A book that follows the overused plot trope of Good vs. Evil with a twist that includes witches, wizards and the oppression of magical creatures is probably the last thing one could imagine being used as an allegory for Nazi Germany. With over 450 million books sold, eight major films, and even its own theme park, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is able to do just that after gaining immense popularity and success quickly since the release of the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Rowling’s imagination is able to take our beloved hero, Harry, and expose him to the prejudice views of the Wizarding World to emphasize that things are not as ‘magical’ as they seem to be. While many scholars would argue that it is just a children’s book, I personally feel that they fail to look into the parallelism between the ideologies, characters, and symbolism of Rowling’s book to that of National Socialism and the use it can be to moral development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       Before going into the analysis of influential traits of National Socialism (commonly known at the Nazis) within this book series, we should first look into the understanding of Nazism and how to identify it.  Nazi ideology emphasized the importance of German nationalism and held racial theories upon the belief that an Aryan race was superior of all others.  They advocated for the existence of such a conflict because it was believed that it was scientifically proven that the Jews were the cause of repression due to being a mixed race (Hitler 133-144). Hitler, a strong believer in anti-Semitism, as Holbourn states, “aroused hatred among people” enough to “personify the enemy” (Origins 546) in order to purify Germany. A hierarchy was constructed in where the Aryans were on top followed by mixed races that were deemed inferior. In the hierarchy of races, the Nazi targeted the Jews in particular who were believed to be at the lowest rank and responsible for Germany’s troubles. To maintain the purity of the Germans, the Nazis eventually began to exterminate and enslave these specific groups to keep them from mixing.  

 

     The Potter series is split into seven individual stories but all tying in to defeat the main antagonist. Rowling crafts each of the following on a path of continuity where the main protagonist is faced with death, racism, friendship, power, and most importantly love. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone, while buying his uniform, Harry is introduced to Draco Malfoy, where he encounters his first taste of “wizarding racism” as Wente puts out (A Wizard of Their Age 91). Highly aware of the racism between Purebloods [1]and Muggleborns[2] due to his father, Malfoy is used as a constant “reminder” of its existence (A Wizard 91).  His attitude towards Harry’s family lineage when he says “But they were our kind, weren’t they…I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families, what’s your surname anyway?” (Philospher Stone 61) causes for the reader to begin to wonder what is the problem with Purebloods and Muggleborns. The importance of wizard lineage parallels the importance of the hierarchy of races that the Nazi developed to distinguish between who was pure and mixed. The hierarchy as the article Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology established that not all races were equal and the Aryan race was superior above all others. Due to this mindset, those that were believed to be in the lowest rank were treated and seen as scum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     Later after arriving to Hogwarts [3]and befriending Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry is once again at odds with Malfoy.  While waiting to be sorted into the four houses that the school has to offer, Malfoy once again reminds the reader of wizarding racism by saying  “You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort” (Philosopher stone 86). Malfoy’s ideologies already introduce the reader to a much darker theme of the series, racism, and cause for much clash between good vs. evil with him and Harry. By calling out Ron’s family for being traitors and warning Harry to surround himself with higher class such as himself, Draco is seen already as Death Eater youth. This characteristic parallels the children of the Nazis who were put into Hitler’s youth group during the 1930s in school. As Stephen Pagaard elaborates in his article, Teaching the Nazi Dictatorship: Focus on Youth, the education system in Germany reflected the government’s wishes going as far as to make the children recite “Heil Hitler” around fifty to one hundred times for a year (191). The system taught the ideology of Nazism and was expected to teach the children to support it as well.

