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The sweep of events in 1945 engulfed a whole era. The modern Dark Ages gave way to a period in which man had another of his historically rare and fragile chances to seek peace and ensue it. The Axis, an insane Atlantis which no Francis Bacon would ever mourn, was shattered and submerged.
The men who had made that era vanished with it. Benito Mussolini, Italy's self-styled Man of Destiny, died ignominiously and was hung by his heels like a slaughtered pig alongside the body of his mistress. Adolf Hitler, Man of 1938, died by his own hand, also with his mistress, in the rubble of Berlin. Or did he die? Dead or alive, it did not much matter; Adolf Hitler, the force, had perished.
More obliterating than death was the continued life of Hideki Tojo. But for the Battle of Midway, he would certainly have been the Man of 1942. His war had been the coldest and most calculating of all, his machinations the most arrogant, his nation's defeat the most ruinous. When he tried to commit suicide he failed again; at year's end he lived on, saved from death by U.S. blood, shunned by his countrymen, still able to read that U.S. strategists had decoded his every intention, that he had never really had a chance.
Death & the Ballot Box. Even among the victors, men's fortunes rose & ebbed rapidly in the quick shift of the tides.
Franklin Roosevelt, Man of 1932, 1934 and 1941, was dead, struck down with dramatic suddenness before he could witness the victory he had charted and planned. Had he lived, 1945 would have been his year—the final flowering of American hope and strength which he had nurtured through black days made blacker by American indecision. But now he lay in a grave at Hyde Park, mourned by the world.
Winston Churchill, Man of 1940, had somehow missed the flood. He had led his country to victory, then, for all his gallant stubbornness in the face of wartime disaster, suffered a humiliating political defeat.
To Chiang Kaishek, China's Man of Eight Years, the events of 1945 came as a reward for unwavering courage and patience. Of all the Allies, China had endured the most. But the long-awaited, almost-despaired-of peace found Chiang embroiled in something close to civil war. He might well be the Man of 1946, or of some later year; he was not the Man of 1945.
Victory & Ravishment. Of all the world leaders of the '30s and early '40s, the most solidly successful survivor was Joseph Stalin. Yet Stalin's success was far from complete. His own country, though victorious, was ravished. His world revolution (if he still sought one) was still a distant goal. War's end did not bring Communism to the world or even to much of Europe.
As the talk between the world and his wife showed, Joseph Stalin was the most feared man of 1945. By his followers in every country he was also the most admired. But he did not dominate the year. And he ended it amidst rumors of ill health, amidst mounting speculation whether his successor would be Diplomat Molotov or Soldier Zhukov.