"Love Thy Neighbor" by Erich Maria Remarque, summary

The novel, completed in 1939, is a frank drama about the fates of German refugees forced to wander Europe in the 1930s without papers or the right to work. Dislocated from their normal lives, these people become illegal immigrants, persecuted by police in various countries, but they retain their dignity, loyalty, and the capacity for genuine love. In 1941, the work was successfully adapted into a Hollywood film, "So Ends Our Night" (directed by John Cromwell).

Arrest in Vienna and meeting of the fugitives

In a cheap Viennese boarding house, the police conduct a morning raid. A young student from Dresden, Ludwig Kern, deprived of citizenship because of his father’s Jewish heritage, and a former escapee from a German concentration camp, Josef Steiner, are placed in the same cell. During their arrest, the elderly Polish Jew Seligman jumps from a police truck and dies, while policeman Leopold Schäfer punches Steiner in the face. In the cell, Steiner teaches the young man card tricks and self-control. After two weeks of detention, both are handed a deportation order and are transported overnight across the border into Czechoslovakia. On the way, Steiner tells Kern about his wife, Maria, who remains in Germany, and how he offered to divorce her for her safety. Steiner then secretly returns to Austria, while Kern heads to Prague.

Wanderings around Prague and first love

In Prague, Kern manages to obtain a fourteen-day residence permit thanks to a weary official. At the Bristol Hotel for refugees, he meets a chemistry student, Ruth Holland, who has fled Germany. Ludwig is trying to sell bottles of Farr eau de toilette, formerly produced in his father’s laboratory factory. Suddenly, he finds his aging and broken father, Sigmund Kern, working for a meager salary in a coal yard for a Czech woman, Melanie. After a touching farewell, Ludwig realizes he will never see his father again. After throwing Ruth a farewell dinner at the Black Piglet restaurant before her departure, where a monocled German officer, unknown to him, buys them cakes and champagne, Kern sees her off on a train to Vienna, and he himself sets off after her when his Prague permit expires.

Life in the Prater and the pogrom

In Vienna, Steiner earns money by playing cards with local sharpers, buys a fake Austrian passport in the name of a deceased worker, Johann Huber, and beats up a policeman, Schäfer, on a quiet street. He later gets a job with the show’s director, Potzloch, in the Prater Park, where he performs telepathic séances. Arriving in Vienna, Kern finds Steiner and also begins working for Potzloch: he cleans carousel animals, plays the piano, and assists at shows. Ruth soon arrives, and the young couple spends happy days in the Prater, sheltering inside the carousel tent during downpours.

However, this peaceful life is shattered. An anti-Semitic pogrom breaks out near the University of Vienna. Kern tries to protect Ruth, gets into a fight, and is imprisoned for two months. In his cell, he studies French with a Russian professor from Kazan. A prison guard gives Ludwig cigarettes from Steiner and the news that Ruth is safe and has moved to Switzerland. Released after serving his sentence, Kern is once again expelled from Austria. Steiner, noticing the increased police interest in the shooting range, gives Kern a parting gift of small items from the prize fund and sends him off to Switzerland.

Swiss barriers and Ruth’s disease

Kern illegally crosses the Swiss border by wading across the Rhine and reaches Zurich. There, he meets experienced émigré Georg Binder, who teaches him survival skills, and finds Ruth in the apartment of her acquaintances, the Neumanns. The young couple moves to Lucerne and then to Bern. In Bern, the con man Binding steals forty francs from Kern. The pair are forced to walk in pouring rain and spend the night in a barn. Ruth becomes seriously ill with pneumonia. Local doctor Rudolf Behr takes her to the hospital in Murten. Every evening at precisely nine o’clock, Kern arrives at the hospital building and signals Ruth with lit matches.

Steiner, having left Austria before the Anschluss, crosses the Swiss border. In Murten, he searches for Dr. Behr, learns of Kern’s plight, and stages a daring operation: appearing before the informer Ammers with a fake Nazi badge, he extorts sixty francs from him under the guise of a contribution to a secret fund.

Kern is caught by a Swiss gendarme at the hospital windows. Ammers identifies him, but Kern frightens the informer with a fictitious diagnosis of liver cancer. The court sentences Ludwig to fourteen days in prison. Through Dr. Behr, Kern exchanges letters with Ruth and arranges to meet in Geneva. After serving his sentence, Kern is exiled to France and returns to Geneva, where he meets a recovered Ruth at the post office — she has managed to obtain a temporary residence permit. Together, they illegally cross the French border.

Paris: Trials and Rescue

Arriving in Paris, Ruth and Ludwig check into the dilapidated Hotel Verdun on Rue Turenne, where dozens of illegal immigrants are hiding. There, they meet an old acquaintance, former Reichstag member Marilla. Kern finds day labor working on the construction of the World’s Fair. Steiner soon arrives in Paris. With the money he’s saved, Kern buys back Ruth’s mother’s ring from the junk dealer Solomon Levy, who had previously pawned it, and Steiner buys them warm coats.

Steiner unexpectedly receives a letter from Berlin: his wife Maria is terminally ill and hospitalized. Understanding the danger, Josef travels to Germany using a false passport. He manages to spend his last days with his dying wife. On the day of her death in the hospital, he is arrested by SS officer Steinbrenner. On the fifth-floor landing, Steiner calmly pushes the executioner through an open window and jumps with him.

At the Hotel Verdun, veteran émigré Moritz Rosenthal quietly dies of old age. Kern is again detained by French police at a construction site and expelled from the country. He soon returns to Paris. In the hotel dining room, Marill hands Ludwig a letter and the money left by Steiner. With this money, Marill and Klassman have already purchased two tickets for Kern and Ruth on the Portuguese steamship Tacoma, sailing from Bordeaux to Mexico, and secured Mexican visas.

Deeply grieving Steiner’s death, Kern and Ruth realize they’ve been given a chance at a new life. They walk out onto the crowded Champs-Élysées, preparing to learn Spanish and embark on a long journey overseas.