Remarque interesting facts from life. Erich Maria Remarque

Today we are studying the novels of Erich Maria Remarque at school. And during his lifetime, the writer’s books were ritually burned, and he himself was deprived of German citizenship. But Remarque had affairs with many famous women era of the twentieth century. Learn a lot of interesting things about Remarque from this material.

Erich Maria Remarque. Author of the literary concept “lost generation”

Erich Maria Remarque brought with him the concept of the “lost generation” into literature. He belonged to a group of "angry young men" who lived through the horrors of the First World War and wrote their first books that shocked Western audiences. This group of writers also included Ernest Hemingway, Francis Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Erich Maria Remarque. The best war novel ever

Part of what brought him fame was biographical novel"On western front no change,” which he wrote in 1929. Erich went to the front at the age of 18, received many injuries and later spoke in a book about all the nightmares of the war, about all the misfortunes and losses that the soldiers saw. Remarque wrote many works, but it was this first novel that became the standard and overshadowed his other works. The novel sold 1.2 million copies in its first year. Many critics consider him best novel about war throughout history. Remarque was nominated for him Nobel Prize on literature in 1931, but the proposal was rejected by the Nobel Committee.

Ilse Zambona, to whom Remarque was married twice

Erich Maria Remarque. Banned Pacifist

While the Nazis were in power in Germany, Remarque was accused of pacifism; his novel All Quiet on the Western Front, as well as the film based on it, were banned and burned. And at the premiere of the film, soldiers of the German army staged a pogrom. The film returned to theaters only in the 50s.

Erich Maria Remarque. Executed sister

In 1943, Remarque's older sister Elfriede Scholz was arrested for anti-war and anti-Hitler statements. The court found her guilty, and on December 16, 1943, she was executed. Remarque learned about his sister’s death only after the war. He dedicated his novel “Spark of Life” to her.

Erich Maria Remarque. Not only a writer

Erich Maria Remarque was born into a bookbinder's family in Lower Saxony. His father earned little, and Erich had to work a lot. After the war, he worked as a school teacher, a mason, a test driver, a professional racing driver, a journalist, a tombstone delivery man, an organist in a chapel at a mental hospital, and more.

Erich Maria Remarque. Outcast

In 1938, Remarque was deprived of German citizenship. He lived in Switzerland and the USA, where he became a citizen and met his second wife, an actress and ex-wife Charlie Chaplin's Paulette Goddard, whom he married in 1958. After World War II, Remarque returned to Switzerland, bought a house there and lived until the end of his life.

Paulette Goddard - Remarque's second wife

Erich Maria Remarque. Unfaithful husband

Remarque was married twice to Ilse Jutta Zambone. This marriage was free. Among Remarque's mistresses was the director of propaganda films about Hitler, Leni Riefenstahl. She was also the prototype of the heroines of some of Remarque’s books. Remarque's longest affair was with Marlene Dietrich. Nevertheless, Remarque paid Ilse an allowance for the rest of his life and bequeathed 50 thousand dollars.

Leni Riefenstahl

Erich Maria Remarque. Death and recognition

Erich Maria Remarque died after several months of treatment for an aneurysm on September 25, 1970 at the age of 72 in Locarno. He was buried in the Swiss cemetery Ronco. Paulette Goddard was buried next to him twenty years later. During his lifetime, critics refused to recognize his skill, despite the wide popularity of his works among readers.

On September 25, 1970, the outstanding German writer Erich Maria Remarque died at the St. Agnes Hospital in the Swiss city of Locarno at the age of 72. A romantic, a lover of women and Calvados, whose fate was scorched in the hellish crucible of the First World War, he, along with Ernesto Hemingway, became the spokesman for the thoughts of the first lost generation 20th century.

It was in the USSR and Russia that Remarque found his grateful reader. His works, full of piercing love, irony and bitter sadness, ineradicable humanity and tenderness in an era of greed and cynicism, were loved by readers of one sixth of the land. Be gentle - the world will be gentle. Don’t get bogged down in everyday life, career, power, money, this is so far from your dream! This is stated in the novels of an incorrigible romantic with unusual fate. "RG" presents little known facts from the life of a German writer.

