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, 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 of the 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 an unusual fate. "RG" presents little known facts from life 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". Composed humorous advertising texts, 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. 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 fascists 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.” House in elegant style 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. A 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. Erich Maria Remarque tied the knot with his second official wife, the famous American actress Paulette Godard, 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 in 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.
Remarque interesting facts from life German writer are presented in this article.
Erich Maria Remarque interesting facts
Real name – Erich Paul Remarque. After the death of his mother (Anna Maria), Remarque changed his middle name in her honor in 1918.
The German writer Remarque was the second of five children of a bookbinder. 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.
From the age of 18 he served in the army during the First World War
The writer's elder sister Elfried Scholz was executed for anti-war and anti-Hitler statements
He read a lot loved Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Goethe, Proust, Zweig. At the age of 17 he began to write himself.
Remarque preferred his works write with sharpened pencils.
Remarque considered his first published story so unsuccessful that bought the entire circulation.
Remarque bought a baronial title for 500 marks from an impoverished aristocrat (who had to formally adopt Erich) and ordered business cards with a crown.
During his life Remarque managed to try many professions, including the seller tombstones, organist in the chapel at the hospital for the mentally ill, teacher.
In October 1925 married Ilse Jutta Zambona, former dancer. Jutta suffered from consumption for many years. She became the prototype for several heroines of Remarque’s works, including Pat from the novel “Three Comrades.”
Novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" writer Wrote it in just six weeks. However, before this work was published, it lay on the table for six months.
Remarque's hobbies– collecting carpets and impressionist paintings.
As of mid-2009 Remarque's works have been filmed 19 times. Of these, most " On Western Front no change- three times.
There is a version that Erich Remarque and Adolf Hitler met several times during the war (both served in the same direction, although in different regiments) and may have known each other. In support of this version, a photograph is often cited showing young Hitler and two other men in military uniform, one of which bears some resemblance to Remarque.
Remarque's favorite drink was Calvados.
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 to literature the concept of “ lost generation" 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“All Quiet on the Western Front,” 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. For him, Remarque was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 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. However, Ilse Remarque paid benefits 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.
Erich Maria Remarque (born Erich Paul Remark). Born June 22, 1898 (Osnabrück) - died September 25, 1970 (Locarno). Prominent German writer of the 20th century, representative of the lost generation. His novel All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the big three “Lost Generation” novels published in 1929, along with A Farewell to Arms! Ernest Hemingway and "Death of a Hero" by Richard Aldington.
Erich Paul Remarque was the second of five children of the bookbinder Peter Franz Remarque (1867-1954) and Anna Maria Remarque, née Stahlknecht (1871-1917).
In his youth, Remarque was interested in the works of Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust and. In 1904 he entered a church school, and in 1915 he entered a Catholic teachers' seminary.
On November 21, 1916, Remarque was drafted into the army, and on June 17, 1917, he was sent to the Western Front. On July 31, 1917, he was wounded in the left leg. right hand, neck. He spent the rest of the war in a military hospital in Germany.
After the death of his mother, Remarque changed his middle name in her honor. In the period from 1919 he first worked as a teacher. At the end of 1920, he changed many professions, including working as a seller of tombstones and a Sunday organist in a chapel at a hospital for the mentally ill. These events subsequently formed the basis of the writer’s novel “The Black Obelisk.”
In 1921, he began working as an editor at the Echo Continental magazine, at the same time, as evidenced by one of his letters, he took the pseudonym Erich Maria Remarque.
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 Remarque’s works, including Pat from the novel “Three Comrades.” The marriage lasted just over 4 years, after which the couple divorced. However, in 1938, Remarque 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. Later they left for the USA together. The divorce was officially finalized only in 1957. The writer paid Yutta a monetary allowance until the end of his life, and also bequeathed 50 thousand dollars to her.
From November 1927 to February 1928, his novel “Station on the Horizon” was published in the magazine Sport im Bild, where he worked at that time.
In 1929, the novel All Quiet on the Western Front was published, describing the brutality of the war from the point of view of a 20-year-old soldier. This was followed by several more anti-war works: in simple and emotional language they realistically described the war and the post-war period.
Based on the novel All Quiet on the Western Front was filmed film of the same name, published in 1930. The profits from the film and book allowed Remarque to earn a decent fortune, a significant part of which he spent on buying paintings by Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Renoir. For this novel he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1931, but when considering the application, the Nobel Committee rejected this proposal.
Since 1932, Remarque left Germany and settled in Switzerland.
