Robby Lohkamp has a small car workshop with a petrol station with Otto and Gottfried. In the uncertain times of the Weimar Republic, the friendly business keeps them afloat and allows them to pass cars on the roads in a way that risks a hefty fine. A young man sleeping in a boarding house near a cemetery would still like to fly much further - perhaps to the lights of Rio de Janeiro - but his wings were cut by the frontline experiences of the First World War and a shaky peace lined with poverty and drinking. Then he meets Patricia, and the world suddenly makes sense. Robby's sweetheart is sincere, sparkling, and yet still chilling, for a crushing reason. And as if the bad luck of 1928/29 wasn't enough, crooks start to rage in the streets, incited by the flaming speeches of the mustachioed psychopath. Result? Whether in the novel of the great German pacifist he is approaching the brown terror that one cannot drive even at a speed of 189 km/h, despite the time under the dog, he wants so much to live - and survive. Although fate is sometimes against.

For his outburst against Hitler in the novel from 1936, which at the time was only allowed to be published in the Netherlands and which most vividly demonstrates Remarque's kinship with the giants of the "lost" generation Hemingway and Fitzgerald, the Nazis intensified the repression against the author, which had been carried out against him since the coup in 1933. Film version the novel was nevertheless filmed by Hollywood director Frank Borzage as early as 1938 with Margaret Sullavan in the role of Patricia, who was nominated for an Oscar for this performance.

READ: Hynek Čermák

Number of CDs: 2