1. Erich Paul Remarque was born in Osnabrück, Germany, into the family of the owner of a small bookbinding workshop. As a child, Remarque collected butterflies, stones and stamps. He was interested in painting and music, playing the piano and organ. At the age of 18, he gave private music lessons in order to have pocket money to buy clothes. He believed that you need to dress beautifully and elegantly, and then success in society is guaranteed. He had a particular affinity for large ties and Panama-style hats. At the age of 19, in memory of his deceased mother, he changed his middle name from Paul to Maria.

2. During World War I, he was wounded at the front five times, including in the arm. Thus the planned serious music career. In the hospital, Erich Maria started an affair with his doctor’s daughter and composed music for the lyrical poems of his contemporaries. Remarque later admitted that all his works were written under the influence of music, and he chose the words according to their sound. In 1918 he was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class. Remarque called himself a convinced pacifist, which was at odds with his appearance in those years: an energetic, athletic blond, not a true Aryan.

3. In the twenties, when greed and profit reigned in Germany, Remarque chose philanthropy, eccentricity, and irony. At one time he lived in gypsy camp. He roamed the streets selling pieces of fabric. Worked in a production office grave monuments. Later he will write about this in the novel "Black Obelisk". He composed humorous advertising texts and poems for comics about the adventures of naked beauties. He kindly shared with readers of the newspaper where he worked the secrets of preparing alcoholic cocktails.

4. Remarque preferred to write his works with sharply sharpened pencils. The cult novel All Quiet on the Western Front, which brought Remarque incredible success, he wrote in just 6 weeks. In Germany, the novel sold one and a half million copies in just a year! In the First World War, the writer saw not only shots and battles: he showed how shells exploding at the fronts crippled the faith and ideals of young people. The Nazis turned the book into " political problem", considering that a real German cannot have defeatist sentiments. Remarque was called a "Traitor of the Motherland." He was accused of stealing the idea of ​​the book from his deceased comrade. The ideological campaign against Remarque was personally led by Dr. Goebbels. In 1933, Remarque's books flew into the satanic Nazi fire following Marx's Capital.

5. Two years earlier, Remarque had already left Germany. It's a small world. The sister of his first wife Jutta, with whom he lived for 4 years, divorced and fictitiously remarried in order to get her out of Nazi Germany, was married to a relative of Goering. A few weeks after the writer left Germany, the corpulent Goering burst into a chic Berlin restaurant where Remarque was dining. Plunging into a chair, one of the Nazi leaders demanded that the waiter bring him a bottle of wine of the kind that the disgraced writer loved to taste. The waiter spread his hands and answered: Remarque did not leave Germany until he had “eaten” all the wine of this variety.

6. Unable to reach the writer, the Nazis decided to take it out on his relatives. His older sister was arrested and executed for "unpatriotic statements" in 1943. “Your brother left us, but you can’t leave,” the prosecutor said in court. Elfrida was executed by guillotine, and the Nazis sent a bill to Remarque demanding payment of the “executioner's fee.”

7. With the royalties from the sale of the book All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque began buying antiques. Having moved to Porto Ronco, Switzerland, the writer bought himself a house, which he called “Remarque’s Palace.” The house, in elegant style, was decorated with ancient Chinese and Egyptian bronze figures, Venetian mirrors and Persian carpets, as well as an excellent collection of paintings (Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh), miraculously exported from Germany. Before World War II in 1939, Remarque decided to move to the United States. He immediately went to Hollywood to see Marlene Dietrich, whom he met back in 1930 in his native Germany. He was given American citizenship only in 1947. The Americans did not like the “moral character” of the freedom-loving writer, who had made influential friends in Hollywood. Remarque said that in the company of Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Ernest Hemingway he felt like a small person.

8. The affair with Dietrich cost Remarque many nerves. The actress called Remarque the most attractive man she had seen in her life. Remarque wrote letters to her every day when she left for the USA. Their acquaintance, after 10 years, grew into passion. The whirlwind romance, which began in 1940, continued, intermittently, until 1946. It ended when Dietrich, in response to an offer to tie the knot with the writer, admitted to him that she had recently had an abortion from a famous American actor. Nevertheless, they communicated and corresponded until the writer’s death in 1970.

