In August 1943, dressmaker Elfriede Scholz, youngest sister of writer Erich Maria Remarque, was denounced in Dresden and arrested. The accusation was "undermining the war effort". In October 1943, she was tried at the Volksgerichtshof [People's Court] before the presiding judge Roland Freisler. Elfriede Scholz was condemned to death and "permanent loss of honour". She was executed on 16 December 1943.

Erich Maria Remarque heard of his sister's death in June 1946. He began investigating her murder shortly afterwards. His findings soon flowed into the novel Der Funke Leben [Spark of Life], which he had begun in 1944 with the intention of shedding light on Nazi crimes. Since Remarque needed to perform lengthy research and also made several changes to the concept, the novel was not finished until May 1951.

Scherz Verlag, the company which was to release the German version, refused to publish it. On 4 August 1951, Remarque made the following note in his diary: "German reactions. You must never remind Germans of things. Murderers who are sensitive. Scratch." (Erich Maria Remarque Briefe und Tagebücher [Letters and Diaries]). The first German-language edition was published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in 1952. However, Remarque had to forgo a dedication to his sister at the beginning of the book and remove a sub-chapter.

This typescript contains the dedication "To the memory or my sister Elfriede" missing from the first edition as well as the excluded sub-chapter. It was thus possible to restore Remarque's original version of Der Funke Leben [Spark of Life] for a new edition published in 2018.

Further reading:
Erich Maria Remarque: Der Funke Leben. Roman. In der Originalfassung mit Anhang und einem Nachwort herausgegeben von Thomas F. Schneider, Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2018