How a Mistaken Obituary and a Life Built on Explosives Gave Birth to the Greatest PR Cover-Up in the History of Peace

By Marivel Guzman | Akashma News

Obituary of Infamy: The Death That Wasn’t

In 1888, death knocked — but not for Alfred Nobel. It came for his brother Ludvig. Yet in a tragic twist of error, a French newspaper published an obituary for Alfred instead, bearing the now-infamous title: “Le marchand de la mort est mort” — “The Merchant of Death is Dead.”

The obituary condemned him in no uncertain terms: “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding more ways to kill people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” The paper, mistaking identity and fate, did not just misreport a death — it ignited a legacy crisis.

For Alfred Nobel, a man who held over 350 patents and presided over a transcontinental web of explosives and weapons factories, the headline struck deeper than any criticism he had ever faced. It wasn’t just public shame — it was a preview of how history would remember him–not as a benefactor of science, but as a harbinger of death. And he couldn’t allow that.

Thus began the most elaborate act of image laundering in modern history — the founding of the Nobel Peace Prize.

This moment didn’t inspire him. It terrified him. Within a few years, Nobel would write a new will — not to change the world, but to clean his name.

But contrary to the romantic mythology crafted by mainstream biographies and fanfare, Nobel’s creation was not born from an epiphany or a deep-seated yearning for peace. It was an act of strategic repentance — a calculated move to offset a violent empire with a philanthropic afterlife. The Peace Prize became a posthumous shield, not a symbol of his ideals, but a buffer against the damning truth of his industrial legacy.

Obituary of Infamy: The Death That Wasn’t

In April 1888, the Journal des Débats, a prominent French newspaper, ran an obituary that would echo through history—not for its tribute, but for its mistake. The paper believed Alfred Nobel had died while visiting Cannes. In truth, it was his brother Ludvig who had passed. But it was Alfred’s name, Alfred’s face, and Alfred’s legacy that graced the page under a damning headline:

“Le marchand de la mort est mort”
“The Merchant of Death is Dead”

Rather than a eulogy, it read like a public indictment.

It portrayed Nobel not as a man of science or innovation, but as a profiteer of carnage—a man who had made his fortune by engineering tools of destruction, and whose legacy would be written in blood, not ink.

This public misfire was no trivial error. For Nobel, it served as a preview of judgment day, not in a religious sense—he was a committed atheist—but in the court of public memory. The shame was immediate, and perhaps for the first time, irrevocable.

Though Nobel never publicly acknowledged the obituary’s impact, the timeline is telling. Within months, he began drafting revisions to his will. And by 1895—one year before his death—he completed a legally binding testament that redirected the bulk of his vast fortune not to family, not to science, but to the creation of a peace prize.

But not just peace — he included prizes for chemistry, physics, medicine, literature, and economics. Peace was almost an afterthought — tucked among disciplines that, ironically, had already helped refine warfare. This wasn’t about peace — it was about legacy control.

Contextual Anchor:

At the time of Ludvig’s death and the mistaken obituary, Alfred Nobel:

Held over 355 patents globally

Operated more than 90 factories tied to weapons, projectiles, and explosives production

Accumulated wealth through arms contracts from major European powers

Calling him a “man of peace” would be like calling an arms dealer a conflict resolution expert.

Peace for Sale: Nobel’s Will and the Reinvention of a Warmonger

On November 27, 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his third and final will at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris. It was brief, startlingly vague, and — for a man obsessed with precision — surprisingly open to interpretation.

In just over 1,200 words, Nobel allocated 94% of his vast fortune (roughly $200 million USD in today’s value) to establish annual prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature — and Peace.

But the wording of the Peace Prize bequest was as elusive as his character:

“…to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

On paper, this sounds noble. But in practice, it was a clause written without structure, oversight, or clarity — ripe for manipulation.

The Peace Clause: Loopholes, Ambiguity, and Historical Irony

Unlike the other prizes, which had clear scientific or literary criteria, the Peace Prize was rooted in subjective terms: “fraternity,” “peace congresses,” “abolition of armies.” Nobel did not name a peace foundation, a review committee, or even a political framework to define these goals.

The result? The Norwegian Storting (Parliament), not even mentioned in the will, quickly took ownership of the Peace Prize selection. This was a deeply political body — and its decisions over the next century would prove that “peace” was often awarded to military leaders, imperialists, and proxy-war apologists.

Contradictions Worth Highlighting:

Nobel left no requirement for transparency, allowing for secrecy in deliberations

Several Peace Prize recipients have been presidents, prime ministers, or military commanders — figures whose nations were actively at war at the time of the award

War criminals like Henry Kissinger, and preemptive invaders like Barack Obama, were laureates — mocking Nobel’s stated goal of reducing standing armies

Delucidation:

The Peace Prize was never designed to ensure peace. It was structured to protect Nobel’s name. By tying his fortune to an institution of “fraternity,” Nobel placed his legacy into a protective shell — a fortress of moral authority, guarded not by ethics but by gold and global ceremony.

