The Black Obelisk (German: Der schwarze Obelisk) is a novel written in 1956 by the German author Erich Maria Remarque. This novel paints a portrait of Germany in the early 1920s, a period marked by hyperinflation and rising nationalism. The line "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic" (Aber das ist wohl so, weil ein einzelner immer der Tod ist — und zwei Millionen immer nur eine Statistik.) is often not credited to the book but attributed to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.