Elfriede Scholz, Sister of Famour Author Erich Maria Remarque Was Executed by the Nazis

Erich Maria Remarque is very well known for his World War 1 novel All Quiet on the Western Front. The book is the story of the stress, both mental and physical, that soldiers had to deal with in the trenches during the war. That book and the sequel, The Road Back were among the books banned and burned by the Nazi regime.

Erich's sister Elfriede Scholz trained as a dressmaker and ran her own salon in the German cities of Leipzig and Dresden. She was married in 1941 to a man named Erich Scholz. Elfriede Scholz made no secret of her disdain towards the National Socialist movement and made comments in that same vein to people that came into her shop as well as to her landlady.

In the summer of 1943 she was indicted and convicted of subverting the war effort, aiding the enemy, and undermining morale. Her conviction was based on the evidence presented by people she had conversed with in her shop. She was sentenced to death. Elfriede Scholz was executed on December 16, 1943.

Erich Maria Remarque, who was living in Switzerland at the time, was unaware of his sister's fate until after the war had ended. He dedicated his 1952 novel titled The Spark of Life to his late sister. That dedication was left out of the German version of the book because many in Germany still considered him to be a traitor.

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