In 1933, the Nazis banned and burned Remarque's works. Nazi students accompanied the book burning with the chant “No to scribblers who betray the heroes of the World War. Long live the education of youth in the spirit of true historicism! I commit to the fire the works of Erich Maria Remarque."
There is a legend that the Nazis declared: Remarque (allegedly) is a descendant of French Jews and his real name Kramer (the word “Remarque” is backwards). This “fact” is still cited in some biographies, despite the complete lack of any evidence to support it. According to data obtained from the Writer's Museum in Osnabrück, German origin and Remarque's Catholic religion were never in doubt. The propaganda campaign against Remarque was based on his changing the spelling of his last name from Remark to Remarque. This fact has been used to argue that a person who changes German spelling to French cannot be a true German.
In 1937, the writer met famous actress, with whom he began a stormy and torturous romance. Many consider Marlene to be the prototype of Joan Madu, the heroine of Remarque’s novel “The Arc de Triomphe.”
In 1939, Remarque went to the United States, where in 1947 he received American citizenship.
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His older sister Elfriede Scholz, who remained in Germany, was arrested in 1943 for anti-war and anti-Hitler statements. At the trial, she was found guilty and on December 16, 1943, she was executed (guillotined).
There is evidence that the judge told her: “Your brother, unfortunately, has escaped from us, but you cannot escape.” Remarque learned about the death of his sister only after the war, and dedicated his novel “Spark of Life,” published in 1952, to her. 25 years later, a street in her hometown of Osnabrück was named after Remarque’s sister.
In 1951, Remarque met Hollywood actress Paulette Goddard (1910-1990), Charlie Chaplin's ex-wife, who helped him recover after his breakup with Dietrich, cured him of depression and, in general, as Remarque himself said, “had a positive effect on him.” Thanks to improved mental health, the writer was able to finish the novel “Spark of Life” and continue creative activity until the end of my days.
In 1957, Remarque finally divorced Jutta, and in 1958 he and Paulette got married. That same year, Remarque returned to Switzerland, where he lived the rest of his life. He remained with Paulette until his death.
In 1958, Remarque played the cameo role of Professor Pohlmann in American film“A Time to Love and a Time to Die” based on his own novel “A Time to Live and a Time to Die.”
In 1964, a delegation from hometown The writer presented him with a medal of honor. Three years later, in 1967, the German ambassador to Switzerland presented him with the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany (the irony is that despite these awards, his German citizenship was never returned to him).
In 1968, on the occasion of the writer’s 70th birthday, the Swiss city of Ascona (in which he lived) made him its honorary citizen.
Remarque died on September 25, 1970 at the age of 72 in the city of Locarno, and was buried in the Swiss Ronco cemetery in the canton of Ticino. Paulette Goddard, who died twenty years later, is buried next to him.
Erich Maria Remarque is classified as a writer of the “lost generation”. This is a group of “angry young men” who went through the horrors of the First World War (and saw the post-war world not at all as it was seen from the trenches) and wrote their first books, which so shocked the Western public. Such writers, along with Remarque, included Richard Aldington, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway,.
Interesting facts about Erich Maria Remarque:
There is a version that Erich Remarque and Adolf Hitler met several times during the war (both served in the same direction, although in different regiments) and may have known each other. In support of this version, a photograph is often cited showing a young Hitler and two other men in military uniform, one of whom bears some resemblance to Remarque. However, this version has no other confirmation.
Thus, the writer’s acquaintance with Hitler has not been proven.
As of mid-2009, Remarque's works had been filmed 19 times. Of these, the most is “All Quiet on the Western Front” - three times. Remarque also advised the authors of the script for the military epic “The Longest Day,” which tells about the landing of Allied troops in Normandy. Phrase “One death is a tragedy, thousands of deaths are statistics”, erroneously attributed, is actually taken out of the context of the novel “Black Obelisk,” but the writer, in turn, according to some sources, borrowed it from the publicist of the Weimar Republic, Tucholsky. The full quote looks like this: “It’s strange, I think, how many people were killed during the war - everyone knows that two million died without meaning or benefit - so why now are we so excited about one death, and have almost forgotten about those two million? But apparently it always happens: the death of one person is a tragedy, and the death of two million is just statistics.”.
In Remarque's work "Night in Lisbon", the hero Joseph Schwartz's passport date of birth coincides with the writer's date of birth - June 22, 1898.
