Jean Rudolf von Salis was a Swiss historian who gained prominence with his weekly "Weltchronik" (English: ''world chronicle'') radio broadcasts from 1940 until 1947.
[ Article also available in French and Italian.]
As von Salis never wrote English publications and his works were rarely translated, he is little known outside of the European historical sciences.
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Life and education
Jean Rudolf von Salis was born on 12 December 1901 in Bern, and he died on 14 July 1996 on Brunegg Castle
Brunegg castle (german: Schloss Brunegg) is a castle in the municipality of Brunegg in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.
The castle was built on a hill at the edge of the Jura mountains in the 13th century. This castle was probably built, tog ...
, a family heirloom of his mother, Marie Pauline Hünerwadel.[
Coming from a very noble Swiss family, von Salis counted more than 30 generals of different armies among his ancestors (one of them a ]Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
admiral), as well as several diplomats, politicians, and the poet Johann Gaudenz.Montpellier
Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...
(France), Berne, Berlin and Paris (Sorbonne
Sorbonne may refer to:
* Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities.
*the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970)
*one of its components or linked institution, ...
), in 1932 he finished the studies with writing a PhD thesis on Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi
Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi (also known as Jean Charles Leonard Simonde de Sismondi) (; 9 May 1773 – 25 June 1842), whose real name was Simonde, was a Swiss historian and political economist, who is best known for his works on French and ...
, a Swiss historian and political economist.[
He was married to his wife Elsie, and he had two children, Adolf and Marie, and his copious correspondence with fellow authors – the most prominent of them ]Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogni ...
– has been partially published.[
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Journalism and teaching
In 1926, he began to report from Paris for several Swiss newspapers, and from 1930 until 1935, he worked as a correspondent for Der Bund
''Der Bund'' (English: ''The Union'') is a Swiss German-language daily newspaper published in Bern.
Established in 1850 and associated with the cause of liberalism, it was among the leading quality newspapers in Switzerland for much of the 19t ...
, the main newspaper in Bern.
In 1935, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology The Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology are two institutes of higher education in Switzerland (part of the ETH Domain):
* Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
*Swiss people ...
in Zurich hired him as a professor of history, a position he kept until 1968.[
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''Weltchronik''
In 1940, the Federal Council of Switzerland
The Federal Council (german: Bundesrat; french: Conseil fédéral; it, Consiglio federale; rm, Cussegl federal) is the executive body of the federal government of the Swiss Confederation and serves as the collective head of state and governme ...
tasked von Salis with producing a weekly radio broadcast that featured reports, analyses and commentary on the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Given that the "Landessender Beromünster" (country radio station Beromünster
Beromünster is a municipality in the district of Sursee in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. On 1 January 2004 the former municipality of Schwarzenbach merged into the municipality of Beromünster.[medium wave
Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytime ...]
at the Blosenberg tower could be received in large areas of Europe, von Salis' reports earned respect as one of the few objective and neutral news sources during the War.
As he was taking a clear stance against national socialism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
, the German government demanded the Federal Council to replace von Salis several times. Though these attempts were not successful, von Salis was not allowed to mention negative events in Germany, as well as the genocide against the European Jews.
Later life
After the war, von Salis proposed rapprochement towards Europe, and from 1946 until 1965 he was member of the Swiss UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
commission and Swiss delegate at the UNESCO conferences.[
From 1951 until 1960, he edited his main work, "Weltgeschichte der neuesten Zeit" (literally "World history in the newest time"), a three-volume book on the world history from the Franco-Prussian war (1871) until 1945.][
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Works
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;German (selection)
*
* (New edition, three volumes with two sub-volumes each.)
* Biography in two volumes, covering the years 1901-1939 (published 1975) and 1939-1978 (1978).
;Translated into English:
*
Sources
{{DEFAULTSORT:von Salis, Jean Rudolf
1901 births
1996 deaths
Historians of Switzerland
People from Bern
20th-century Swiss non-fiction writers