Harry Potter and the Historical Allegory

So, the final movie adaptation of the final book in the Harry Potter series opened recently—and yes, your favorite historical blogstress was there, revisiting J.K Rowling’s brilliantly conceived and executed shadow world [whilst sobbing out her eyes]. But what ultimately makes the series so compelling is that these witches and wizards are recognizably (even painfully) human—and their dynamics, the issues that move and challenge and destroy them, mirror those in “real” history. Harry and Ron’s adolescent romantic foibles, Lily’s ultimate sacrifice for her son, Snape’s inability to forgive the slights of his teenage years—these are recognizable human beings. We know them. And in the story of Voldemort and his Death Eaters, we hear echoes of the 20th century's most iconic narrative of evil.

I got to these books rather late—my older brother gave me the series two years ago and I promptly devoured them, reading the first three in a day apiece and then forcing myself to slow down on the subsequent volumes. As I progressed, I started suspecting something--a malevolent, charismatic leader who espouses a "racial" ideology, complete with gradations of “blood purity”?

Toujours Pur

They thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the Wizarding race, 
getting rid of Muggle-borns and having purebloods in charge.

Two horrific wars? “Muggle” registration?

Hmm, ya think…?

The parallels become more apparent as the series progresses, in part because Rowling’s storyline becomes darker and more adult in sensibility. Voldemort’s puppet regime, with its murderously efficient Snatchers*...

"They're everywhere--gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, 
there's a reward from the Ministry for every one captured."

and its anti-Muggle propaganda...

Harry looked more closely and realized that what he had thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans...
men, women and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, 
twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards.

"Muggles," whispered Hermione. "In their rightful place."

evokes the Third Reich, with Voldemort as Adolph Hitler, Death Eaters like the Carrows and Yaxley as Hitler’s ministers, and the Snatchers as the SS/Brownshirts. Interestingly Voldemort, like Hitler, is a living rebuke of his own separatist ideology—much as the dark-eyed and -complected, stocky Hitler idolized the Aryans, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is himself a half-blood, sired by the Muggle Tom Riddle.

Other parallels:

• Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa Black = the Mitford sisters.
  
  There were actually six Mitford sisters, but like the Blacks, they were an aristocratic family encompassing quite divergent political views. Unity Mitford is the clear inspiration for Bellatrix--Unity became part of Hitler’s inner circle and was quite infatuated with him. Andromeda, who rejects her family’s ideology of blood purity in order to marry a Muggle-born, is probably a counterpart to Jessica Mitford, who similarly rejected her privileged background and embraced Communism. [Fun fact--J.K. Rowling actually named her daughter after Jessica Mitford.]

• Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge (whose increasingly desperate attempts to convince the wizarding world that everything is FINE, You-Know-Who is NOT coming back) = Winston Churchill’s hapless predecessor, Neville Chamberlain.  Like Chamberlain, Fudge served as minister during an interim period between two devastating wars; Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix reflect something of how England’s mood must have been in that eerie waiting period in the mid-to-late ‘30s.

"I see no evidence to the contrary!" shouted Fudge, his face purpling. "It seems to me that you are all determined to start a panic that will destabilize everything we have worked for these last thirteen years!"

Another children’s classic that hints at World War II is the movie version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang [the book, written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming, has a very different storyline]. Anyone who’s seen this movie remembers the terrifying Child Catcher** who tempts Jemima and Jeremy out of hiding with visions of cream puffs, ice cream and treacle tarts “…all freeee to-day!” and then claps them into a caged vehicle and carries them off. Their father later discovers that all of Vulgaria’s children are in hiding, living in the sewers, to avoid the same fate. As creepily effective a plot device as this is [and “Hushabye Mountain,” sung by the father to the children underground, is perhaps the most haunting moment in the movie], it’s even more interesting when you consider that Teutonic Vulgaria is a metaphor for Nazi Germany--which would make the children the Jews in hiding.

*The Snatchers are reminiscent of the Greifers, Jews who managed to survive openly in Germany during the Holocaust by informing on other Jews in hiding. [The word greifer even means the same thing; it translates to grabber or catcher.] I highly recommend Stella, a fascinating, terribly depressing book about a well-known Berlin Griefer, Stella Goldschlag, also known as the Blonde Poison.

**If you can believe it, the stage version of Chitty actually makes the Child Catcher even creepier, with a song called “Kiddy-Widdy-Winkies,” which includes such nightmare-inducing lyrics as:

I can't see or hear you—
But smell that I'm near you—
My dear sweet—
Kiddy-Widdy-Winkies....