Hitler and Voldemort - some comparisons

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 185253

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "cubfanbudwoman" <susiequsie23 at ...> wrote:
 
SSSusan:
> Another excellent point.  I shoulda thought of that one. ;)  
> 
> It is all about power for him, and it's about followers who have 
> enough of it to be capable, but not so much of it -- and not combined 
> with ambition -- so that he doesn't have to worry about competition.
> 
> But on that issue of purebloodedness....  We all know Voldemort isn't 
> a pureblood, and yet he did hide the fact that he wasn't from his 
> followers, which of course makes sense since they were a band of 
> purebloods.  
 
> This does, of course, beg the comparison to Hitler -- how one who 
> himself had a partially Jewish heritage could pretend that he did not 
> and promote the ideal of the Aryan race.  Does that mean that Hitler 
> never truly believed in that principle of Aryan superiority?  That's 
> not rhetorical question -- I'd really like to know what people 
> think.  Because it seems to me that it *is* possible that a person 
> who lacks something still believes in the principle of its 
> superiority.

Geoff:
There are .in fact, a number of comparisons which ca be made between 
Voldemort and Hitler. Let me say that I am not implying that JKR made 
these deliberately; it is possible that she was influenced by the view of 
Hitler afforded to us.

Hitler was born in Austria; he was not a true German. Voldemort was 
born a half-blood; he is not a true purebood. Voldemort passionately 
hated Muggles because of the way he perceived they had failed him; 
his father had abandoned him. He had gone through unkindly and 
loveless hands in the Muggle world. Hitler, like many German extremists 
post-World War One, blamed the country's parlous state financially, 
economically and militarily on Jews whom he passionately hated.

Each drew around him a clique of like-minded and sycophantic 
followers who were an elite corps enforcing and underpinning his
 rule of terror – the Gestapo and SS, or the Death Eaters. Hitler 
preached his Aryan aims despite the fact that he physically didn't 
fit the Aryan pettern himself. Voldemort wanted a pureblood Wizarding 
World which he could use to enforce his will even though he contradicted 
the pureblood ideal himself. The Muggle-born Registration Commission 
so echoes the Third Reich's demand that you had to produce evidence 
of Aryan predecessors and no taint of Jewishness.

If you look at Voldemort's attitudes, I hold that he was only really 
using pureblood theories as a springboard to holding overall power, 
He was quite willing to torture and dispense with his followers despite 
their pureblood pedigree if they failed him, crossed him or possibly 
rivalled him in any way. Similarly, Hitler used his anti-Semitism to 
catapult him to power by appealing to the greediest, most amoral and 
nationalistic voters to support him. Aryan or not, anyone who failed 
him, crossed him or rivalled him was summarily removed from the 
scene. I believe that the Aryan ideas were just a move to control the 
population and not a true attempt to homogenise the German people.

Writers have argued that Hitler never really possessed a complete 
tactic for winning. Although he showed great strategic in the first 
years of the war, he then changed his aims, often vacillated and did 
not push matters to an end and in so doing failed. Voldemort equally, 
made grandiose gestures particularly in his dealings with Harry. So 
often, his attempts were botched, the classic being that in GOF when 
instead of boasting to the admiring throng of his intentions, he could 
swiftly have despatched Harry and completed matters. To me, as a Brit, 
this incident is to Voldemort what Hitler's Battle of Britain and invasion 
of Britain failure in 1940 was, A turning point which slowly but steadily 
turned the action round.