Flotsam

First US edition
Author	Erich Maria Remarque
Original title	Liebe deinen Nächsten
Translator	Denver Lindley
Language	German
Genre	War novel
Publisher	Little, Brown (US) Hutchinson (UK)
Publication date	September 1939 in Collier’s Weekly March 1941 Little, Brown and Company
ISBN	0449912477

Flotsam (German: Liebe deinen Nächsten) is a novel first published in 1939 by the German author Erich Maria Remarque. The novel describes the interwoven stories of several immigrants who left Germany at the time of National Socialism.

Plot

The Austrian police raids a boarding house somewhere in Vienna. The young boy Kern and the sagacious Josef Steiner are arrested and evicted for having no passports. In Prague Kern meets Ruth Holland and falls in love with her. The three immigrants are forced to travel through all of Europe in search of a better life. At the end of this odyssey Steiner dies in Germany while he visits his terminally ill wife for the last time. Kern and Ruth are leaving Paris on a train to Spain.

Film

In 1941, the novel was made into the American film So Ends Our Night starring Fredric March and Margaret Sullavan.