Bibliography of Erich Maria Remarque:
Novels by Erich Maria Remarque:
The Shelter of Dreams (translated as “The Attic of Dreams”) (German: Die Traumbude) (1920)
Gam (German: Gam) (1924) (published posthumously in 1998)
Station on the Horizon (German: Station am Horizont) (1927)
All Quiet on the Western Front (German: Im Westen nichts Neues) (1929)
Return (German: Der Weg zurück) (1931)
Three Comrades (German: Drei Kameraden) (1936)
Love Thy Neighbor (German: Liebe Deinen Nächsten) (1941)
Arc de Triomphe (German: Arc de Triomphe) (1945)
The Spark of Life (German: Der Funke Leben) (1952)
A Time to Live and a Time to Die (German: Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben) (1954)
The Black Obelisk (German: Der schwarze Obelisk) (1956)
Life on Borrow (German: Der Himmel kennt keine Günstlinge) (1959)
Night in Lisbon (German: Die Nacht von Lisbon) (1962)
Shadows in Paradise (German: Schatten im Paradies) (published posthumously in 1971. This is an abridged and revised version of the novel "The Promised Land" by Droemer Knaur.)
The Promised Land (German: Das gelobte Land) (published posthumously in 1998. This is the last one unfinished novel writer)
Stories by Erich Maria Remarque:
Collection “Anneta's Love Story” (German: Ein militant Pazifist)
The Enemy (German: Der Feind) (1930-1931)
Silence around Verdun (German: Schweigen um Verdun) (1930)
Karl Broeger in Fleury (German: Karl Broeger in Fleury) (1930)
Josef's Wife (German: Josefs Frau) (1931)
Annette's Love Story (German: Die Geschichte von Annettes Liebe) (1931)
The Strange Fate of Johann Bartok (German: Das seltsame Schicksal des Johann Bartok) (1931)
Other works by Erich Maria Remarque:
The Last Act (German: Der letzte Akt) (1955), play
The Last Stop (German: Die letzte Station) (1956), film script
Be careful!! (German: Seid wachsam!!) (1956)
Episodes at the Desk (German: Das unbekannte Werk) (1998)
Tell me that you love me... (German: Sag mir, dass du mich liebst...) (2001)
Greetings my dear readers! The article “Erich Maria Remarque: biography, interesting facts” describes the main stages of the life of the outstanding German writer.
One of popular writers 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 boys were drafted 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 in large family future was born literary genius— Erich Paul Remarque.
His father worked as a bookbinder, so their house was always filled with a lot of books. WITH early years little Erich was fond of literature and read with enthusiasm a lot and often. He was especially attracted to the works of Goethe and Marcel Proust.
As a child, he was interested in music, loved to draw, and collected butterflies, stones and stamps. The relationship with my father was complicated; they had different views on life. With his mother everything was different - he doted on her. When Erich Paul was nineteen years old, she died of cancer.
Erich took the loss seriously. This tragedy prompted him to change his name Paul to Maria (that was his mother's name).
Erich Maria studied at a church school (1904). Upon graduation, he entered the Catholic seminary (1912), followed by years of study at the Royal Teachers' Seminary.
Here the writer becomes a member of one of literary circles, where he finds friends and like-minded people. In 1916 Remarque went to the front. A year later, he was wounded five times, and the rest of the time he was in the hospital.
The beginning of creativity
In his father's house, Erich equipped a small office 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 Lona, but later abandoned this profession.
He had many jobs in his city before he started making money as a writer. Erich worked part-time as an accountant, taught piano, worked as an organist in a chapel, and was even a seller of tombstones.
In 1922 he left Osnabrück and went to Hanover, and began work here for the magazine Echo Continental. He wrote slogans, PR texts and various articles. Remarque was also published in other magazines.
Working for the magazine Sport im Bild opened the door for him to literary world. In 1925 he goes to Berlin and begins working as an illustration editor for this magazine. His novel “Station on the Horizon” is published here.
In 1926, one of the magazines published his novels “From Youthful Times” and “The Woman with Golden Eyes.” This was the beginning of it 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 boy. The work was translated into thirty-six languages, it was published forty times.
In Germany, the book created a sensation. More than one million copies of it were sold in just one year.
In 1930, for this book, he was nominated to receive Nobel Prize. However, German officers were against this, because they believed that this work insulted their army. Therefore, the proposal for the award was rejected by the committee.
During the same period, a film was made based on the novel. 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 languages. A film was made based on the novel “A Time to Live and a Time to Die,” 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 obtain an American visa, and he went to Hollywood. Here his life was quite bohemian. Lots of money, alcohol and different women, among which was
Paulette Goddard and Erich Maria Remarque
In 1957, he married actress Paulette Goddard, Charlie Chaplin's 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 activity. In total, he wrote 15 novels, 6 stories, a play, and a film script.
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)