accepted morality, Marlene (just like Remarque) did not shine with virtue. Their romance was incredibly painful for the writer. Marlene came to France with her teenage daughter, her husband Rudolf Sieber and her husband's mistress. They said that the bisexual star, whom Remarque nicknamed Puma, cohabited with both of them. In front of Remarque's eyes, she also started a relationship with a rich lesbian from America.
But the writer was desperately in love and, having started Arc de Triomphe, gave her heroine, Joan Madu, many of the features of Marlene. In 1939, with Dietrich's help, he received a visa to America and went to Hollywood. War in Europe was already on the threshold.
In her book “My Mother Marlene,” Maria Riva, from the words of her mother, Maria Riva conveys how she described her first meeting with Remarque:
“She was sitting with Sternberg at the Venetian Lido for lunch when a strange man approached their table.
Mr. von Sternberg? Dear Madam?
My mother generally didn’t like strangers talking to her, but she was captivated by the man’s deep, expressive voice. She appreciated the fine features of his face, the sensual mouth and the eyes of a bird of prey, whose gaze softened as he bowed to her.
Let me introduce myself. Erich Maria Remarque.
My mother held out her hand to him, which he politely kissed. Von Sternberg motioned for the waiter to bring another chair and suggested:
Won't you come and join us?
Thank you. If my dear lady doesn't mind.
Delighted by his impeccable manners, his mother smiled slightly and motioned for him to sit down with a nod.
“You look too young to write one of the greatest books of our time,” she said, not taking her eyes off him.
Maybe I wrote it just so that one day I could hear you say these words in your magical voice. - Clicking a golden lighter, he brought the fire to her; she covered the flame in his tanned hand with her thin white hands, inhaled deeply the cigarette smoke and with the tip of her tongue flicked a crumb of tobacco from her lower lip...
Von Sternberg, the brilliant director, quietly left. He immediately recognized love at first sight.”
The relationship between Remarque and Marlene, seemingly so natural and easy, was not easy.
Remarque was ready to marry Marlene. But Puma greeted him with a message about her abortion from actor Jimmy Stewart, with whom she had just starred in the film Destry Is Back in the Saddle. The actress's next choice was Jean Gabin, who came to Hollywood when the Germans occupied France. At the same time, having learned that Remarque had transported his collection of paintings to America (including 22 works by Cezanne), Marlene wished to receive Cezanne for her birthday. Remarque had the courage to refuse.
In Hollywood, Remarque did not at all feel like an outcast. He was received like a European celebrity. Five of his books have been made into films, starring major stars. His financial affairs were excellent. He enjoyed success with famous actresses, including the famous Greta Garbo. But the tawdry splendor of the film capital irritated Remarque. People seemed fake and overly vain to him. The local European colony, led by Thomas Mann, did not favor him.
After finally breaking up with Marlene, he moved to New York. The Arc de Triomphe was completed here in 1945. Impressed by his sister's death, he began working on the novel "Spark of Life", dedicated to her memory. This was the first book about something he himself had not experienced - a Nazi concentration camp.
In 1943, by verdict of a fascist court, 43-year-old dressmaker Elfried Scholz, Erich’s sister, was beheaded in a Berlin prison. She was executed "for outrageously fanatical propaganda in favor of the enemy." One of the clients reported: Elfrida said that German soldiers were cannon fodder, Germany was doomed to defeat, and that she would willingly put a bullet in Hitler’s forehead. At the trial and before her execution, Elfrida behaved courageously. The authorities sent her sister an invoice for Elfrida’s detention in prison, trial and execution, and they didn’t even forget the cost of the stamp with the invoice - a total of 495 marks 80 pfennigs.
After 25 years, a street in her hometown of Osnabrück will be named after Elfriede Scholz.
When pronouncing the sentence, the chairman of the court said to the convict:
Your brother, unfortunately, disappeared. But you can't escape from us.
In New York he met the end of the war. His Swiss villa survived. Even his luxury car, which was parked in a Parisian garage, was preserved. Having safely survived the war in America, Remarque and Jutta chose to obtain American citizenship.
The procedure did not go very smoothly. Remarque was groundlessly suspected of sympathizing with Nazism and communism. His “moral character” was also questioned; he was questioned about his divorce from Jutta, about his relationship with Marlene. But in the end, the 49-year-old writer was allowed to become a US citizen.
