A Time to Love and a Time to Die - Erich Maria Remarque

The soldier Ernst Gräber is fighting on the eastern front in 1944. The german army is on the retreat. He gets three weeks of home leave. Meeting old friends, old teachers, former and new acquaintances, allies and love at the home front.

At all times there is the dangling future of having to go back to the front. Ernst tries to make the days count and to live life to the fullest. Puts ones own mundane problems into perspective.

The original german title is Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben which would translate to A Time to Live and a Time to Die. Live was exchanged by Love, which loses the subtleness of how love is part of living.