Vita Nova (meaning New Life in Latin) was a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

publishing house at 36 Fluhmattstrasse in

Lucerne Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, that was established in January 1934 and co-founded by

Rudolf Roessler Rudolf Roessler (German: ''Rößler''; 22 November 1897 – 11 December 1958) was a Protestant Germany, German and a dedicated German resistance to Nazism, anti-Nazi. During the interwar period, Roessler was a lively cultural journalist, with a ...

along with the Catholic bookseller Josef Stocker and the financier Henriette Racine. It was run by the journalist and theater critic

Beginnings

Stocker had been encouraged to help co-found the publishing firm by the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

theologian Otto Karrer.

Books published

Vita Nova was an anti-Nazi publishing house that primarily published German writers living in exile. It published some fifty brochures and books critical of both Nazism and

Stalinism Stalinism (, ) is the Totalitarianism, totalitarian means of governing and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953), 1927 to 1953 by dictator Jose ...

; writers often based their arguments on Christian values. In 1935, the publishing house published ''Die Gefährdung des Christentums durch Rassenwahn und Judenverfolgung'' (The Endangerment of Christianity through Racial Theories and the Persecution of the Jews), in which recognized Catholic and Protestant leaders comment on the connections between National Socialist racial doctrine and anti-Semitism. Among the personalities who contributed essays were the Anglican cleric

William Ralph Inge William Ralph Inge (; 6 June 1860 – 26 February 1954) was an English author, Anglican priest, professor of divinity at Cambridge, and dean of St Paul's Cathedral. Although as an author he used W. R. Inge, and he was personally known ...

(London), the Czech philosopher

Emanuel Rádl Emanuel Rádl (December 21, 1873 – May 12, 1942) was an original Czech biologist, historian of science, philosopher and a critical supporter of Masaryk´s pre-war democratic Czechoslovakia. He earned international renown by his works on the ...

(Prague), Johann Alois Scheiwiler (Bishop of St. Gallen), and the Norwegian novelist

Sigrid Undset Sigrid Undset (; 20 May 1882 – 10 June 1949) was a Danish people, Danish-born Norwegian people, Norwegian novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1928. Born in Den ...

. Nicolas Berdyaev published a German translation of ''The Worth of Christianity and the Unworthiness of Christians'' with Vita Nova in 1936. The small firm also published books that were critical of

Francoist Spain Francoist Spain (), also known as the Francoist dictatorship (), or Nationalist Spain () was the period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death i ...

Memorandum

From 1940 to 1941, Roessler wrote a 94-page memorandum under the pseudonym R. A. Hermes that Vita Nova published, '' Die Kriegsschauplätze und die Bedingungen der Kriegführung'' (Memorandum on the war situation after the Battle of Britain). Although the German Reich had not yet invaded the Soviet Union, Roessler predicted that it would have a difficult time in the further course of the war. Great Britain and the United States of America, which was not yet at war, controlled the major passages on the world's oceans and the Axis powers Germany and Italy would first have to acquire this position before the war could be won on their side. Territorial gains could contribute to the success of the war, but also to its failure. The decisive factor was whether the acquirer had to dominate the territory by force and the associated effort, or whether he could retain enough partisans in the occupied country. The German Reich lacked this throughout, especially in relation to Poland and the Soviet Union. From the outset, these campaigns were designed to be a war of annihilation between two races and two world views. Winning over partisans was neither possible nor intended.

References

{{Reflist Publishing companies of Switzerland