Voldemorts Sphere of Influence/WWII parallels

[Emily Owens]

No: HPFGUIDX 11550

Ebony:
Many have noted parallels between Voldemort and Hitler [snip]

I just looked back in the archive and was surprised to note that either I 
can't find it, or there's been no mention yet of the possibility (or IMO, 
likelihood) that Voldemort's use of the Imperius Curse is a reference to one 
of the main attempts to explain the Holocaust.

I assume most of you know about this so I'll keep the summary short. There 
are two major schools of thought attempting to explain how the circumstances 
leading to the Holocaust or Shoah came about.

One started with Hannah Arendt and concerns "the banality of evil." 
According to this view, those who committed the crimes were cogs in a 
bureaucracy, and were too brainwashed or too dedicated to their jobs and 
country fully to realize how evil the bureaucracy's ends were.

The other gained great prominence with the fairly recent publication of of 
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's book "Hitler's Willing Executioners," which argued 
that those who committed the crimes acted independently, based on racist 
views they learned from their overwhelmingly anti-Semitic surroundings.

Aside from the Nuremberg-esque tone of the Death Eaters' trials, I think the 
discussions about the Imperius Curse are a reference to one of these two 
views. I.e. people who claimed that they were under the Imperius Curse tried 
to dodge responsibility for their actions by claiming that Voldemort *made* 
them do it, and were essentially trying to use the "organization of evil" 
argument. Given the level of skepticism with which many of the characters 
regard these claims, it seems that JKR is throwing her lot in with the 
Goldhagen/individual-responsibility view.

Does anyone else see this in the books? I studied the period, so perhaps I 
am over-inclined to see reflections of it everywhere. OTOH, I feel that the 
books are capable of this level of seriousness.

Emily
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