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Remarque's antiwar novel was first published 80 years ago.

(© picture-alliance / akg-images)

Eighty years ago, the novel Im Westen nichts Neues by Erich Maria Remarque, which describes the misery and suffering in the trenches of World War I, was published.  Remarque recounts the story of the youth Paul Bäumer and his classmates, who are persuaded by their teacher to enlist in the army and join the war out of patriotism. The inexperienced young boys, who encounter the horrors of war daily, eventually come to grasp the senselessness of their mission and of war itself. Most of them do not return home alive.  Remarque’s novel is often viewed as the quintessential antiwar novel and so far has lost none of its relevance.

The newspaper Vossische Zeitung published the novel in late 1928, initially as a serialized novel. It was then published in book form in 1929.  The first edition was entirely sold out before it even became available, leading to the conclusion that the book’s topic reflected the concerns of the day.

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A scene from the 1930 film "All Quiet on the Western Front," which is based on the book by Erich Maria Remarque.

(© picture-alliance/AKG)

The same year, Arthur Wesley Wheen translated the book into English under the succinct title All Quiet on the Western Front. To date, it has an estimated total circulation of 20 million copies and has been translated into over 60 languages. In 1930, Lewis Milestone made it into a film.  The film, which won two Oscars – for best picture and directing – ranked until recently among the American Film Institute’s “100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.” While the novel and film were very well received in social-democratic circles in Germany and in English-speaking countries, it was banned in right-wing and left-wing dictatorships alike in Europe.

Erich Maria Remarque was born Erich Paul Remark in Osnabrück on June 22, 1898. In 1917, he arrived as a soldier on the Western Front. He was injured and subsequently remained at an army hospital until the end of the war.  While still in the hospital, he began working on a novel about the war. Thereafter, he trained to become a teacher, worked briefly as a teacher and newspaper editor, and then began publishing prose works in newspapers in the 1920s. The day after Hitler seized power in 1933, he left Germany and emigrated via Switzerland to the United States, where he lived from 1939 to 1948. He later died in Locarno, Switzerland, in 1970.  New York University administers his estate.

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Author Erich Maria Remarque's antiwar novel has been translated into over 60 languages.

(© © picture-alliance/dpa)

The Erich Maria Remarque Peace Center in Osnabrück describes his work as follows:

      ... his writing [is] fundamentally influenced by German history of the twentieth century: Childhood and youth in imperial Osnabrück, World War I, the Weimar Republic, and most of all his exile in Switzerland and the United States.

      ...the preservation of human dignity and humanity in times of oppression, terror, and war always was at the forefront of his literary creation.  Remarque is therefore widely regarded as a credible representative of a 'different Germany.'

An exhibition at the center documents the life and work of the author. The peace center also maintains an Erich Maria Remarque archive and an on-line database for war and antiwar films.