The call for and clear declaration of belief in a more humane society, guided by pacifist ideas, formed the core of his literary work, which has been translated into more than 55 languages. Remarque bluntly demonstrates the cruelty and senselessness of war, especially in his period novels, and describes in strong words the inhumane consequences of oppression, persecution and exile.

Virtually no other famous person from Osnabruck has had to endure as many contradictory judgements as Erich Maria Remarque. "Remarque was always between the fronts of criticism; condemnation and extolment accompanied all of his novels," Wilhelm von Sternburg writes in his biography "Als wäre alles das letzte Mal" (Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1998) which honours the life and work of the author extensively for the first time.

As a son of the book printer Peter Remark, Erich Maria Remarque, who later traced back his birth name to the French origin of his ancestors, was born on 22 June 1898 into a petit bourgeois family in Osnabruck. From 1916, he attended Catholic teacher training college to become an elementary school teacher, but his education was interrupted when he was called up to do military service in the Great War. In deployments on the Western Front, he was wounded so seriously by a shell splinter that he lived to see the end of the war in November 1918 in a military hospital in Duisburg.

In June 1919, Remarque successfully completed his teacher training examination and became a young teacher in the Emsland. But literary work was already on his mind; he also worked as a theatre and concert critic for the "Osnabrücker Tages-Zeitung". In 1922, he moved to Hanover where he worked as an advertising copywriter. Two years later, he became editor of the magazine "Sport im Bild" in Berlin.

"All Quiet on the Western Front"

The sensational response to his novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1928) gave Remarque the financial independence to live abroad from 1933. After his works went up in flames during the book burnings in May 1933, the National Socialists deprived the boycotted author of his German citizenship in 1938. Even before 1933, the National Socialists, attempting to seize power, had denigrated the bestseller "All Quiet on the Western Front" for its pacifist tendency and had organised hate campaigns and denunciations against the author. The American filming of the novel was banned in Germany.

Exile

From September 1939, Remarque lived in exile in the USA, where he finally obtained US citizenship in 1947. His sister Elfriede Scholz was sentenced to death by the People’s Court in December 1943 for the alleged "undermining of military strength", and was executed in Berlin-Plötzensee.

After Remarque became "unintentionally cosmopolitan", he lived as a prominent successful author in both New York and Porto Roncon in Ticino, Switzerland, between 1948 and 1966. He died on 25 September 1970 in Locarno. Remarque never overcame the bitterness due to his expatriation from Germany.

The City of Osnabruck awarded its most prominent son the Möser Medal for his "commitment to peace, freedom and human dignity" on the occasion of his 65th birthday. A delegation delivered the award to his house at Lake Maggiore in 1964. Three years later, Erich Maria Remarque received the Federal Cross of Merit.

Since 1991, the city has awarded the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize for literary, journalistic or scientific works that explore the topics "Inner and outer peace" every two years.

Erich Maria Remarque Peace Centre

Together with the University, the City of Osnabrück also runs the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Centre as a research establishment, containing the Remarque archive (1989). The centre now houses the world’s most important Remarque collection, with thousands of documents, including the original manuscript of "All Quiet on the Western Front", and a permanent exhibition.