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  • 2022-10-14 (xsd:date)
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  • Was Hitler Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize? (en)
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  • Adolf Hitler had the unusual distinction of being one of the most reviled figures in human history who also received a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize – albeit a nomination no one took under serious consideration. He was nominated in 1939 by a member of the Swedish parliament, E.G.C. Brandt. Technically, the Nobel Committee cannot control the nominations that pour in. According to the Nobel Prize website, a nomination is valid if it is submitted by members of national assemblies and national governments. So Brandt was able to submit this nomination. However, Brandt's nomination of Hitler was not intended to be taken seriously, and he described it as ironical. Brand was a dedicated anti-fascist and submitted the nomination as a satirical response to the political debate in Sweden. In 1939, 12 Swedish members of parliament nominated the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain for being responsible for world peace after the 1938 Munich Agreement he brokered with Hitler, when Czechoslovakian area Sudetenland was handed over to Germany. Only three days after the nomination, Brandt sent a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee nominating Hitler. According to the Nobel Peace Center – the museum for the Nobel Peace Prize – his letter stated: Swedish leftist groups protested against this nomination, calling Brandt clumsy, insane, and a traitor to the working class. His lectures at various clubs were also canceled. Brandt, in an interview with Swedish newspaper Svenska Morgonposten, said that the nomination of Chamberlain made him nominate Hitler as a provocation against the leader and Nazism. His point was that through the Munich Agreement, Western powers stabbed Czechoslovakia in the back by handing over Sudetenland, and neither leader deserved the prize. After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Brandt wrote a letter to the editor of Trots Allt, an anti-Nazi paper, in which he described his intentions in nomination Hitler: ... by the use of irony suggest a Peace Prize to Hitler and by that nail him to the wall of shame as enemy number one of peace in the world. According to the Nobel Prize archives, Brandt withdrew the nomination on Feb. 1, 1939. The archives describe Brandt as an anti-fascist member of the Swedish parliament who never intended his submission to be taken seriously. The Nobel Peace Center describes Brandt’s explanation that his nomination was ironic as probably correct, but he failed to foresee the reaction from the public when it came to how he formed his message. His anti-fascist credentials were very clear — he had been against the Munich Agreement, and signed a petition that led to the creation of an anti-fascist party in Sweden. He also criticized his own political party for refusing to take in more Jewish refugees from Germany, and was the first to call for investigations into the rumors of German extermination camps in Poland. (en)
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