Then it turned out that America never became his home. He was drawn back to Europe. And even Puma’s sudden offer to start all over again could not keep him overseas. After a 9-year absence, he returned to Switzerland in 1947. I celebrated my 50th birthday (about which I said: “I never thought I would live”) at my villa. He lived in solitude while working on “The Spark of Life.” But he could not stay in one place for long and began to leave the house often. Traveled all over Europe, visited America again. From his Hollywood days he had a lover, Natasha Brown, a Frenchwoman of Russian origin. The affair with her, just like with Marlene, was painful. Meeting in Rome or New York, they immediately began to quarrel.
Remarque's health deteriorated; he fell ill with Meniere's syndrome (a disease of the inner ear leading to imbalance). But the worst thing was mental confusion and depression. Remarque turned to a psychiatrist. Psychoanalysis revealed to him two reasons for his neurasthenia: inflated demands in life and a strong dependence on the love of other people for him. The roots were found in childhood: in the first three years of his life, he was abandoned by his mother, who gave all her affection to Erich’s sick (and soon died) brother. This left him with self-doubt for the rest of his life, the feeling that no one loved him, and a tendency toward masochism in relationships with women. Remarque realized that he was avoiding work because he considered himself a bad writer. In his diary, he complained that he was causing himself anger and shame. The future seemed hopelessly bleak.
But in 1951 in New York he met Paulette Godard. Paulette was 40 years old at the time. Her ancestors on her mother's side came from American farmers, emigrants from England, and on her father's side they were Jews. Her family, as they say today, was “dysfunctional.” Godard's grandfather, a real estate dealer, was abandoned by his grandmother. Their daughter Alta also ran away from her father and in New York married Levi, the son of a cigar factory owner. In 1910, their daughter Marion was born. Soon Alta separated from her husband and went on the run because Levi wanted to take the girl away from her.
Marion grew up very pretty. She was hired as a children's clothing model at the luxury Saks 5 Avenue store. At the age of 15, she was already dancing in the legendary Ziegfeld variety revue and changed her name to Paulette. Ziegfeld beauties often found rich husbands or admirers. Paulette married wealthy industrialist Edgar James a year later. But in 1929 (the same year that Remarque divorced Jutta), the marriage broke up. After the divorce, Paulette received 375 thousand - huge money at that time. Having acquired Parisian toilets and an expensive car, she and her mother set out to storm Hollywood.
Of course, she was hired only as an extra, that is, as a silent extra. But the mysterious beauty, who appeared for the shoot in trousers trimmed with arctic fox and wearing luxurious jewelry, soon attracted the attention of the powers that be. She gained influential patrons - first director Hal Roach, then president of United Artists studio Joe Schenk. One of the founders of this studio was Charles Chaplin. In 1932, Paulette met Chaplin on Schenck's yacht.
Having fallen in love with Paulette, Chaplin did not advertise their marriage, which they secretly entered into 2 years later. But their marriage was already doomed; quarrels and disagreements began. Later she met Remarque.
Paulette, who, according to Remarque, “radiated life,” saved him from depression. The writer believed that this cheerful, clear, spontaneous and uncomplicated woman had character traits that he himself lacked. Thanks to her, he finished "Spark of Life". The novel, where Remarque first equated fascism and communism, was a success. Soon he began work on the novel “A Time to Live and a Time to Die.” “Everything is fine,” the diary entry reads. “No neurasthenia. No feelings of guilt. Paulette works well on me.”
Together with Paulette, he finally decided to go in 1952 to Germany, where he had not been for 30 years. In Osnabrück I met with my father, sister Erna and her family. The city was destroyed and rebuilt. There were still military ruins in Berlin. For Remarque everything was alien and strange, as if in a dream. People seemed like zombies to him. He wrote in his diary about their “raped souls.” The chief of the West Berlin police, who received Remarque at his home, tried to soften the writer’s impression of his homeland, saying that the horrors of Nazism were exaggerated by the press. This left a heavy aftertaste on Remarque’s soul.
Only now has he gotten rid of the obsession named Marlene Dietrich. She and the 52-year-old actress met and had dinner at her home. Then Remarque wrote: “The beautiful legend is no more. It’s all over. Old. Lost. What a terrible word.”
He dedicated “A Time to Live and a Time to Die” to Paulette. I was happy with her, but I couldn’t completely get rid of my previous complexes. He wrote in his diary that he suppresses his feelings, forbids himself to feel happiness, as if it were a crime. That he drinks because he can’t communicate with people sober, even with himself.
In the novel "Black Obelisk" the hero falls in love in pre-war Germany with a patient in a psychiatric hospital suffering from a split personality. This was Remarque's farewell to Jutta, Marlene and his homeland. The novel ends with the phrase: “Night fell over Germany, I left it, and when I returned, it lay in ruins.”
