In December 1930, Berlin’s elegant Mozart Hall was packed for the second screening of All Quiet on the Western Front, the film of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel of life and death in the trenches of the First World War.
The book, published the previous year, was already a sensation, the first genuine international bestseller, with more than 1.5 million copies sold in Germany and another 600,000 in Britain and France. The Hollywood adaptation by Universal Pictures was the talk of Berlin.
