The El Libro Libre publishing house, which published the first German-language edition of Anna Seghers’ novel Das siebte Kreuz, had been established in May 1942 by German writers and intellectuals who were in exile in Mexico. The financial as well as technical challenges for book production were great: “Because our typesetters were Mexican, they were of course able to set the text from the manuscript, but how in the world should they know where to break these strange, consonant-overloaded words? You had to show them where with light pencil marks.” (Bodo Uhse, Schriftsteller als Verleger, undated, published 1974)

Before Das siebte Kreuz appeared as the fourth publication by the publisher in January 1943, the book already had a bit of edition history behind it: After unsuccessful attempts to find a publisher for the manuscript completed in 1939, it was released in a slightly abridged English-language translation in the US in autumn 1942. There was also a comic version released in the US.

The German-language first edition from El Libro Libre features – despite the adverse production conditions – a striking woodcut by the Mexican graphic artist Leopoldo Méndez on the dust jacket. The publisher did not want to dispense with this visual message in order to amplify the impact of its efforts to raise awareness of the situation in Nazi Germany. The publisher's logo consists of a falling book destroying a swastika.