Is it me or is there a huge Nazi reference (not in a bad sense) and theme to Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows?
The obvious ones would be the location Grindelwald was confined to, Nuremguard, and considering Gindelwald’s dabbling in the Dark Arts and a certain hatred for Muggles, is a direct reference to the Nuremburg trials and the imprisonment or execution of Nazi war criminals.
The Muggle-borns were being labeled as ‘Undesirables’ and Harry Potter himself, ‘Undesirable Number One’. The term ‘undesirable’ was also prominently used throughout the Nazi regime to refer to racial enemies and homosexuals. Furthermore, the requirement for Muggle-borns to be registered and be interviewed resembles the required registration of Germans with a partial Jewish heritage, who also had to undergo an interview to receive the ‘German Blood Certificate’.
If such a reference was actually intended by Rowling, I applaud her for bringing out real issues to the millions of kids reading Harry Potter. There are quite a few more examples I’ve spotted but I thought I’ll just list the obvious. I’m sure when I iterate though the book a second time, I’d find even more evidence.
Pretty sure that was explicit; certainly everyone I know picked up the Nuremberg reference. And many others compared the actions of the Ministry of Magic in the Order of the Phoenix to the Cold War Soviets.
Kids could go straight from Harry Potter to George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”… which was required reading when I was a kid, anyway, though in this age where controversy is anathema and our (USA) society is stratifying so quickly, I doubt such provocative material is ever discussed.
Thanks for your commentary and dropping by :).
‘Animal Farm’ was also required reading during my Secondary School days here in Singapore as part of our Literature curriculum. I was pretty much already a History buff back then and throughly enjoyed the book, though I can’t say the same for most of my peers, whom many of them found it rather dull and couldn’t really comprehend the big picture.
I really hope schools are able to use Harry Potter as a platform to get kids interested in these affairs.
Yes, yes! However, when I brought it up to my friends, they looked at me like I was nuts. I’d like to do (or for someone to do) a more in-depth comparison.
The way Hitler and Voldemort both recruited youth and the totalitarianism in Hogwarts.
The way Muggle-borns were rounded up and tortured (as in the Holocaust)
Voldemort was half-muggle, Hitler was half (or at least part) Jewish.
This is just an aside, but if you do the math, Rowling puts Voldemort’s school years squarely during World War II, and yet no mention of the war is made in the books.