Nuño de Guzmán: the Himmler of New Spain (14??–1550) In 1984,
his epic indictment of Stalinism, George Orwell writes that
totalitarian man exercises power over others by making them
suffer. Arthur Koestler, another great analyst and foe of Soviet
communism, has the interrogator in Darkness at Noon declare that
previous tyrants erred in failing to sufficiently blacken the
character of their victims, thus enabling them to be regarded as
martyrs by future generations. Both Orwell and Koestler were
masterful in delineating the difference between tyrannical
regimes of the past and 20th century totalitarian states like
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin. Though Nuño
Beltrán de Guzmán lived in the 15th and 16th centuries, his
application of tyranny was completely "modern." A man in the
tradition of Heinrich Himmler and Lavrenti Beria, Guzmán paid
lip service to the Spanish ideal of Christianizing New World
Indians but his true goals were riches and power. The exact date
of Guzmán's birth is unknown, and