In 1957, Remarque officially divorced Jutta, paying her 25 thousand dollars and assigning a lifetime maintenance of 800 dollars a month. Jutta went to Monte Carlo, where she remained for 18 years until her death. The following year, Remarque and Paulette got married in America.
Hollywood was still faithful to Remarque. “A Time to Live and a Time to Die” was filmed, and Remarque even agreed to play Professor Pohlman himself, a Jew who dies at the hands of the Nazis.
In his next book, “The Sky Has No Favorites,” the writer returned to the theme of his youth - the love of a race car driver and a beautiful woman dying of tuberculosis. In Germany, the book was treated as a lightweight romantic trinket. But the Americans are filming it too, although almost 20 years later. The novel will be turned into the film "Bobby Deerfield" with Al Pacino in the title role.
In 1962, Remarque, visiting Germany again, contrary to his custom, gave an interview on political topics to the magazine Die Welt. He sharply condemned Nazism, recalled the murder of his sister Elfrida and how his citizenship was taken away from him. He reaffirmed his continued pacifist position and opposed the newly built Berlin Wall.
The following year, Paulette filmed in Rome - she played the mother of the heroine, Claudia Cardinale, in the film based on Moravia's novel "Indifferent". At this time, Remarque had a stroke. But he recovered from the illness, and in 1964 he was able to receive a delegation from Osnabrück, which came to Ascona to present him with a medal of honor. He reacted to this without enthusiasm, wrote in his diary that he had nothing to talk about with these people, that he was tired, bored, although he was touched.
Remarque remained more and more in Switzerland, and Paulette continued to travel around the world, and they exchanged romantic letters. He signed them “Your eternal troubadour, husband and admirer.” It seemed to some friends that there was something artificial and feigned in their relationship. If Remarque started drinking while visiting, Paulette would defiantly leave. I hated it when he spoke German. In Ascona, Paulette was disliked for her extravagant style of dressing and was considered arrogant.
Remarque wrote two more books - "Night in Lisbon" and "Shadows in Paradise". But his health was deteriorating. In the same 1967, when the German ambassador to Switzerland presented him with the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany, he had two heart attacks. His German citizenship was never returned to him. But the next year, when he turned 70, Azcona made him her honorary citizen. He did not even allow his former friend from his youth from Osnabrück to write his biography.
Remarque spent the last two winters of his life with Paulette in Rome. In the summer of 1970, his heart failed again and he was admitted to a hospital in Locarno. There he died on September 25. He was buried in Switzerland, modestly. Marlene sent roses. Paulette didn't put them on the coffin.
Afterword...
Marlene later complained to playwright Noël Coward that Remarque left her only one diamond and all the money to “this woman.” In fact, he also bequeathed 50 thousand each to his sister, Jutta, and his housekeeper, who took care of him for many years in Ascona.
For the first 5 years after her husband’s death, Paulette was diligently involved in his affairs, publications, and production of plays. In 1975 she became seriously ill. The tumor in the chest was removed too radically, several ribs were taken out.
She lived another 15 years, but they were sad years. Paulette became strange and capricious. Started drinking and taking too many medications. Donated 20 million to New York University. She began to sell off the collection of impressionists collected by Remarque. Tried to commit suicide. In 1984, her 94-year-old mother died.
On April 23, 1990, Paulette demanded that a Sotheby's auction catalog be given to her in bed, where her jewelry was to be sold that day. The sale brought in a million dollars. Three hours later, Paulette died with the catalog in her hands.
Prepared based on materials from Marianna Shaternikova.
Novels:
Dream Haven (1920)
Gam (1923/24)
Station on the Horizon (1927/28)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
Return (1931)
Three Comrades (1937)
Love Thy Neighbor (1939/41)
Arc de Triomphe (1945)
Spark of Life (1952)
A Time to Live and a Time to Die (1954)
Black Obelisk (1956)
Night in Lisbon (1961/62)
Life on Borrow (1961)
Promised Land (1970)
Shadows in Paradise (1971)
For many of those who are now about thirty or younger, the name Erich Maria Remarque means little. At best, they will remember that this seems to be a German writer. Some particularly “advanced” young men and women may even name one or two of his books that they have read. And that's probably all.
