Wikipedia:WikiProject Constructed languages/Interlingue task force/Occidental in World War II

The international auxiliary language Interlingue, known as Occidental from its publication in 1922 until it was renamed in 1949, was banned in many countries before and during World War II and most of the language's activity ended up relegated to neutral countries such as Switzerland and Sweden.

Background

International auxiliary languages such as Esperanto were viewed with suspicion and persecuted by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union[1]. Occidental was no exeption, with its propagation as a language banned in Nazi Germany in 1935[2] until the end of the war in 1945.

Spain

A magazine in Occidental entitled *Catalonia in Lucta* (Catalonia at War) was published in Barcelona in 1938[3] to report on Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War and to fight against the "'neo-civilisation' of Italian and German fascism, which with its methods of education (bombings of civilian cities, killing of children, women and old men, gunning down liberal elements etc.) intends to ruin and disrupt the liberties of a populace that prefers to die than live dominated and enslaved".

Bibliography

• Berger, Richard (1947). Remarcas pri li activita del Central Oficie durant li guerre e response al propositiones del vienneses. Chapelle (Vaud): Institute Occidental.