 

     In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Malfoy faces Hermione Granger, Harry Potter’s best friend, with discrimination over her blood status. The reader once again faces to the ideology of superiority of Purebloods over Muggleborns when Malfoy calls Hermione a Mudblood- a derogatory term (130). Rather than being dirty and stupid due to having muggle blood, such as the purebloods believe them to be; Hermione’s is considered to be the “brightest witch of her age” (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). The importance of blood purity is emphasized throughout the series when Draco Malfoy is involved, thus causing him to insult Hermione when he sees that she beyond what he expects of a muggle-born. His insults parallel to the racial slur used to describe Jews, Untermensch (Hitler’s Plans) which meant subhuman. The Nazis even went as far as to call themselves Ubermesnch, meaning superior. Many of the Nazis believed the Jews to be unintelligent and inferior to them and killed when a Jew was believed to outwit them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    During the summer before entering his fourth year, Harry and his friends witness the terrorization of the Death Eaters during the Quidditch World Cup[4].  The Death eaters are introduced walking as Harry describes to be “tightly packed… with wands pointing straight upward… their faces masked” (Goblet of Fire 119) attacking the campgrounds due to what they believed to be a muggle invasion on wizard property. They are later revealed to be Lord Voldemort’s followers who consisted of Purebloods who wished to purify the Wizarding World from those who “threaten the purity and cleanliness” as Mikhail Lyubansky states (The Psychology 237).  This scene shows the beginning of the Second Wizarding, which parallels with the night known as the Crystal Night, where the Nazis began to purge the Jewish community starting the Holocaust (Hitler 449-450). The Nazis dreamed of a pure race to be superior above all other just like the Death Eaters. Lyubansky describes to them both to be “true believers” (Terminus 333) of the ideology of superiority and of Hitler and Voldemort. They performed cruel forms of punishments on victims such as imprisonment in camps where they were used as manual labor or killed and performances of cruel experimentation.

 

    During his fourth year while waiting for Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of the school, Harry is swept inside the pensive where memories of Dumbledore are swirling around. While watching the memory unfold, Harry witnesses the trials of the Death Eaters as they are accused for assisting Lord Voldemort. The Death Eaters, such as Rowling writes, “tortured countless muggles and non-supporters of the Dark Lord” in order to show superiority of their race. They “helped murder” multiple families that did not support Voldemort in order to install fears in others to join him. They also tortured information out of wizards (i.e. Frank Longbottom and his wife) to help the Dark Lord rise (Goblet 589, 590,595). They were captured and brought to trial to answer for their actions of war crimes in front of the Wizarding Court, where they were all found guilty. Just like the Death Eaters, the Nazis answered for their crimes in the 1940s after World War II in a court case called the Nuremberg Trials. The trials were to punish “major war criminals whose offenses extended over more than one country” as Quincy Wright states (The Nuremberg Trial 73) of mass murder, torture, and illegal experimentation. Rather than just killing them for there actions, the Nazis were given a fair trial in order to unity the United Nations more as they found them guilty (Nuremberg 75).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      In Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, Harry is once again swept into Dumbledore’s memories in order to understand Voldemort’s actions and ideologies. Voldemort is the allegoric form of Adolf Hitler, who advocated for superiority of one race of another. Both took on a charismatic approach when speaking to groups or individuals in order to promote their ideologies of superiority and gain knowledge of the society around them (Half Blood Prince 435, Hitler 135). Voldemort and Hitler’s own background childhood resembles on another, as they both rather preferred the support and recognition of their superior than their colleagues (Half Blood Prince 431, Hitler 136).  Their ideologies resembled as seen through this essay, in which they each wished a certain race to be superior above others and took immediate action for it that involved mass murder.  Their target audience was families of strong heritages that involved Purebloods for Voldemort and only German for Hitler. Above all, both choose to encourage the acts of murder done by their followers.

 

        In the final installment of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Muggleborns faces the Muggle-Born registration commission where they were stripped from their rights. Led by Dolores Umbridge, Muggleborns are brought to her in order to pledge or show their worth to the Wizarding community (Deathly Hallows 257). Their worth was determined by the blood status they fell in; a hierarchy in which puts Purebloods at the top and Muggleborns are at the bottom with Muggles. An interrogation with muggle born Mary Cattermoles shows that the government in the Wizarding World dehumanized them (Deathly Hallows 259). These investigations and view of individuals resembles the Nazi government actions on the Jews. The Nazis established the Nuremberg laws that dehumanized the Jews. The laws prevented Jews from having a political voice, from owning businesses, marrying with the Aryan race, and making themselves known (The Nuremberg Race Laws). They defined a Jew depending on their family lineage or if they identified as Jew just like in Harry Potter (Nuremberg Race). Once established as Jews, they were gathered up and sent away to concentration camps where they were murdered, tortured, or used as labor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

