Yes, Adolf Hitler was Time's Man of the Year

No, the magazine did not honour or praise Hitler in calling him that

Each year, the same cycle of events plays out.

Time magazine announces its pick for “Person of the Year” (or “Man of the Year” as it originally was). The media report the pick. People who think someone else should have been Person of the Year, along with people who simply don’t like the news media, note that Time chose Adolf Hitler as Man of the Year in 1938. And they make some nasty comment about the media’s moral bankruptcy, or stupidity, or both.

So what happened this year?

Time announced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is its Person of the Year. With clock-like predictability, this set off angry denunciations from far-right types, Russian bots, Vladimir Putin fans, and Elon Musk groupies. (There’s a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram, it should be noted.) Musk should be man of the year, they wailed. The editors are fools! Why, did you know they named Adolf Hitler Man of the Year in 1938?! They honoured Adolf Hitler! Fools! Idiots! Moral degenerates! Etcetera.

So today I am writing this as a public service. And because I love futility.

Deeming someone “Person of the Year” is not, in itself, moral approval. It is not praise. It is, as the editors have said over and over, only an acknowledgement of “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill.” It is an indication of importance, in other words. And “importance” is morally neutral. Albert Einstein was important. So was Adolf Hitler.

And speaking of the Austrian corporal…

Yes, Time did name Adolf Hitler its Man of the Year in 1938. Because he was. He launched Kristallnacht in 1938. He annexed Austria in 1938 and forced Britain and France to carve the Sudetenland off Czechoslovakia and hand it to Germany. By the end of 1938, anyone who could read a newspaper could see that Europe and the world were once again teetering on the edge of a catastrophe. Thanks to this one man. It would have been insane to name anyone else Man of the Year in 1938.

And what exactly did Time say about Mr. Hitler? The editors called him “the greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today.” That’s pretty far removed from praise. It’s also blatantly true.

And have you ever noticed that people who attack Time this way never show you the cover of the issue in which Hitler is named Man of the Year?

Here it is:

See the caption? “From the unholy organist, a hymn of hate.”

If that sounds like praise to you, I would draw your attention to what’s hanging on the wheel above the organ. Corpses. Hanging from the neck.

In declaring Hitler Man of the Year, Time ferociously condemned the man.

Please let the bots, fans, and groupies know.