Dispatches from the Ruhr

Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)

Before finding celebrity as an author, including his 1954 Nobel Prize, Ernest M. Hemingway honed his craft as a journeyman reporter. In the spring of 1923, as a special correspondent for the Toronto Star, he travelled to the occupied Ruhr Valley where he produced a series of 10 articles, collected here as Dispatches from the Ruhr. In them, he explores the French political system and its role in the decision to occupy the Ruhr Valley militarily, in an effort to collect on unsustainable war reparations. In addition, he examines the suffering of its ordinary citizens, as conditions there led to a progressive loss of confidence in the Weimar Republic; its economic collapse under the weight of hyper-inflation; and, ultimately, to the rise of Nazism. It is worth reading as both a case study on the unintended consequences of military occupation and a master class in the development of Hemingway’s characteristic prose style. - Summary by ASharma

Genre(s): War & Military, Essays & Short Works, Modern (20th C)

Language: English

Keyword(s): World War I (142), ruhr valley (1), toronto star (1), treaty of versailles (1), weimar republic (1)

Section Chapter Reader Time
Play 01 A Victory Without Peace Forced the French To Undertake the Occupation of the Ruhr Atul Sharma
00:11:05
Play 02 French Royalist Party Most Solidly Organized Atul Sharma
00:09:32
Play 03 Government Pays for News in French Papers Atul Sharma
00:11:25
Play 04 Ruhr Commercial War Question of Bankruptcy Atul Sharma
00:08:29
Play 05 A Brave Belgian Lady Shuts Up German Hater Atul Sharma
00:08:57
Play 06 Getting Into Germany Quite a Job, Nowadays Atul Sharma
00:12:53
Play 07 Quite Easy To Spend a Million, If in Marks Atul Sharma
00:09:50
Play 08 Amateur Starvers Keep Out of View in Germany Atul Sharma
00:06:42
Play 09 Hate in Occupied Zone a Real, Concrete Thing Atul Sharma
00:09:27
Play 10 French Speed with Movies on the Job Atul Sharma
00:08:35