In principle, this course of events is natural. The world has entered the phase of formation of a new, “clip” culture, based not on reading, but on visual images, video sequences, and mass television production. Only time will answer the question of whether this is good or bad, for the benefit of humanity or for the detriment. But in those years when the core of culture was made up of linguistic texts, be it prose or poetry, plays or film scripts, high-quality performances or films, Erich Remarque was one of the idols of the reading audience of our country. And this audience then made up a significant majority of the population of the Soviet Union.
It is generally accepted that in the USSR Remarque was known, revered, and loved much more than in his homeland in Germany. And among the German writers translated into the USSR (we must pay tribute, they were translated often and published in large editions), he was the most read in our Fatherland. Even against the background, one might say, of the German classics of world literature of the twentieth century, such as Stefan Zweig, Thomas Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger, Alfred Döblin, as Heinrich Böll and Günther Grass, who entered the world literary arena after the Second World War. In our country they could not compile E.M. Remarque competes in popularity. If the books of the listed “Germans”, although they were not lying in stores, could be bought for some time, then the books of E. Remarque sold out instantly. He was not only read, his works were quoted and discussed. A person who did not read Remarque was not considered intelligent.
The first book published in the Soviet Union by Erich Maria Remarque was the one that made him famous. This is the novel All Quiet on the Western Front. In Germany it was published as a separate book in January 1929. Our novel was published in Russian translation in the middle of the same year. Over the past nearly eighty years, the total circulation of E. M. Remarque’s books in Russian has exceeded five million copies.
True, after the publication of the above-mentioned book in Remarque’s edition, a protracted pause occurred in our country. It was interrupted only by the “thaw” that followed the death of Stalin. Previously unknown novels “The Return”, “Arc de Triomphe”, “Three Comrades”, “A Time to Live and a Time to Die”, “Black Obelisk”, “Life on Borrow” are published. Somewhat later, “Night in Lisbon”, “The Promised Land”, “Shadows in Paradise” were published. Despite their numerous reprints, the demand for his books is enormous.
Biographers E.M. Remarque has long been noted that his own life and the lives of the heroes of his works have many similarities and points of intersection. However, the beginning of his biography is rather mundane.
Erich Maria Remarque was born on June 22, 1898 in the German city of Osnabrück. At birth he was named Erich Paul. The writer's name Erich Maria Remarque appeared in 1921. There is reason to believe that he changed the name “Paul” to the name “Maria” in memory of his mother, whom he loved very much, who died early from cancer.
There is another mysterious moment. The surname of the boy, youth, young man Erich Paul was written Remark, while the surname of the writer Erich Maria began to be written as Remarque. This gave some biographers reason to put forward the hypothesis that Remarque is not a genuine surname, but is the result of a reverse reading of the real surname Kramer. Behind the replacement of Remark with Remarque is, in their opinion, the writer’s desire to move even further away from the true family surname.
Most likely, the situation is much simpler. Remarque's paternal ancestors fled to Germany from France to escape the Great French Revolution, and their surname was actually written in the French manner: Remarque. However, both the grandfather and the father of the future writer had a Germanized surname: Remark. His father's name was Peter Ferenc, his mother, a native German, was named Anna Maria.
His father, with whom Erich Paul seemed to have a difficult relationship, was engaged in bookbinding. Life was difficult for the family; they often moved from place to place. Already in childhood, a craving for beautiful things arose in him, for a life when he could not deny himself anything. These feelings were reflected in his early works.
Since childhood, Erich Paul loved to draw and studied music. But he was especially drawn to the pen. As a young man, he gave vent to his writing itch. His first journalistic work appeared in the newspaper Friend of the Motherland in June 1916.
Five months later, Erich Paul was drafted into the army. At first he was trained in a reserve unit. In June 1917 he was already at the front. True, Erich Paul did not fight for long, only 50 days, as he was quite seriously wounded.
In 1920, Erich Paul published his first novel. Its name is translated into Russian differently: “Shelter of Dreams”, “Attic of Dreams”. The novel was not a success with either critics or readers; it was simply ridiculed in the press. Therefore, Remarque began his next major work, “Gem,” only three years later. However, he never decided to publish what he wrote. The novel was published only 75 years later in 1998.
Germany in the 1920s was going through difficult times. This fully affected Erich Maria (remember, he took this name in 1921). In order not to die of hunger, he takes on any job. This is not a complete list of what he did in the first half of the 1920s: he teaches at school, works in a granite workshop making tombstones, plays the organ in a mental home on Sundays, writes notes for a theater column in the press, runs cars . Gradually he becomes a professional journalist: his reviews, travel notes, and short stories increasingly appear in newspapers and magazines.
At the same time, Remarque leads a bohemian lifestyle. He chases women and drinks heavily. Calvados was indeed one of his favorite drinks.