9. With his second official wife, famous American actress Paulette Godard Erich Maria Remarque tied the knot in 1958. They remained inseparable until the writer's death. Remarque admitted that his second wife cured him of severe depression, into which the writer plunged thoroughly after breaking up with Dietrich. Paulette Godard, whose first husband of 6 years was Charlie Chaplin, was to play main role in the legendary epic" Gone with the Wind", but at the last moment the director chose Vivien Leigh. All three main women in Remarque's life, two wives and Dietrich, were similar: big eyes and eyelashes, hair, curls falling from the shoulders, a magnificent figure...

10. Having learned that Remarque had lost his father, a reporter rushed to the writer’s house, hoping at least after such grief to see the merry fellow Remarque sad and drooping. The writer told the taken aback journalist: “You know, my father died from heart attack. At 83 years old. He caught a cold in church because he was without a coat. He didn't put on a coat so as not to disappoint his girlfriend. When he returned home, he was shivering. My sister asked him: “Would you like to have some cognac, Dad?” He nodded and died. So is there any better death than dying while waiting for cognac?

11. Recent years Remarque spent his life in Switzerland, suffering from frequent heart attacks. Panically afraid of death, during this period he found it especially fascinating literary creativity. Erich Maria Remarque was buried according to Catholic rites in a Swiss cemetery in the town of Porto Ronco.

Legendary sayings of Remarque

The worst enemies become the best friends.

True love does not tolerate strangers.

A man without love is a dead man on vacation.

Women should either be idolized or abandoned. Everything else is a lie.

People become sentimental more out of grief than out of love.

The worst thing, brothers, is time. Time. A moment that we experience, but which we never own.

A man cannot live for love. But he can live for another person.

Life is a disease and death begins at birth.

Conscience usually does not torment those who are guilty.

You can truly learn a person's character when he becomes your boss.

A miracle always awaits us somewhere next to despair.

A woman becomes wiser from love, but a man loses his head.

She had two admirers. One loved her and gave her flowers. She loved another and gave him money.

Any dictator begins his activity by simplifying all concepts.

When you die, you become somehow unusually significant, but while you’re alive, no one cares about you.

Everything that can be settled with money is cheap.

How little we can say about a woman when we are happy. And how much when you are unhappy.

A heart that has once merged with another will never experience the same with the same strength.

The world is not crazy. Only people in it.

If you don't laugh at the twentieth century, you might shoot yourself.

Nothing is lasting - not even memories.

One of the two always leaves the other. The question is who will get ahead of whom.

Only the simplest things console. Water, breath, evening rain. Only those who are lonely understand this.

Give a woman a few days to live a life that you usually cannot offer her, and you will probably lose her. She will try to find this life again, but with someone else who can always provide for her.

Erich Maria Remarque was born into the family of a bookbinder; from his youth he was encouraged to write and was offered to join the literary club. Maybe this pushed him to write, although not immediately. He was a German writer, they called him Ravik, Bonnie, and Kramer, although his native nickname was Paul. Here are some interesting facts related to his work:

1. Remarque worked as an organist. In his youth, the writer lived in a gypsy camp and wandered through life. Afterwards he fell in love with a girl who was the daughter of the editor of one of the newspapers. Although they were never allowed to meet, he still got a job at this newspaper. Later he will write about all these adventures in his novel.
2. His very first works were not liked by the public. Remarque was so offended that he immediately bought the entire circulation of the novels “The Woman with Young Eyes” and “The Attic of Dreams.”
   

   

3. The third work, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” is the most successful. The book created a real sensation. He made a deal with a publishing house and if it had not been bought, he would have had to work for a long time for free, but everything worked out. The book sold a million copies.
   

   

4. The writer was an antiquarian. He adored antiques, especially paintings, constantly bought them and carefully looked after them, and he also transported them personally.
   

   

5. Erich was an eccentric man. Once, out of nothing to do, he bought the status of baron on the cheap; later he printed the sign on his business card.
   

