The powerful man scared me as a child: when the bell rang in the house on December 6, I rather hid. This year, strong people will appear on December 7: when the bell tolls in the Federal Palace, the elections of two new members of the Federal Council should take place. People from whom no one wants to run away, who, on the contrary, should inspire the masses. People who have a certain thirst for power and mission.
Man and Power is the title of a new book by renowned British historian Ian Kershaw (79). In it, he depicts twelve people – eleven men and one woman – who ruled in a European country in the 20th century and belonged to the builders or destroyers of the continent. Among them there is none from Switzerland, except for Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), about whom Kershaw wrote a standard two-volume work at the turn of the millennium.
From Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (1930-2017): in about 40 pages, the historian expertly describes the character traits of an influential person and ( accidental) circumstances that led him or her to head of state. Finally, Kershaw sheds light on the legacy of the rehabilitated political leader.
At least in the case of Lenin, the roots – if we talk about the circumstances – go back to Switzerland, because he lived in exile in Zurich when the tsar abdicated in his Russian homeland. “It’s hard to imagine how Lenin could have gotten into revolutionary Petrograd (today’s St. Petersburg—ed.),” says Kershaw, “if the German government hadn’t allowed him and about thirty of his associates to cross the train from Switzerland to Russia.”
War is the most important harbinger, writes the historian. “Without World War I, Lenin – and his successor Stalin – Mussolini and Hitler would have had little chance of rising to the top of their respective states.” Without World War II, it is unlikely that Briton Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Frenchman Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) and Yugoslav Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) would have come to power.
Dictators and democrats, destroyers and builders: do the twelve very different politicians featured in this book have anything in common? “They all showed extraordinary determination and character in overcoming difficulties and setbacks,” writes Kershaw. All of them were “moved”, endowed with a sense of mission and fulfillment of “destiny”.
Ian Kershaw, “Man and Strength – On the Builders and Destroyers of Europe in the Twentieth Century”, DVA