In 1925 E.M. Remarque moved to Berlin. Here the daughter of the publisher of the prestigious magazine “Sports in Illustrations” fell in love with the handsome provincial man. The girl's parents prevented their marriage, but Remarque received an editor's position in the magazine. After some time, he married the dancer Jutta Zambona, who became the prototype for several of his literary heroines, including Pat from Three Comrades. In 1929, their marriage broke up.
EM. Remarque gave vent to his longing for a “beautiful life.” He dressed elegantly, wore a monocle, and tirelessly attended concerts, theaters, and fashionable restaurants with his wife. He was friends with famous racing drivers. His third novel, “Stop on the Horizon,” about racing drivers, is published, which is signed for the first time with the surname Remarque. From now on he will sign all his subsequent works with it.
It is all the more unexpected that the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, which he wrote in six weeks, which brought him worldwide fame, turned out to be a novel about a completely different life - a life filled with suffering, blood, and death. One and a half million copies were sold in a year. Since 1929, it has gone through 43 editions all over the world and has been translated into 36 languages. In 1930, Hollywood made a film based on it, which received an Oscar.
However, the pacifism of the truthful, cruelly written book was not to the taste of many in Germany. It aroused the discontent of the authorities, who longed for revenge against the radical organizations of World War I veterans, who were gaining strength as Nazis.
The outstanding German writers Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann also did not like the book. Over the years, their reserved attitude towards Remarque as a writer did not change, which hurt him very much.
Three years later, Remarque released his second significant novel, “The Return.” It talks about the problems faced by his generation - the “lost generation” of those who returned from the war.
Its representatives, who went through hurricane fire, poisonous gases, mud of trenches, mountains of corpses, lost faith in lofty words, no matter where they came from. Their ideals crumbled to dust. But they have nothing in return. They don’t know how to live next, what to do.
Numerous editions of both novels, the film adaptation of the first of them in the USA brought E.M. Remarque gets a lot of money. He began collecting Impressionist paintings and managed to amass a good collection.
The writer felt what was threatening Germany and him personally when Hitler and his party came to power. He realized that this was possible before many others. In 1931, when the Nazis were still striving for power, he bought a villa in Switzerland, moved there permanently, and transferred his art collection there.
Having come to power in 1933, the Nazis soon deprived E.M. A remark of German citizenship, his books are being publicly burned. Fearing that the Nazis would invade Switzerland, he left this country and lived mainly in France. To help his ex-wife Jutta get out of Germany, E.M. Remarque marries her again. However, he was unable to save his sister Elfriede Scholz. She was executed in 1943 in a Berlin prison "for outrageously fanatical propaganda in favor of the enemy." At the trial, she was reminded of her brother and his novels, “undermining the spirit of the nation.”
In 1939, Erich Maria Remarque arrived in the United States, where he remained until the end of the war. This period of his life is difficult to characterize unambiguously. Unlike many other emigrants, he did not experience material need. His novels “Three Comrades” (1938), “Love Thy Neighbor” (1941), and “Arc de Triomphe” (1946) were published and became bestsellers. Five of his works have been filmed by Hollywood film studios. At the same time, he suffered from loneliness, depression, drank a lot, and changed women. He was not favored by the emigrant literary community led by Thomas Mann. EM. Remarque was depressed that his ability to write books that were popular with the mass reader raised doubts about the scale of his literary talent. Only two years before his death, the German Academy of Language and Literature in the West German city of Darmstadt elected him as a full member.
The affair with the famous film actress Marlene Dietrich became very painful for him. He met her back in France. It was only thanks to her patronage that the famous writer received permission from the American authorities to enter the United States. EM. Remarque wanted to marry Puma (as he called Marlene Dietrich). However, the movie star was not known for his loyalty. One romance followed another, including with Jean Gabin. Remarque gave Madou from Arc de Triomphe many of the features of Marlene Dietrich.
War is over. EM. Remarque was in no hurry to leave for Europe. He and Jutta applied for American citizenship. It was not possible to obtain it without difficulty.
And yet the writer was drawn to Europe. In addition, it turned out that his property in Switzerland was completely preserved. Even the car he left in a garage in Paris survived. In 1947 he returned to Switzerland.
EM. Remarque led a solitary life. But he couldn’t stay in place for long. He traveled all over Europe, again visited America, where his beloved Natasha Brown, a Frenchwoman of Russian origin, lived. An affair with her, like his earlier affair with Marlene, caused him a lot of grief. Meeting in Rome or New York, they immediately began to quarrel.