   

6. He received harsh government condemnations for his novel.. The Nazis did not support the anti-war views that were in the book “All Quiet on the Western Front” and told everyone that it was not his manuscript, but a Jew’s and he stole it.
   

   

7. Remarque had to leave Germany due to Nazi persecution. The writer moved to live in Switzerland, where he bought himself a whole palace.
   

   

8. At the beginning of the Second World War, a writer leaves for the USA. It was completely unsafe in Europe, they started burning his books, and he and Marlene Dietrich moved.
   

   

9. He saved his first wife. Through a fictitious marriage, he managed to take his wife out of Germany. However, he could not save his sister; he was even sent a bill for the costs of her execution; later he would write a book about it.
   

   

10. He wrote a book about the life of immigrants in America. The book was called “Shadows in Paradise,” and it was a bit biographical in particular.
    

    

11. He loved Marlene Dietrich. However, she doesn’t have him, no matter how many times he proposed to her, it was all to no avail, and he suffered greatly because of this.
    

    

12. The writer married for the second time. After unrequited love with Marlene, Remarque was in despair, but soon he met Pollet Godard. She became a real salvation for him; later the writer himself admitted this. By the way, she was Charlie Chaplin's ex-wife.
    

    

13. Remarque was sentimental. The writer constantly collected various souvenirs, toys, and little angels. He kept all this, and later this trait of his character was reflected in his works.
    

    

14. Erich was an alcoholic. He could not do without alcohol and constantly abused it. Perhaps because of alcohol he was constantly good mood, he was called a merry fellow.
    

    

15. Remarque wrote until the end of his days. In his old age he suffered from heart attacks and was sick, but this did not stop him at all, and he constantly created in any condition.
    

    

Future author" Arc de Triomphe" And "Three comrades" born on June 22, 1898 in the German city of Osnabrück in the family of bookbinder Peter Franz and housewife Anna Maria. In 1904 he entered a church school, and a year later he entered a Catholic teachers' seminary. Already in 1916 he was drafted into the army, and the next year Remarque was sent to the Western Front. After being wounded in battle, the writer had to spend the rest of the war in a military hospital in Germany.

Named at birth Erich Paul Remarque, in 1918 the writer changed his middle name in honor of his deceased mother, Maria. In 1919 he got a job as a teacher, and in 1920 he changed several jobs: he had to sell tombstones and even serve as Sunday organist in the chapel of a hospital for the mentally ill. Remarque put the events experienced during these years into the basis of the novel. "Black Obelisk"

Remarque's wanderings ended in 1921, when he got a job as editor of the Echo Continental magazine. In 1925, already a successful journalist, he married former dancer Ilse Jutta Zambona, whom he divorced four years later. In 1938, they married again, this time “fictitiously” so that Ilse could move to Remarque in Switzerland. Their divorce was officially formalized in 1957, while the writer continued to pay Yutta a monetary allowance until the end of his days, and after his death he bequeathed her 50 thousand dollars.

In 1927 he published the novel " Station on the horizon", and in 1929 - his most popular work, "All Quiet on the Western Front". The book brought Remarque world fame and good condition. In 1930, a film of the same name was made based on it. Three years later, the Nazis banned and burned Remarque's novels, and he left for Switzerland.

In 1937, the writer began a relationship whirlwind romance with an already famous actress Marlene Dietrich. It is believed that it was she who became the prototype of Joan Madu from the novel " Arc de Triomphe"Two years later, Remarque moved to the USA, but received American citizenship only eight years later. In 1951, the writer met Charlie Chaplin's ex-wife Paulette Goddard. It was she who helped him get out of the depression into which he fell after breaking up with Dietrich. Having come to his senses, Remarque finished the novel “Spark of Life,” dedicated to his sister executed by the Nazis. In 1958, the writer married Goddard and returned to Switzerland, where he lived the rest of his days.

In 1964, a delegation from Osnabrück presented Remarque with a medal of honor, and three years later the German ambassador to Switzerland awarded him the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany. The writer died in 1970; he was 72 years old.

