THE MAN WHO ANGERED THE NAZIS

                Erich Paul Remark was born in Germany on June 22, 1898.  He was born to a working-class family and was the third of four children.  He was drafted into the German army at age 18 in June, 1917.  He fought in the trenches on the Western Front and was wounded five times.  The last time resulted in shrapnel in his left leg, right arm, and neck.  He was rehabilitating in a hospital when the war ended.  After the war he was a teacher for a while and then did a variety of jobs.  He moved to Switzerland after the war and then to the U.S. where he became a naturalized citizen.  He suffered from PTSD and grief over the death of his beloved mother.   His first novel, The Dark Room”, was published in 1920.  He later found it to be a poor effort.  In 1927, he finished “All Quiet on the Western Front”, but had trouble finding a publisher.  At this point he changed his name to Erich Maria (in honor of his mother) Remarque.  When the novel was published in 1929, it became an international best-seller.  It was very influential novel, inspiring the growth of memoirs and realism in WWI movies.  The movie came out in 1930 and was very popular.  When it was shown in Nazi Germany, stink bombs and mice were released in theaters under the orders of Josef Goebbels.  This led to it being banned after six days of showings.  The official reason given by the censorship board was Germans did not want to see Germans losing and the film had a negative portrayal of German soldiers.  In 1933 the Nazis came to power and Joseph Goebbels banned the book as unpatriotic.  By then, Remarque was living in safety in Switzerland.  He then moved to the U.S.  He continued to write and published nine more novels, but none had the impact of “All Quiet…”.  One was made into the movie “A Time to Love and a Time to Die”.  He played the Professor in the movie.  The last one was “The Night in Lisbon”.  In it, he condemned the Holocaust and the war in general.  He died at age 72 in 1970. 

P.S.  In 1943, Remarque’s younger sister Elfrede Scholz was arrested by the Gestapo.  She was brought before a People’s Court for a sham trial.  She was convicted of “undermining morale” by saying the war was lost.  The judge chided her:  “Your brother is unfortunately beyond out reach.  You, however, will not escape us.”  She was beheaded.  It was later revealed that she had been involved in anti-Nazi resistance activities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Maria_Remarque

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/erich-maria-remarque-born