Jean Rudolf von Salis

Jean Rudolf von Salis (12 December 1901 – 14 July 1996) was a Swiss historian. He gained prominence with his weekly "Weltchronik" (English: world chronicle) radio broadcasts from 1940 until 1947.

As von Salis never wrote English publications and his works were rarely translated, he is little known outside of the European historical sciences.

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 admiral), as well as several diplomats, politicians, and the poet Johann Gaudenz.

As the son of a medical doctor, Adolf von Salis, he began to study history in 1920. After visiting the universities of Montpellier (France), Bern, Berlin and Paris (Sorbonne), in 1932 he finished his studies by writing a PhD thesis on Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, a Swiss historian and political economist.

In 1966, the "Weltchronik" episodes were published in print.

Later life After the war, von Salis proposed rapprochement towards Europe, and from 1946 until 1965 he was a member of the Swiss UNESCO 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 world history from the Franco-Prussian war (1871) until 1945.

Works

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