Laureates of Hypocrisy: When Peace Was Awarded for War

Alfred Nobel’s Peace Prize, supposedly intended to reward efforts to abolish war and promote fraternity between nations, has repeatedly fallen into the hands of those whose legacies are soaked in blood, surveillance, or strategic silence. Instead of honoring peacemakers, the Nobel Committee has often decorated power brokers, political opportunists, and even perpetrators of violence — all under the gilded mask of diplomacy.

Here are just a few of the most glaring contradictions:

Henry Kissinger – 1973

“Awarded for negotiating the Vietnam ceasefire.”

While Kissinger accepted the prize, the war raged on for two more years. Secret bombings in Cambodia and Laos, orchestrated under his authority, left millions dead and destabilized Southeast Asia. The irony was so grotesque that Le Duc Tho, his Vietnamese counterpart, refused the prize altogether.

Barack Obama – 2009

“For extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy.”

When awarded, Obama was barely in office. He would go on to expand drone warfare, authorize more arms sales than any president before him, and oversee NATO’s intervention in Libya, which led to the total collapse of a sovereign state.

Menachem Begin – 1978

“For peace negotiations with Egypt.”

Begin, former commander of the Zionist militant group Irgun, had overseen bombings, assassinations, and ethnic cleansing campaigns during Israel’s founding years. The group’s 1946 attack on the King David Hotel left 91 dead. Peace with Egypt was strategic, not moral.

Aung San Suu Kyi – 1991

White Powder, Dark Legacy: Alfred Nobel’s War for Peace**

This investigative feature revisits the life of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, through a critical lens. It explores the contradictions between his contributions to warfare and his later public image as a benefactor of peace. Through analysis of Nobel’s writings and industrial empire, the piece dismantles the myth of a man driven by pacifism and reveals instead a legacy rooted in calculated power and destruction.

“For her non-violent struggle for democracy.”

Initially a global symbol of resistance, she later became complicit in the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims, defending the military’s atrocities at the International Court of Justice in 2019.

Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres – 1994

“For efforts to create peace in the Middle East.”

Both men had long careers in the Israeli military establishment. Peres was instrumental in establishing Israel’s nuclear weapons program, while Rabin oversaw brutal military operations during the First Intifada.

Delucidation:

The Nobel Peace Prize, designed by a man seeking to rewrite his own obituary, has itself become a tool of historical laundering — a way for empires to appear humane, for wars to be masked as diplomacy, and for the most powerful actors to be rebranded as peacemakers. It is no longer (if it ever was) a prize for peace — but a strategic endorsement, handed out by elites to other elites.

Nobel’s Final Invention: A Peace Prize for Empire

Alfred Nobel may have invented dynamite, but his most enduring creation wasn’t an explosive — it was a myth. A myth so powerful, so polished, so gold-plated, that it managed to detonate truth itself. The Nobel Peace Prize was never truly about peace. It was about reputation, redemption, and the reinvention of a man who built an empire on controlled destruction.

And in the century since his death, that myth has only expanded — weaponized by governments, legitimized by media, and sold to the world as a symbol of human progress. But behind the prize is a ledger of blood, a list of laureates whose hands were not clean, whose nations were not at peace, and whose policies deepened conflict under the banner of diplomacy.

The Peace Prize today stands not as a testament to peace, but as a trophy of power. It rewards the powerful for gestures, not consequences. It cloaks violence in statesmanship. It turns war into ceremony. And it does so using the name of a man who once feared being remembered as The Merchant of Death

But no medal can erase truth. No eulogy can sterilize legacy.
And no prize — no matter how prestigious — can silence the reckoning that comes when the myth begins to crack.

“Alfred Nobel didn’t invent peace. He invented a prize to hide from what he’d done — and gave the empire a medal to wear while doing the same.”

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, dreamed of peace, and built a legacy that fuels both.

White Powder, Black Legacy–Part I: Alfred Nobel’s War for Peace

In Part III of White Powder, Dark Legacy, Akashma News peels back the curated legacy of Alfred Nobel, diving into his unpublished writings and private contradictions. Was the Nobel Peace Prize born out of conscience or calculation? With sharp analysis and rare archival reflections, this installment exposes the ghost behind the medal—where regret, fear, and strategic reinvention collide.

White Powder, Dark Legacy – Part III: The Ghost Behind the Medal Nobel’s Private Writings: Regret, Fear, or Reputation Manage