orig. Erich Paul Kramer
born June 22, 1898, Osnabrück, Ger.
died Sept. 25, 1970, Locarno, Switz.
German-born U.S.-Swiss novelist.
Drafted into the German army at age 18, he served in World War I and was wounded several times. He is chiefly remembered for All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), a brutally realistic account of the daily routine of ordinary soldiers and perhaps the best-known and most representative novel about that war. He moved to the U.S. in 1939 and became a U.S. citizen but settled in Switzerland after World War II. His other works include The Road Back (1931), Arc de Triomphe (1946; film, 1948), and The Black Obelisk (1956).