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Top 10 Facts about Erich Maria Remarque
Remarque was born in Osnabrück, Germany, on June 22, 1898, as Erich Paul Remark to working-class Roman Catholic parents Peter Franz Remark and Anna Maria (née Stallknecht). Although he was close to his mother, he was never close to his bookbinder father. After World War I, he started using the middle name Maria in her honor. Remarque was the third of Peter and Anna’s four children. His siblings included his younger sister Elfriede, his older sister Erna, and his older brother Theodor Arthur (who passed away when he was five or six years old).
1. He was a German writer
German-born author Erich Maria Remarque was a writer. Based on his service in the Imperial German Army during World War I, his seminal book All Quiet on the Western Front (1928) became an international bestseller. It invented a new literary genre that was adapted into numerous motion pictures.
Remarque began attempting to write when he was 16 years old. There were essays, poems, and drafts of a novel among them that was later finished and released in 1920 as The Dream Room (Die Traumbude).
2. He changed his last name spelling when he published All Quiet on the Western Front
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In recognition of his French ancestors and to distance himself from his earlier book Die Traumbude, he changed the spelling of his last name to Remarque when he published All Quiet on the Western Front. In the nineteenth century, his grandfather changed the spelling of Remarque to Remark. Remarque’s great-grandfather Johann Adam Remarque, came from a French family in Aachen, according to research conducted by Remarque’s childhood and lifelong friend Hanns-Gerd Rabe. This is in contrast to the myth that he was Jewish and that his real last name was Kramer (Remark spelled backward), which was propagated by Nazi propaganda.
3. He was drafted into the Imperial German Army at the age of 18
The Imperial German Army was a combination of the ground and the air force of the German Empire. It was created in 1871 in conjunction with Prussia’s political unification of Germany, and it was disbanded in 1919 following the German Empire’s defeat in World War I. (1914–1918). However, the German Army, the land arm of the Bundeswehr, is known as the Deutsches Heer in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Additionally, Remarque was enlisted in the Imperial German Army at the age of 18 during World War I.
4. After the war he worked as a teacher
By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R04034 –Wikipedia
Remarque continued his teacher education after the war and began working as a primary school teacher in Lohne, which was then in the county of Lingen but is now in the county of Bentheim, on August 1, 1919. From May 1920 to August 1920, he worked in Nahne, which has been a part of Osnabrück since 1972, and Klein Berssen, both in what was once the County of Hümmling but is now Emsland. He requested a leave of absence from teaching on November 20, 1920. During this time in his life, he held a variety of jobs, including those of a journalist, editor, businessman, and librarian. He worked as a technical writer for the Continental Rubber Company, a German tire manufacturer, in his first paid writing position.
5. He replaced his middle name ‘Paul ‘ with his mother’s name “Maria”
His mother’s passing and the brutalities of war left him with a great deal of mental trauma and grief after returning from the war. He began using “Maria” instead of “Paul” as his middle name as a professional writer in later years to honor his mother.
6. His writing was declared’ unpatriotic’
By Willem van de Poll –Wikipedia
Even though his writing was declared to be unpatriotic and outlawed in Germany on May 10, 1933, at the instigation of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. This led to copies being taken out of all libraries and forbidden to sell or publish anywhere in the nation. He kept on writing about the German experience after World War I. The Weimar Republic years from the hyperinflation of 1923 to the end of the decade are covered in his next book, Three Comrades (Drei Kameraden). His fourth book, Flotsam, which is also known in German as Liebe deinen Nächsten (Love Thy Neighbor), first appeared in an English-language serial in Collier’s magazine in 1939.
7. Remarque and his ex-wife became naturalized citizens of the United States
To acquire citizenship through naturalization is a legal procedure where u are likely to obtain citizenship automatically by a statute, necessitating no action on the part of the person. Or it may entail an application or motion that must be approved by the appropriate authorities. The requirements for naturalization vary from nation to nation.
However, after the Nazis propagated the fallacious notion that Remarque had not participated in World War I in an active capacity. Remarque lost his German citizenship in 1938. Leading him to remarry his ex-wife in 1939 to stop her from being sent back to Germany. They departed Porto Ronco, Switzerland for the US just before World War II broke out in Europe. In 1947, they were granted US citizenship through naturalization.
8. All Quiet on the Western Front was his landmark Novel
Based on his service in the Imperial German Army during World War I, his highly influential book All Quiet on the Western Front (1928) became an international bestseller, invented a new literary genre, and was adapted into numerous motion pictures.
9. He bought a villa in Switzerland
Remarque and Paulette Goddard in Ronco, Switzerland, 1961, By Willem van de Poll –Wikipedia
Following the success of All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque produced several other works of a similar nature. They discussed the war and the postwar period in Germany using straightforward, emotive language. The substantial financial wealth that his published works had brought him allowed him to purchase a villa in Ronco, Switzerland in 1931 after finishing The Road Back (Der Weg zurück). He intended to reside there as well as in France.
10. He died of heart failure
Remarque passed away from heart failure on September 25, 1970, in Locarno, at the age of 72. In Ronco, Ticino, Switzerland, at the Ronco Cemetery, he was laid to rest. While his wife, Paulette Goddard, passed away in 1990, and her remains were buried next to those of her husband. She bequeathed $20 million to New York University, which was used to endow “Goddard Hall” on the Greenwich Village campus and name an institute for European studies in honor of Remarque.
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