The writer’s health also left much to be desired. It was getting worse. He developed Meniere's syndrome (a disease of the inner ear that leads to balance problems). But the worst thing was the mental confusion and depression.
The writer turned to the help of psychoanalysts. He is being treated by the famous Karen Horney, a follower of Freud. Like E.M. Remarque, she was born and spent most of her life in Germany, leaving it to escape Nazism. According to Horney, all neuroses are caused by “basic anxiety”, rooted in a lack of love and respect in childhood. If a more favorable experience is not formed, then such a child will not only remain in an anxious state, but will also begin to project his anxiety onto the outside world. Biography of E.M. The remarque fit into this concept. He believed that K. Horney helped him fight depression. However, in 1952 she died.
In 1951, EM came into life. Remarque included actress Paulette Godard, Charlie Chaplin's ex-wife. He met her on one of his visits to the USA. A romance began, which grew into deep affection, at least on the part of the writer. He believed that this cheerful, understandable, spontaneous woman had character traits that he himself lacked. “Everything is fine,” he writes in his diary. - No neurasthenia. There is no feeling of guilt. Paulette works well on me."
Together with Paulette, he finally decided to go to Germany in 1952, where he had not been for 30 years. In Osnabrück I met with my father, sister Erna, and her family. For Remarque everything was alien and painful. In Berlin, traces of the war could still be seen in many places. People seemed to him somehow withdrawn into themselves, lost.
Once again E.M. Remarque visited Germany in 1962. In an interview with one of the leading German newspapers, he sharply condemned Nazism, recalled the murder of his sister Elfrida and how his citizenship was taken away. He confirmed his constant pacifist position. His German citizenship was never returned to him.
Gradually E.M. Remarque gets rid of psychological dependence on Marlene. He dedicated his new novel, A Time to Live and a Time to Die, to Paulette. In 1957, Remarque officially divorced Jutta, who went to Monte Carlo, where she lived until her death in 1975, and the following year he married Paulette in the USA.
In 1959 E.M. Remarque suffered a stroke. He managed to overcome the illness. But since then he left Switzerland less and less, while Paulette traveled a lot around the world. Then the couple exchanged romantic letters. However, their relationship could not be called cloudless. To put it mildly, Remarque’s difficult character became more and more difficult over the years. Such traits of his character as intolerance, selfishness, and stubbornness made themselves felt more strongly. He continues to drink because, according to him, he cannot communicate with people sober, even with himself. If Remarque started drinking a lot while visiting, Paulette would defiantly leave. I hated it when he spoke German.
Remarque wrote two more books: "Night in Lisbon" and "Shadows in Paradise." But his health was deteriorating. In 1967 he had two heart attacks.
Remarque spent the last two winters of his life with Paulette in Rome. In the summer of 1970, his heart failed again and he was admitted to a hospital in Locarno. There he died on September 25. He was buried in Switzerland, modestly. Marlene Dietrich sent roses. Paulette didn't put them on the coffin.
Each country, each time has its own Remarque. His novels “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “The Return,” in modern parlance, became iconic in the 1930s because they were a kind of manifesto for the “lost generation,” which discovered that it had been deceived and betrayed. But even today, nine decades later, the internal monologue of the hero of “The Return” sounds like a warning: “We were simply betrayed. It was said: fatherland, but what was meant was the thirst for power and dirt among a handful of vain diplomats and princes. It was said: nation, but what was meant was the itch for activity among gentlemen generals who were left out of work... They stuffed the word “patriotism” with their imagination, thirst for glory, lust for power, deceitful romance, their stupidity and huckstering greed, and they presented it to us as radiant ideal..."
For those who became acquainted with his work in the late 1950s and read him in the next twenty to thirty years, he is, first of all, the creator of images of noble, straightforward, courageous people, ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. What is important for them is not money, not a career, not some “lofty” ideals instilled by the government, school, church, or the media. For them, above all are the absolute, eternal values that make a person a person: love, friendship, camaraderie, loyalty. It was these qualities of Remarque’s heroes, despite all the hardships of life, that helped them maintain their human dignity.
Remarque’s “magic”, the bewitching charm of his works, is in many ways also the result of the style he created, which, it seems, will forever remain his “signature”, unique. He is reserved, taciturn, ironic. His dialogues are laconic and at the same time capacious; we will not find in them unnecessary, unnecessary words or banal thoughts. He is no stranger to descriptions of nature and landscapes, but they are also distinguished by their stinginess and, at the same time, expressiveness and clarity of visual means. The internal monologues of his characters are filled with nobility, masculinity combined with tenderness, spiritual chastity, which is impossible not to believe in.
