In November 1941 the exile magazine Freies Deutschland. Alemania Libre was founded in Mexico City by German-speaking emigrants, including Egon Erwin Kisch, Rudolf Feistmann, André Simone (Otto Katz) and Anna Seghers. The editor-in-chief was the Austrian writer Bruno Frei and, from January 1942, the journalist Alexander Abusch. Antonio Castro Leal was recruited as the Mexican publisher. Freies Deutschland became one of the most important magazines of German-speaking emigration. It regarded itself as the mouthpiece of the Freies Deutschland movement in Mexico. The magazine provided a wealth of cultural news from many countries. It contained information on modern science, literature and art. The wide-ranging literary programme also fell within the remit of the literary editor Bodo Uhse. The exiled writers living in Mexico Anna Seghers, Egon Erwin Kisch and Bodo Uhse wrote regularly for Freies Deutschland. Heinrich Mann and Thomas Mann, Berthold Viertel, Bruno Frank, Lion Feuchtwanger, Oskar Maria Graf, Ferdinand Bruckner and Mascha Kaléko sent contributions from the United States, as did Paul Zech from Argentina,.

After the United States entered the war, a large "V" - the "victory sign" of the allies - was shown on the cover of the magazine. In the Communist-oriented resistance movement, there were also other publications with the same name at various times in various countries, such as in Belgium (1937-1939), Chile (1942-1943) and in the USSR (1943-1945). They each had a different historical focus and were not connected to each other.

Further reading:
Patka, Marcus G.: Zu nahe der Sonne. Deutsche Schriftsteller im Exil in Mexiko. Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag 1999.