      While on the run from Voldemort, Harry, Ron, and Hermione face the threat of the snatchers. The snatchers were assigned to track down and capture muggle-born, muggles, and those who were allies and to recruit information on Harry. Fenrir Greyback list off “A Mudblood, a runaway goblin, and three truants” (Deathly Hallows 449) when checking the list of people that were asked to be captured by Lord Voldemort. The list included those who were presumably Muggleborn, Half-blood, magical creatures against the Dark Lord, and anyone associated with Harry Potter. After capturing their victims, they would escort them to the Ministry to be tortured or forced into labor for Lord Voldemort.  But not all the times would they do as asked, rather they would inflict their own punishment and serve their own needs (Deathly Hallows 450). The snatchers can be compared to the Gestapos who were a “huge army of officials and paid spies lurking around” as Eric Johnson describes (Gender, Race and the Gestapo 241). They would round up Jewish families and punish them cruelly after recovering information from them that would be useful to Hitler. They would later send the families off to the concentration camps when they were asked to. Like the snatchers, the Gestapos would sometimes take matters into their own hands (Gender, Race 249) rather than turn them in. They would perform their own acts of punishment for their own needs and satisfaction.

 

      With all this evidence laid out of how Harry Potter is influenced by Nazism, it can be used to teach moral development within education. Moral development is the change of one’s thoughts of what is right and wrong throughout their childhood up until adulthood. What most do not realize is that through these significant characters, ideologies, and the situations raised, Harry Potter’s story can be taught in grade school. It has in depth traits of prejudice and discrimination of a race that can have an affect on children as they are taught of the importance of the error of racism and superiority. As a child, reading these books I was able to pinpoint out the prejudice attitudes of the characters and how it negatively affected the story. From those points I was able to come up with my own morals that would follow me up until adulthood. Rather struggling to engage the class in the importance of moral issues with the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, Harry Potter can be used as an alternative to describe why it is wrong. Just like Binnedyk and Schonert-Riechl state in their article, Harry Potter and Moral Development in Pre-adolescent Children, “with enough imaginative immaturity”(3) for children to enjoy, Harry’s journey through out the book is faced with real life problems of racism.  The imagination that runs through the story plot is filled with magic, that while reading the books, I couldn’t help but be in awe at the description of magical artifacts within it. But the magic did not take away the truth of evil that characters showed.

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Rowling’s series can be used in the educational settings of 6th-8th grade, more commonly know as middle school. With children slowly developing moral skills that will follow them up until adulthood, Harry Potter is a great basis to start with. While most kids focus on the awe of the magical implications that Harry Potter puts out, they unknowingly also cherish the importance of friendship, love, and family: three key elements that help Harry defeat Lord Voldemort. From personal experience, Harry Potter was a great basis to learn about love, respect, friendship, loyalty, ambition, and courage comes in all forms. It is from those five traits that the become exploits the most that has shaped me into the individual I am today, because I am able to identify with each one. Although the fictional story is based off the historical context of Nazi Germany, students are able to relate to the realistic problems Harry faces with his friends within the school year. Characters such as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger can be used to show the development of a healthy relationship as they: begin to be kind to each other, to trust each other, help each other, and later love each other. Others such as Molly Weasley, mother of Ron, can be used to show that a mother’s protection and love unique on its own and cannot be replaced as seen when she mothers Harry. But most important of all and my personal favorite, the theme of love can be used to show how without it from friends, family, or a significant other; one cannot truly succeed as demonstrated by Lord Voldemort, whose downfall was his resistance to accepting love and only wanting superiority.

