You’ve seen the meme. It’s usually a grainy, black-and-white screenshot of a magazine cover with a red border. People post it on social media when they want to prove that "the media" can’t be trusted or to argue that someone popular today is actually a villain in disguise. The image is real. Adolf Hitler: Man of the Year, 1938.
But here’s the thing—most people sharing that image have no idea what was actually inside that magazine. They assume it was an award. Like a gold star for being a great guy.
Honestly, it was the exact opposite.
If you actually look at the hitler times person of the year issue from January 2, 1939, it’s one of the most scathing, terrifying pieces of journalism from the 20th century. It wasn't a tribute; it was a warning.
The Definition of "Person of the Year"
To understand why a monster ended up on the cover, you have to understand Time's logic. Since 1927, when they picked Charles Lindbergh because they had a slow news week and realized they'd never put him on the cover after his Atlantic flight, the title hasn't been about "goodness."
The criteria is simple: Who had the biggest impact on the news and our lives, for better or worse?
Sometimes it's a hero like Martin Luther King Jr. (1963) or the Apollo 8 astronauts (1968). Other times, it's a "for worse" pick.
Time has spent decades trying to explain this to a public that wants "Person of the Year" to be a popularity contest. It isn't. It's a measure of influence. In 1938, no one was moving the needle of history more violently than the dictator in Berlin.
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The Cover That Nobody Remembers
When people talk about the hitler times person of the year selection, they usually imagine a heroic portrait of him in his tan uniform.
That didn't happen.
Hitler is the only Person of the Year who didn't actually have his face on the cover in a standard portrait style. Instead, Time commissioned an illustration by a German refugee named Rudolph Charles von Ripper. It’s a haunting, surrealist etching. It shows Hitler as a tiny figure sitting at a massive, hellish organ in a cathedral of hate. Above him, a carousel of his victims hangs from a wheel, spinning in a void of torture and death.
The caption? "From the unholy organist, a hymn of hate."
Doesn't exactly sound like a "congratulations," does it?
Why 1938?
You might wonder why they picked him then and not earlier. Or later.
Basically, 1938 was the year the world realized Hitler wasn't just a local German problem. He’d spent the last twelve months tearing up the map of Europe.
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- March 1938: He annexed Austria (the Anschluss) without firing a single shot.
- September 1938: The Munich Agreement. This was the big one. Hitler outmaneuvered the leaders of Britain and France—Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier—to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.
- November 1938: Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass). The world watched in horror as state-sponsored pogroms against Jews broke out across Germany and Austria.
By the end of the year, Hitler had added 10 million people to his "Greater Germany." He had become the greatest threat to democracy on the planet. Time's editors felt that ignoring him would be like ignoring a hurricane just because you didn't like the wind.
The Words Inside the Magazine
The actual article is brutal. It describes Hitler as a "moody, brooding, unprepossessing, 49-year-old Austrian-born ascetic with a Charlie Chaplin mustache."
It notes that he had "torn the Treaty of Versailles to shreds."
The writers didn't hold back on the human cost, either. They explicitly mentioned that he had "sent Jews, communists and others to concentration camps" and was resurrecting "multiple forms of barbarism."
One of the most chilling parts of the 1938 write-up is the prediction. The editors wrote that he "may make 1939 a year to be remembered." They were right. On September 1, 1939, he invaded Poland and started World War II.
The Backlash and the Lesson
Even though the article was a condemnation, people were still furious. Cancellations poured in. Readers argued that putting a "blood-stained" face on the cover—even as a villain—was a form of glorification.
This tension never really went away.
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Time faced similar heat when they picked Joseph Stalin (twice), the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, and Vladimir Putin in 2007. Every time, the magazine has to go back to its core thesis: We report the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.
What This Means for Us Today
Understanding the hitler times person of the year selection is sort of a litmus test for media literacy.
If we see a person on a magazine cover and immediately think "the editors must like this person," we’re missing the point of journalism. Journalism is supposed to be a mirror. Sometimes mirrors show us things that are ugly.
Actually, they should show us the ugly things, especially when those things are powerful enough to change the world.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Reader
- Look for the context: Next time you see a controversial figure on a "top" list, read the actual text. Most of the time, "influential" is a neutral observation, not a moral endorsement.
- Check the artist: In the case of Hitler, the artist was a victim of the regime. That tells you more about the magazine's stance than the headline ever could.
- Don't trust the meme: Screenshots are easy to manipulate or strip of their meaning. If a post is trying to make you angry by showing a "Hero" cover that seems wrong, there's a 99% chance there's a much darker story behind the page.
The 1938 selection wasn't a mistake by the standards of the time; it was a cold, hard look at a man who was about to set the world on fire. It remains a reminder that the most dangerous people in history are often the ones we can't afford to look away from.
To learn more about how historical figures were perceived in their own time, you can browse the digital archives of major publications like the New York Times or Time Magazine, which often offer a day-by-day look at the headlines as they happened.