😉 Greetings to my dear readers! In the article “Erich Maria Remarque: biography, interesting facts” – the main stages of the life of an outstanding German writer.
One of the popular writers of the German Empire of the twentieth century is undoubtedly Remarque. He represented the “lost generation” – a period when, at the age of eighteen, very young guys were called up to the front, and they were forced to kill. This time later became the main motive and idea of the writer’s work.
Biography of Remarque
In the city of Osnabrück of the German Empire on June 22 (zodiac sign – Cancer), 1898, the future literary genius, Erich Paul Remarque, was born into a large family.
His father worked as a bookbinder, so their house was always full of books. From an early age, little Erich was fond of literature and read with enthusiasm a lot and often. He was especially attracted by the works of Dostoevsky, Goethe, Marcel Proust.
As a child, he was fond of music, loved to draw, collected butterflies, stones and stamps. Relations with my father were complicated, they had different outlooks on life with him. With his mother, everything was different – he did not like the soul in her. When Erich Paul was nineteen years old, she died of cancer.
Erich was grieving over the loss. 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 a Catholic seminary (1912), then followed by years of study at the royal teacher’s seminary.
Here the writer becomes a member of one of the literary circles, where he finds friends and associates. In 1916 Remarque went to the front. A year later, he received five wounds, and the rest of the time he was in the hospital.
Beginning of creativity
In his father’s house, Erich equipped a small office where he studied music, painted and wrote. It was here in 1920 that his first work was written – “The Shelter of Dreams”. He worked as a teacher in Lone for a year, but later gave up the profession.
He changed many jobs in his city before starting to make money from writing. Erich worked as an accountant, taught to play the piano, worked as an organist in the chapel and even was a seller of tombstones.
In 1922 he left Osnabrück and went to Hanover, where he began work for the magazine Echo Continental. He wrote slogans, PR texts and various articles. Remarque was also published in other journals.
Work in the magazine “Sport im Bild” opened the door for him to the literary world. In 1925 he went to Berlin and began 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 “Woman with golden eyes”. This was the beginning of his career. From that moment on, he did not stop writing, creating more and more 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 has been translated into thirty-six languages, and has been published forty times.
In Germany, the book made a splash. More than one million copies were sold in just one year.
In 1930 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for this book. However, the German officers were against this, as they believed that this work had offended their army. Therefore, the offer to receive the prize was rejected by the committee.
In the same period, a film was shot 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 has been published in Danish and English. Based on the novel “A Time to Live and a Time to Die,” a motion picture was shot, in which Erich plays in one of the episodes. In 1967, the writer was awarded the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Meser Medal for his services.
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 the popular actress Marlene Dietrich.
Marlene Dietrich and Erich Maria Remarque
She helped the writer get an American visa and he went to Hollywood. Here his life was quite bohemian. A lot of money, alcohol and various women, including Greta Garbo.
Polett Goddard and Erich Maria Remarque
In 1957, he married actress Paulette Goddard, Charlie Chaplin’s ex-wife, with whom he remained until death. She acted positively on her husband, helped to regain strength and get rid of depression.
Thanks to Paulette, he was able to continue his writing career. In total, he wrote 15 novels, 6 short stories, a play, and a screenplay.
The literary genius died at the age of seventy-three in 1970 in Switzerland, where he was buried. Paulette, who died twenty years later, rests next to him.
Erich Maria Remarque: biography (video)
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