"Evening Moscow" offers a selection of interesting facts from the biography of one of the most popular German writers.

1. Remarque was so ashamed of his first published story that he subsequently bought the entire edition.

2. The writer wrote the novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” in just six weeks. However, before this work was published, it lay on the table for six months.

3. Remarque's favorite drink was Calvados.

5. Remarque collected images of angels. According to the writer, they protected him from harm.

6. The writer's friends called him Boni, and Marlene Dietrich called him Ravik.

7. The writer collected impressionist paintings and carpets. Remarque spent part of the proceeds from the film adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front to purchase paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Renoir.

From birth the writer had the name Erich Paul Remarque, but over time he changed his middle name to “Maria” in honor of his mother. Therefore, everyone knows full name The writer sounds like Erich Maria Remarque. The writer's older sister's name was Elfriede Scholz. In 1943, while living in Germany, she boldly spoke out against fascism and war, for which she was arrested. The court of Nazi Germany decided to find her guilty and execute her by guillotine.

According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, the judge directly told her that although her brother had managed to leave the country, having now become inaccessible to them, she could not avoid execution. Remarque dedicated his novel “The Spark of Life,” which was published in 1952, to his sister. A quarter of a century later in her hometown One of the streets in Osnabrück was named after a brave woman.

After the publication of the writer’s first novels, the Nazis began to deliberately disband false rumors that Remarque is not Remarque at all, but a French Jew. And his last name is Kramer. This word is obtained if you read the word Remarque backwards. It was easier for the Nazis to persecute a Jew than a German, who the writer actually was.

Erich Maria Remarque bought almost the entire circulation of his first book because he was ashamed of it. He was fond of reading the works of Dostoevsky. Remarque wrote his book “All Quiet on the Western Front” incredibly quickly, in just six weeks. After that, the novel lay in his desk for six months. And only then was it published.

Remarque preferred Calvados among drinks. For five hundred marks, the writer bought the title of baron from a bankrupt aristocrat. Their business cards Remarque provided an image of a crown.

Remarque lived with his wife Jutta Erich Maria for about four years. They filed for divorce, but in 1938 they registered their marriage again. This was done so that Jutta could leave Germany for Switzerland, where the writer lived at that time. After some time, they went to the United States together. In 1957, a second and final divorce was filed. Remarque helped Jutta financially all his life and left her 50 thousand dollars in his will.

After the end of the war, in just one year in Germany, the novel All Quiet on the Western Front sold more than one and a half million copies. Remarque had collections of carpets, impressionist paintings and angels, which he believed would protect him from adversity.

Only at the age of fifty did Remarque finally acquire American citizenship, since they had been studying his moral character for too long. The writer was nominated for the Nobel Prize. But the League of German Officers protested, and this prevented the writer from becoming a Nobel laureate.

Remarque was accused of stealing a manuscript and writing novels commissioned by the Entente. They called him a traitor to his homeland, a cheap celebrity. The writer's idols Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig did not approve of his literary works.

Of the strong words, Remarque preferred the word “ass.” During his life, the writer worked in different areas. He sold tombstones and played the organ in the chapel in a hospital for the mentally ill.

Based on the writer’s book “A Time to Live and a Time to Die,” a film production of the same name was created, where he played the role of Pohlmann. In Emir Kusturica's film "Black Cat, White Cat" there is interesting scene, where the lady, whose name was Black Obelisk, pulls nails out of pillars with her butt. It turns out that Kusturica spotted this unusual plot point in one of Remarque’s books. Similar unique ability a certain Frau Beckmann possessed it, which helped her friend Karl Bril earn a living.

By 2009, the number of film adaptations of Remarque's novels reached nineteen. Only the book “All Quiet on the Western Front” was put into cinema three times. The authors of the script for the military epic “The Longest Day,” which dealt with the landing of Allied forces in Normandy, turned to Remarque for advice.

IN Soviet times There was a rock group "Black Obelisk". The musicians borrowed this name from Remarque's novel. Later group fell apart. Some of the rockers gathered in another group, calling themselves “Arc de Triomphe”.