And, finally, perhaps the main thing that captivated Soviet readers: Remarque does not teach anyone, does not instruct anyone. He is not a moralist, not a preacher, not a guru, he is only a dispassionate, neutral narrator. He does not condemn his heroes with their drunkenness, contemplation, and lack of social activity.
One can only be surprised that the Soviet government, with its extremely developed protective instinct, did not turn on the “red light” for the publication of Remarque’s novels. Perhaps the confidence that ideologically literate Soviet readers would see, understand, and correctly evaluate the ideological emptiness of his heroes, the aimlessness, and futility of their existence worked.
But we cannot exclude another. Despite the fact that Remarque’s characters live their own special lives, the moral principles they profess are fundamentally healthy. For them, what is sacred is the same thing that was defended by the “moral code of the builder of communism,” which, as we know, upon closer examination turned out to be a version of Christian ethics, separated from its sacred basis.
Are not the thoughts of Dr. Ravic from the Arc de Triomphe full of humanity: “Life is life, it costs nothing and costs infinitely much. You can refuse it - it’s not difficult. But don’t you at the same time renounce everything that is ridiculed every day, every hour, what is mocked at, what is called faith in humanity and in humanity? This faith lives in spite of everything... One way or another, we still need to pull this world out of blood and dirt. And even if you pull it out even an inch, it’s still important that you just constantly fought. And while you are breathing, do not miss the opportunity to resume the fight”?
It seems that the pessimism expressed at the very beginning regarding the significance of the work of Erich Maria Remarque is hardly justified. And in the 21st century, young and not so young people constantly find themselves in situations where they need to make moral choices. Remarque's heroes help to understand this difficult issue, offering their example, their moral position and, at the same time, not imposing it. This means that Remarque’s time is not over, he will be read.
Olga Varlamova, specially for rian.ru
(estimates: 3
, average: 5,00
out of 5)
Erich Maria Remarque was born on June 22, 1898 in Prussia. As the writer later recalls, little attention was paid to him as a child: his mother was so shocked by the death of his brother Theo that she practically did not pay attention to her other children. Perhaps it was this - that is, virtually constant loneliness, modesty and uncertainty - that made Erich an inquisitive nature.
Since childhood, Remarque read absolutely everything he could get his hands on. Not understanding books, he literally devoured the works of both classics and contemporaries. A passionate love of reading awakened in him the desire to become a writer - but neither his relatives, nor teachers, nor peers accepted his dream. No one became Remarque’s mentor, no one suggested which books to give preference to, whose works were worth reading and whose to throw away.
In November 1917, Remarque went to fight. When he returned, he seemed not at all shocked by the events at the front. Rather, on the contrary: it was at this time that writer’s eloquence awakened in him, Remarque began to tell incredible stories about the war, “confirming” his valor with other people’s orders.
The pseudonym "Maria" first appears in 1921. Remarque thus emphasizes the significance of the loss of a mother. At this time, he conquers Berlin at night: he is often seen in brothels, and Erich himself becomes a friend of many priestesses of love.
His book became literally the most famous at the time. She brought him true fame: now Remarque is the most famous German writer. However, political events during this period are so unfavorable that Erich leaves his homeland... for as long as 20 years.
As for the romance between Remarque and Marlene Dietrich, it was more of a test than a gift of fate. Marlene was charming, but fickle. It was this fact that hurt Erich most of all. In Paris, where the couple often met, there were always people who wanted to gawk at the lovers and gossip.
In 1951, Remarque meets Paulette, his last and true love. Seven years later, the couple celebrated their wedding - this time in the USA. Since then, Remarque has become truly happy, because he found the one he had been looking for all his life. Now Erich no longer communicates with the diary, because he has an interesting interlocutor. Luck also smiles on him in his creative work: critics highly appreciated his novels. At the peak of happiness, Remarque's illness makes itself felt again. The last novel, “The Promised Land,” remained unfinished... On September 25, 1970, in the Swiss city of Locarno, the writer died, leaving his beloved Paulette alone.
