Enrich Maria Remarque: A Militant Pacifist :: essays research papers

Enrich Maria Remarque: A Militant Pacifist   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The First World War was a horrible experience for all sides involved, no one was immune to the effects of this global conflict, and each country was changed in many ways. Erich Maria Remarque was drafted into World War I at age 18. In 1929 Remarque’s first book All Quiet on the Western Front was published. Throughout the book, the death and destruction caused by battle is clearly shown. Remarque's novel is a statement against war, focusing dramatically on the extreme effects of war on the humanity of soldiers. Biography   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Erich Paul Remark was born on June 22, 1898 In Western Germany. In 1913 Remark began to attend a teachers college called Osnabruck’s Lehrerseminar. During his third year when he was eighteen he was drafted into the war. After finishing basic training in the war he was assigned to a reserve battalion. His mother became very ill, so he was often allowed to visit her. In June 1917 he was reassigned to a trench unit. Remark was soon injured by grenade splinters and rushed to St. Vincenz hospital in Duisburg during 1917-1918. His mother died while he was in the hospital. After a year in the hospital he returned to Osnabruck for further training. The war had ended before Witt 2 he returned to active duty. After the war he changed his middle name to Maria after his mother.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Remark went back to college after the war. He graduated and started his two-year substitute training in 1919. Finally he got bored teaching, and did different odd jobs such as, playing organ on Sundays at an insane asylum, working for a tombstone firm, working as a small town drama critic, and racing sports cars. In 1920 he published a novel that was so bad he changed the spelling of his last name to Remarque. His book All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 1929 and Remarque â€Å"became a spokesman of a generation that was destroyed by war†-Kirjas. Many people loved the book, and according to New York Times, All Quiet was â€Å"one of the best-known anti-war novels ever, which decepted the horrors of war from the point of view of the ordinary soldiers†. In 1930 the Nazis banned his books and burned them at the famous book burning in 1933; Remarque later stated, â€Å"I was only misunderstood where people went out of their way to misunderst and me†.