Der Querschnitt

Der Querschnitt was a German publication that bought Ernest Hemingway’s stories and provided him with an important source of income during his early years in Paris. A letter associated with the publication brought six hundred francs, with further payment promised, while Hemingway also identified it alongside the Frankfurter Zeitung as one of the few places where he could sell his work.

A German Outlet for Stories

Hemingway’s connection to Der Querschnitt appears through payments and sales rather than through any account of the publication’s editorial structure. When Sylvia Beach found a note and opened a closed compartment in her desk, she produced a letter that seemed to contain money. She identified Wedderkop; Hemingway thought the letter must be from Der Querschnitt. Beach said Wedderkop had been there and suggested he might have wanted to pay Hemingway first.

The letter contained six hundred francs and said that more would follow. Hemingway’s relief at the unexpected payment came through in his playful thanks to Wedderkop, whom he called “Dear Mr. Awfully Nice.” The exchange presents the publication not as an abstract name on a list, but as a buyer whose remittance could immediately matter to a working writer.

Sales and Financial Importance

Hemingway described Germany as the only place where he could sell anything, naming Der Querschnitt and the Frankfurter Zeitung as his outlets there. The statement emphasizes how limited his market felt: the payment from Der Querschnitt was part of a narrow, geographically concentrated stream of sales, rather than evidence of broad commercial success.

His finances also depended on other forms of publication income. He had received a two-hundred-dollar advance from Boni and Liveright for a first book of short stories, due to appear in America that autumn, and he was selling stories to the Frankfurter Zeitung, Der Querschnitt, This Quarter, and The Transatlantic Review. Hemingway and Hadley lived economically, spending only on necessities while saving for travel to the feria at Pamplona and onward to Madrid and Valencia. In this account, Der Querschnitt belongs to the practical economics behind that carefully managed literary life: each sale helped sustain work and travel, even as the author remained uncertain about where his writing could find a market.

Significance in the Account

Der Querschnitt’s significance rests on the contrast between the modest, concrete transaction and Hemingway’s larger ambition. In the same period, he was working to strip away facility and to make rather than describe, a process he found difficult and slow. Against that demanding artistic project, six hundred francs from a German publication offered immediate material support. The promised further payment suggests an ongoing connection, but the account gives no details of the publication’s editors, readership, or later dealings with Hemingway.