Erwartungen von Rezensenten an Kriegsliteratur

Kriegserlebnisse. Manuskripte jeder Art werden richtig u. preiswert mittels Schreibmaschine geschrieben u. vervielfältigt im Schreibbüro Segata [...]

Diktierzimmer. Diktate in und außer dem Hause. (Anzeige in Das literarische Echo)²

Summary

Following the valid criteria for war literature in the Weimar Republic, which had been developed during the First World War, the Ullstein publishing house announced Erich Maria Remarque’ s »novel« Im Westen nichts Neues, which had been reworked and de-politicized by the author himself before, in November 1928, as a documentary without »tendency«, providing a new perspective on the war — the non-literary perspective of an ordinary soldier. Thus Ullstein preformed the reception of the text and took it out of the literary discourse as a novel and integrated it into the Weimar discourse of war literature. The following controversial discussion on Im Westen nichts Neues, especially on its content of »truth« in giving an ›authentic‹ representation of the war, mirrors and demonstrates the expectations which the critics had of war literature in general and which they used in order to value this text. But the discussion on Im Westen nichts Neues also makes clear that the given criteria of war literature depend on the context, not on the text itself. The »truth« of representation depends on those »true« descriptions of war which have been already produced and established before.