Time Person Of The Year 1938, 1939 and 1942

Time has the world's largest circulation for a weekly news magazine, and has a readership of 26 million, 20 million of which are based in the United States.

It was founded in 1923 and for decades was dominated by Henry Luce, who built a highly profitable stable of magazines.

Time's "Man (Person) of the Year" was awarded to the public figure that had the most effect on world affairs over the year. As Time has pointed out many times since, it is not an endorsement of the person or their deeds.

Time selected Adolf Hitler for Man of the Year in 1938 for the Munich Agreement which shattered the diplomatic alliances between France and Britain and the newly created Eastern European countries to keep Germany in check.

Time's cover and editorial were not approving of Hitler. The cover showed Hitler in a desecrated cathedral playing a "hymn of hate" with his victims dangling from a Catherine Wheel above:

Time selected Stalin as "Man of the Year" in 1939 for signing the Non-aggression Pact with Germany (taigi, kad Ribentropo-Molotovo...). The Pact cleared the last diplomatic restraint on Germany and doomed Poland to be invaded and divided between two dictatorships.

Stalin got the nod from Time for "Man of the Year" again in 1942, this time not for upending the world order but for surviving the initial Nazi assault. The survival condemned Nazi Germany to be ground down between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, which would do the majority of killing and dying in the war.