Dedication by Stefan Zweig to Getúlio Vargas

Stefan Zweig (1881 - 1942). Humanity's Decisive Moments. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Guanabara, Waissman, Koogan Ltd., 1936.

Dedication on the fake title page: Á son Excellence Le Président de la Republique de Brazil Dr. Getulio Vargas le plus reconnaissant des visiteurs de Brazil Stefan Zweig.

The author's dedication has no date, but it predates his move to Petrópolis, when he was still a visitor to Brazil. It may have been on the occasion of the launch of his book, as he enjoyed the prestige of academics - not all of them writers -, but not of the Brazilian intelligentsia. Stefan Zweig came to Rio de Janeiro for the first time in 1936, at the invitation of the newly founded PEN Clube do Brasil. The original cover of the Brazilian edition – which does not exist in the copy of the Getulio Vargas Collection at the Museu da República – was designed by Di Cavalcanti.

The couple Stefan Zweig and Lotte Altmann (Elizabeth Charlotte Altmann) moved to Petrópolis after living in the English cities of London and Bath and in New York, after leaving Austria in 1934, due to the rise of Hitler's troops. Before that, however, there were trips to Brazil for the author to give lectures – the first one, in 1936, on his way to Argentina; the second, in 1940. In 1941, he moved permanently to Petrópolis. Stefan Zweig died on the night of February 22 to 23, 1942, in Petrópolis, despairing about future world events, committing suicide with his wife - the newspaper headlines of February 18 reported about the first Brazilian ship torpedoed by German submarines. . The Austrian author may not have been aware of the letter that Vargas had written to his father on February 5 of that same year, communicating the Brazilian option against the Axis (Germany, Italy and Japan), in favor of the Allies (England and France), nor the document signed on January 28, 1942. Given Zweig's humanist and pacifist trajectory, such an expressive existential protest would make sense.