Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues) breaks from the traditional romanticizing of warfare and instead examines the harsh realities that young men face when they are sent to fight old men’s wars. It is Erich Maria Remarque's most famous book - read it here - and was banned by the Nazis in 1933.
Remarque had already left Germany for Switzerland in 1932. In 1938 he lost his German citizenship. In 1939 he went to the United States where he was naturalized in 1947. After World War II he settled in Porto Ronco, Switzerland, on Lake Maggiore, where he lived with his second wife, the American film star Paulette Goddard, until his death. He wrote several other novels, most of them dealing with victims of the political upheavels of Europe during World Wars I and II but none achieved the critical prestige of his first book.
All Quiet on the Western Front in its original Im Westen nichts Neues was required reading in my primary school years in Germany and has made me a pacifist for life.
