From Jackson to Hitler, unlikely names for Nobel
OSLO: Eighty years ago on the brink of the bloodiest conflict in history, Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, illustrating that literally anyone can be nominated.
From the Fuhrer to the “King of Pop”, in the nearly 120 years the prize has been awarded nominations have included some choices that — to say the least — have seemed unlikely and outright bizarre.
In January 1939, about eight months before the invasion of Poland, Swedish Social Democratic MP Erik Brandt wrote to
the Norwegian Nobel Committee to suggest the Peace Prize should be given to Hitler.
In the letter, written only months after the annexation of Austria and the Sudeten Crisis, Brandt praised the leader of the Third Reich’s “glowing love for peace”, dubbing him “the Prince of Peace on Earth”.
Brandt later explained the nomination was meant to be satirical — although the irony was lost on many — and was in protest against British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain being nominated for the 1938 Munich Agreement in which part of Czechoslovakia was ceded to Germany.
The logic was that if Chamberlain were to be celebrated for appeasing Hitler, the Fuhrer might as well be too.
Brandt eventually withdrew the nomination, but Hitler still appears as a candidate in the archives.
“The history of Erik Brandt’s nomination of Adolf Hitler fully shows how dangerous it may be to use irony in a heated political setting,” Nobel historian Asle Sveen told AFP.
The Nobel Committee accepts all proposals as long as they are sent before the January 31 deadline.
In 1935, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was proposed, ironically, by German and French academics mere months before his country invaded Ethiopia.
As one of the victors of World War II, Russian leader Joseph Stalin was nominated twice, in 1945 and 1948.