Editing All Quiet on the Western Front (section)

==Publication and reception==
[[File:Remarque All Quiet NL 9e druk a.jpg|thumb|Dutch translation, 1929]]
From November 10 to December 9, 1928, ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' was published in serial form in ''[[Vossische Zeitung]]'' magazine. It was released in book form the following year to great success, selling one and a half million copies that same year. Although publishers had worried that interest in [[World War I]] had waned more than 10 years after the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918|armistice]], Remarque's realistic depiction of trench warfare from the perspective of young soldiers struck a chord with the war's survivors—veterans and civilians alike—and provoked strong reactions, both positive and negative, around the world.

With ''All Quiet on the Western Front'', Remarque emerged as an eloquent spokesman for a generation that had been, in his own words, "destroyed by war, even though it might have escaped its shells." Remarque's harshest critics, in turn, were his countrymen, many of whom felt the book denigrated the German war effort, and that Remarque had exaggerated the horrors of war to further his pacifist agenda. The strongest voices against Remarque came from the emerging [[Nazi Party]] and its ideological allies. In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' became one of the first [[degenerate art|degenerate books]] to be publicly burnt;<ref name=Smithsonian>Sauer, Patrick. [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/most-loved-and-hated-novel-about-world-war-I-180955540/ "The Most Loved and Hated Novel About World War I,"] ''[[Smithsonian Magazine]]''. 16 June 2015. Retrieved 7 April 2024.</ref> in 1930, screenings of the [[All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 film)|Academy Award-winning film based on the book]] were met with Nazi-organized protests and mob attacks on both movie theatres and audience members.<ref name=Smithsonian/>

Objections to Remarque's portrayal of the World War I German soldiers were not limited to those of the Nazis in 1933. Dr. {{ill|Karl Kroner|de|Karl Kroner}} was concerned about Remarque's depiction of the medical personnel as being inattentive, uncaring, or absent from frontline action. Kroner was specifically worried that the book would perpetuate German stereotypes abroad that had subsided since the First World War. He offered the following clarification: "People abroad will draw the following conclusions: if German doctors deal with their own fellow countrymen in this manner, what acts of inhumanity will they not perpetuate against helpless prisoners delivered up into their hands or against the populations of occupied territory?"<ref name="clardy">{{cite web|url=http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front#Reception|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130615102102/http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front#Reception|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 15, 2013|title=All Quiet on the Western Front: Reception|author=Patrick Clardy|work=Yale Modernism Lab|access-date=June 3, 2013}}</ref><ref name="barker">{{cite book|first1=Christine R.|last1=Barker|first2=Rex William|last2=Last|title=Erich Maria Remarque|location=New York|publisher=Barnes & Noble Books|year=1979}}</ref>

A fellow patient of Remarque's in the military hospital in [[Duisburg]] objected to the negative depictions of the nuns and patients and to the general portrayal of soldiers: "There were soldiers to whom the protection of homeland, protection of house and homestead, protection of family were the highest objective, and to whom this will to protect their homeland gave the strength to endure any extremities."<ref name="barker"/>

These criticisms suggest that experiences of the war and the personal reactions of individual soldiers to their experiences may be more diverse than Remarque portrays them; however, it is beyond question that Remarque gives voice to a side of the war and its experience that was overlooked or suppressed at the time. This perspective is crucial to understanding the true effects of World War I. The evidence can be seen in the lingering depression that Remarque and many of his friends and acquaintances were suffering a decade later.<ref name="clardy"/>

The book was also banned in other European countries on the grounds that it was considered anti-war propaganda; Austrian soldiers were forbidden from reading the book in 1929, and Czechoslovakia banned it from its military libraries.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}} The Italian translation was also banned in 1933.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Karolides, Nicholas J.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56324787|title=120 banned books : censorship histories of world literature|date=2005|publisher=Checkmark Books/Facts On File|others=Bald, Margaret., Sova, Dawn B., Karolides, Nicholas J.|isbn=0816065047|location=New York|pages=14|oclc=56324787}}</ref> When the Nazis were re-militarizing Germany, the book was banned as it was deemed counterproductive to German rearmament.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/how-all-quiet-on-the-western-front-ran-afoul-of-nazi-film-censors/ar-BB1bdquL|title = How 'All Quiet on the Western Front' ran afoul of Nazi film censors|website = [[MSN]]}}</ref> In contrast, ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' was trumpeted by [[pacifists]] as an anti-war book.<ref name="barker" />

Remarque makes a point in the opening statement that the novel does not advocate any political position, but is merely an attempt to describe the experiences of the soldier.<ref>{{cite book|first=Hans|last=Wagner|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPH4NyyUlmAC&q=night+in+lisbon|title=Understanding Erich Maria Remarque|location=Columbia, SC|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|year=1991|isbn=978-0872497405}}</ref>

Much of the literary criticism came from [[Salomo Friedlaender]], who wrote a book ''Hat Erich Maria Remarque wirklich gelebt?'' "Did Erich Maria Remarque really live?" (under the pen name Mynona), which was, in its turn, criticized in: ''Hat Mynona wirklich gelebt?'' "Did Mynona really live?" by [[Kurt Tucholsky]].<ref>Kurt Tucholsky (under pen name Ignaz Wrobel), [http://www.textlog.de/tucholsky-mynona-wirklich.html ''Hat Mynona wirklich gelebt?''], ''Die Weltbühne'', December 31, 1929, No. 1, p. 15</ref> Friedlaender's criticism was mainly personal in nature—he attacked Remarque as being egocentric and greedy. Remarque publicly stated that he wrote ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' for personal reasons, not for profit, as Friedlaender had charged.<ref name="clardy" /><ref name="barker" />

''All Quiet on the Western Front'' was followed in 1931 by ''[[The Road Back]]'', which follows the surviving characters after the Treaty of Versailles, and the two are considered part of a trilogy alongside the narratively unrelated ''[[Three Comrades (novel)|Three Comrades]]'', released in 1936 and set well into the post-war era.<ref name=Smithsonian/>