Veering OT: Voldemorts Sphere of Influence/WWII parallels

[mschub at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 11556

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Emily Owens" <bradamant at h...> wrote:
> 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.
>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.

While this is not really my field (N. Irish Hist.), I've studied it a 
to a fair degree, and from what I've seen, I'd say 98% of the 
historians out there (myself included) don't really see it as one or 
the other. It's not "they were either A or B", it's "they were A and 
B". To a certain extent, yes, Joe German should have stepped up and 
said something. But at the same time, within Joe German's rather 
limited frame of reference (controlled carefully and successfully by 
Hitler's propaganda machine), he wasn't really doing anything all that 
bad. The Nazi's succeeded so completely in dehumanizing jews, 
homosexuals, slavs, and so on, that it was no longer "killing another 
human being", it was "putting down a rabid dog", or, worse, "squashing 
a nuisance bug". Combine this with Joe's anecdotal knowledge of what 
will happen if he DOES speak up, and you get a VERY strong incentive 
to let things ride. Certainly, we can wish that there were stronger 
people to speak up in Germany. And indeed, towards the end of the war, 
many, many German people, the military in particular, were quite 
disillusioned with Hitler and his plans, and preparing/beginning to 
speak out on the subject. But a major problem I have with Goldhagen's 
book is that what he's basically saying is that he EXPECTED each an 
every German citizen to stand up and take a stand against wrong, and 
that he/she DIDN'T makes him a "willing executioner". Ideally, that's 
all well and good, but historically speaking, is that a possibility? 
Knowing what we do about human nature (WAY not my field), is that a 
possibility? I don't think it is, and I think it's an unreasonable 
expectation for him to have. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it 
CAN'T be one or the other. I hope this made sense. I didn't mean to be 
contradictory or anything, I just thought this looked like a fun topic 
to ramble on about.
 
> Aside from the Nuremberg-esque tone of the Death Eaters' trials...

Just out of curiosity, how so? I don't think the Death Eaters' trials 
had much in common with the Nuremberg trials at all, other than the 
fact that the general audience was convinced of the defendants' guilt. 
What other similarities are you seeing that I'm not?

> 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.

I see it when I look for it, but that can go for a lot of things. I 
don't get the impression that JKR was really meaning for that to be 
something central thematically.
-Mike