On June 22, 1898, Erich Maria Remarque was born, 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 into the family of a bookbinder in Prussia. The second name - Maria - in his creative pseudonym was taken from his mother's middle name. Since childhood, I have been interested in literature. A graduate of a Catholic school and a former seminarian, he was drafted into the army on the Western Front in 1916. Served in a digging company. After being wounded by shrapnel in his 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, is fed well, can go out wherever he wants. But there was something else. He wrote that sometimes it seems like a crime to sit like this in the warmth and quiet. Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front appeared in 1928, and much of it is based on autobiographical episodes from the author's life. Publishers did not believe that anyone could be interested in a novel about the war, but, published in 1929, it immediately caused heated discussions. It was discussed on the pages of periodicals, at rallies, Austria even banned the novel for soldiers' libraries, and every effort was made to prevent the book from crossing the Italian border. In 1930, an American film adaptation of this novel was released. The Nazis in Germany had not yet come to power, but they were strong enough to disrupt film showings, and eventually achieved a ban on the film. The fact is that the novel was perceived as undermining the patriotic spirit of youth and the entire nation, as well as the desire for heroism. Remarque noted that he was motivated by love for his homeland in the broadest, and not the narrow, chauvinistic sense. in Berlin, among other “harmful” books, Remarque’s books were 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 Soviet troops were crushing the retreating Germans with all their might. The sister worked as a dressmaker in Germany and, in the presence of a client, spoke harshly about the war and Hitler. A denunciation and a death sentence followed. To some extent, this was the Nazi government’s revenge for the hated writer who managed to escape. Remarque did not immediately learn about his sister’s death: while living in Switzerland, he withdrew from international politics in every possible way. Later in his diary, he admitted that he did not give anything 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 “Spark of Life” (1952) to his sister’s memory. Remarque was horrified by the Nazi deeds along with the whole world when the liberation of Europe began. At the beginning of 1945, he took 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, 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 presented with the question that he intended to approach in his novel. He gave the answer in “Practical educational work in Germany after the war.” Here is just the smallest fraction 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 must be so shocking that not only the thirst for revenge does not settle in the hearts of the affected, as happened after the First World War, but also a feeling of horror, shame and hatred for what happened. And we should start from school: destroy the myth of the master race, educate humanity (“to educate children, we must 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 considered one of the writers of the “lost generation”, who went through the horrors of the First World War and saw the post-war world not at all as it seemed from the trenches, who created their first books, which shocked Western readers, in the period between the First and Second World Wars. Writers of the “Lost Generation” also include Ernest Hemingway, Francis Scott Fitzgerald and others.
Erich Maria Remarque(born Erich Paul Remarque) is one of the most famous and widely read German writers of the 20th century. In 1939, the writer went to the United States, where in 1947 he received American citizenship. His older sister Elfriede Scholz, who remained in Germany, was arrested for anti-war and anti-Hitler statements. At the trial, she was found guilty and on December 16, 1943 she was executed (guillotined). Remarque dedicated his novel “Spark of Life”, published in 1952, to her. 25 years later, a street in her hometown of Osnabrück was named after her.
Born on June 22, 1898 in Germany, in Osnabrück. He was the second of five children of bookbinder Peter Franz Remarque and Anna Maria Remarque.
In 1904 he entered a church school, and in 1915 he entered a Catholic teachers' seminary. Since childhood, he was interested in the works of Zweig, Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Goethe and Proust.
In 1916, at the age of 18, he was drafted into the army. After multiple wounds on the Western Front, on July 31, 1917, he was sent to a hospital, where he spent the rest of the First World War.
After his mother's death in 1918, he changed his middle name in her honor.
In the period from 1919, he first worked as a teacher, and at the end of 1920 he changed many professions, including working as a seller of tombstones and a Sunday organist in the chapel at a hospital for the mentally ill.
In October 1925 he married Ilse Jutta Zambona, a former dancer. Jutta suffered from consumption for many years. She became the prototype for several heroines of the writer’s works, including Pat from the novel “Three Comrades.” The marriage lasted just over 4 years, after which they divorced. However, in 1938, the writer married Jutta again - to help her get out of Germany and get the opportunity to live in Switzerland, where he himself lived at that time, and later they left for the USA together. The divorce was officially formalized only in 1957. Until the end of her life, Jutta was paid cash benefits.
From November 1927 to February 1928, his novel “Station on the Horizon” was published in the magazine Sport im Bild, where he worked at the time. In 1929, Remarque published his most famous work, All Quiet on the Western Front, which describes the brutality of war from the point of view of a 19-year-old soldier. Several more anti-war writings followed; In simple, emotional language, they realistically described the war and the post-war period.
In 1933, the Nazis banned and burned the author's works, and announced (although this was a lie) that Remarque was supposedly a descendant of French Jews and his real name was Kramer (Remarque spelled backwards). After this, Remarque left Germany and settled in Switzerland.