Remarque was conscripted into the German Imperial Army in 1916. In 1917, he was sent to the Western Front and fought in the trenches, where he was wounded by shrapnel. He spent the rest of the war in hospital recovering from his wounds. After the war, he continued teacher training and worked as a primary school teacher in Lohne. He left teaching in 1920 and worked in various jobs before settling on writing. He published The Dream Room in 1920 and, in 1929, published his masterpiece, All Quiet On the Western Front, which became an international best-seller and secured Remarque's writing career. When the Nazis came to power, his books were banned as being unpatriotic. Remarque lived in Switzerland and his German citizenship was revoked in 1938. He and his wife left for the United States just before the outbreak of war. He became a US citizen in 1947. His younger sister was arrested in 1943 and beheaded for 'undermining morale'. He returned to Switzerland in 1948 and spent the remainder of his life there. His novels were made into successful films. He died of heart failure at his home in Locarno. His other works include Station At the Horizon (1928), The Road Back (1931), Three Comrades (1937), Flotsam (1941), Arch of Triumph (1945), Spark of Life (1952), A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1954), The Black Obelisk (1957), Heaven Has No Favorites (1961), The Night in Lisbon (1964) and Shadows in Paradise (1972 Posthumous). |