 

        Another element that can be taught is discrimination against others. Discrimination is seen early on in the series when discussing the Hogwarts houses. Since the opening of the school, it is inferred through Rowling’s writing that Gryffindor and Slytherin [5]had always been at odds with each other due to having different priorities. It is easily seen as black and white (good vs. evil) to the reader because of the characters within the houses that are represented- Draco in Slytherin and Harry in Gryffindor. Rowling generalizes evil within the Slytherin students when introducing it by the Sorting Hat’s song “and power-hungry Slytherin loved those of great ambition” (Goblet of Fire 177), “and those cunning folks use any means to achieve their ends.” (Philosopher Stone 94). It is emphasized in Binnedyk and Schonert-Riechl discussion of how isolating it off as bad has given it an “antisocial stance” (Moral Development) causing for readers to refer to it with negative connotations. Reading about Slytherin up until the introduction of certain characters, I had labeled them off as evil not even realizing that I was generalizing an entire group of people. Although not focused enough, Rowling redeems the house through several characters (i.e. Horace Slughorn, Regulus Black, and Andromeda Tonks) that prove to be more than just their imposed traits of a Slytherin (i.e. cunning, ambitious, power hunger, greed, etc) and value the importance of equality. Through these characters, Harry and I along with the reader is able to see the grey within the Slytherin house rather than just black and white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Other characters such as Draco Malfoy can also be studied in order to learn or develop moral lessons. Growing up in a household where he was taught to believe Purebloods were the best and Muggle-borns were scum, Malfoy’s growth is one that outshines most characters. Seeing his growth from reading the first book to the last, I was able to go from despising him to pitying for never knowing the right choices to pick. From the turn of events of fighting alongside with Harry upon realizing that Voldemort’s cause was not worth it and there is no need to discriminate against blood purity. He begins to realize the errors of his ways in supporting this cause and starts to value more important things such as Family. Malfoy displays Stage Two of Lawerence Kolhberg’s Stages of moral reasoning; Kohlberg’s theory is an attempt to explain how an individual grows and reasons with moral issues as they move from child to adulthood (Moral Development 4). Malfoy shows a self-orientated purpose and satisfies what he believes is best for him throughout the series up until the point he begins to see what is wrong with himself. Malfoy’s actions of putting his pride aside to fight for what is right has always been made him brave in my eyes, because it takes a lot to put aside what you once believed in while growing up in order to grow as an individual.  From the moment where he sees what is wrong with his choices, I knew that his character growth would be one of my favorites, because Harry is indirectly able to teach him the importance of love over power.

 

       Although most of the issues are hypothetical situations due to the mix of wizardry and magical creatures, Harry Potter can still be used as a basis for moral issues. Binnedyk states that due to the characters of the book growing up and beginning to see the lines between black and white, their character development could be used a motivational tool to “engage pre-adolescent children in discussion of moral dilemmas” (Moral Development 3).  Moral dilemmas are when one is forced to choose between two or more choices that will have an impact on there or other’s lives. An example being when Narcissa Malfoy, Draco Malfoy’s mother, is able to put aside the war and pureblood ideology for the sake of protecting her family- highlighting that family will always be more important. While children may not be to relate so much to the care and love of a mother, when using the series as a “vehicle” like Binnedyk uses, it can be morphed to show that a mother’s love is eternal and never will waiver despite the circumstances. As a kid, curled up in my bed reading these books late at night under my covers, I was able to feel what the characters felt and experienced and even learn from their mistakes. These books have impacted me that I probably would have been a different individual if not introduced to them at six years old, and the characters growth are to thank for that.The journey that Rowling writes about for the characters to take is enough of growth development that one can use to examine moral reasoning and teach children about.

 

     Rowling’s intricate detail of characters and plot is what has allowed scholars to analysis the Harry Potter series beyond a children’s book.  When the magic is taken away from the plot, it is easier to find the similarities and influences between the Second Wizarding War and Nazi Germany. Rowling’s characters fight for justice and equality to expose what is wrong with the prejudice views the adults have in the book. It’s not a wonder to why the story of an orphaned wizard boy coming of age as he fights evil in more than one way has made millions. With the ability to teach children moral lessons that they keep with them throughout their childhood and even adult life, Harry Potter has impacted the millennium generation.

 

 

[1] Pureblood- A family of only wizards

 

[2] MuggleBorn- A witch/wizard in a family of non-wizards

 

[3] School for witches and wizards for the U.K. area

 

[4] A tournament for a Wizarding sport

 

[5] Two houses from Hogwarts in which students are placed i

 

 

 

 

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