1938

La revista Time (Estados Unidos) ha hecho tradición la elección del personaje del año desde 1927. El primer personaje escogido ese año fue Charles Lindbergh.

Pero en 1938, el escogido fue nada más y nada menos que Adolf Hitler, el Canciller y Primer Ministro de Alemania. Estaba el planeta en la antesala de la 2da Guerra Mundial, pero -como comentaba ayer- ya se conocían ciertos aspectos de la ideología nazi y de lo que significaba para Alemania la llegada al gobierno de Hitler.

Me he encontrado con estas dos portadas de la edición de la revista del 2 de enero de 1939. Supongo que la original es la primera, pues es la que está reproducida en el archivo histórico de la página http://www.time.com/.



Encuentro en un blog ("Este curioso mundo") un comentario que puede ayudar a entender por qué se escogió a Hitler:

En 1938 Adolf Hitler fue elegido “Hombre del Año” por la revista Time. Aunque parezca chocante, hay que tener en cuenta que el hombre del año no es la mejor persona del año, sino el personaje más trascendente. Y no cabe duda de que Hitler lo fue en el 38 sentando las bases de lo que sería su reinado del terror.

El artículo original está escrito con bastante tacto, quizá a sabiendas de lo que estaba por llegar -la guerra-, tanto, que en la portada no aparece su cara como es habitual en esta elección. En su lugar, se muestra una composición con Hitler tocado su Himno de Odio en una catedral mientras las víctimas cuelgan de la rueda de Santa Catherine y la alta jerarquía nazi les observa. La ilustración fue obra del Barón Rudolph Charles von Ripper.

Algunos párrafos del artículo original de la revista acerca del "personaje del año". Tal vez allí encontremos pistas para entender por qué se eligió a Hitler:

Greatest single news event of 1938 took place on September 29, when four statesmen met at the Führerhaus, in Munich, to redraw the map of Europe. The three visiting statesmen at that historic conference were Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain, Premier Edouard Daladier of France, and Dictator Benito Mussolini of Italy. But by all odds the dominating figure at Munich was the German host, Adolf Hitler.

Führer of the German people, Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, Navy & Air Force, Chancellor of the Third Reich, Herr Hitler reaped on that day at Munich the harvest of an audacious, defiant, ruthless foreign policy he had pursued for five and a half years. He had torn the Treaty of Versailles to shreds. He had rearmed Germany to the teeth— or as close to the teeth as he was able. He had stolen Austria before the eyes of a horrified and apparently impotent world...

... The Fascintern, with Hitler in the driver's seat, with Mussolini, Franco and the Japanese military cabal riding behind, emerged in 1938 as an international, revolutionary movement. Rant as he might against the machinations of international Communism and international Jewry, or rave as he would that he was just a Pan-German trying to get all the Germans back in one nation, Führer Hitler had himself become the world's No. 1 International Revolutionist—so much so that if the oft-predicted struggle between Fascism and Communism now takes place it will be only because two revolutionist dictators. Hitler and Stalin, are too big to let each other live in the same world.

But Führer Hitler does not regard himself as a revolutionary; he has become so only by force of circumstances. Fascism has discovered that freedom—of press, speech, assembly—is a potential danger to its own security. In Fascist phraseology democracy is often coupled with Communism...

... The Fascist battle against freedom is often carried forward under the false slogan of "Down with Communism!" One of the chief German complaints against democratic Czechoslovakia last summer was that it was an "outpost of Communism."...

... Called to power as Chancellor of the Third Reich on January 30, 1933 by aged, senile President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Hitler began to turn the Reich inside out. Unemployment was solved by: 1) a far-reaching program of public works; 2) an intense rearmament program, including a huge standing army; 3) enforced labor in the service of the State (the German Labor Corps); 4) putting political enemies and Jewish, Communist and Socialist jobholders in concentration camps...

... But other nations have emphatically joined the armaments race and among military men the poser is: "Will Hitler fight when it becomes definitely certain that he is losing that race?" The dynamics of dictatorship are such that few who have studied Fascism and its leaders can envision sexless, restless, instinctive Adolf Hitler rounding out a mellow middle age in his mountain chalet at Berchtesgaden while a satisfied German people drink beer and sing folk songs.

There is no guarantee that the have-not nations will go to sleep when they have taken what they now want from the haves. To those who watched the closing vents of the year it seemed more than probable that the Man of 1938 may make 1939 a year to be remembered.

Y no le faltó la razón a la revista Time. El año 1939 comenzó la 2da Guerra Mundial, cuando Alemania invadió a Polonia.