The Nazification Of The Ministry Of Magic

Posted by AddictedToDrPepper1 from Cardiff - Published on 28/12/2012 at 12:48
13 comments » - Tagged as History, Movies

This article is pending translation

I was watching Harry Potter, as I usually do the other day and I started to notice the heavy use of Nazi symbolism. My family are Jewish, so Nazification is something very close and interesting to me.

If you feel that over-analysing any form of media ruins it and is boring and pointless, please leave. Because not only will this article be full of it, I also don’t regret to tell you that I find you boring and pointless.

Now so that people don’t get confused, I don’t think that Harry Potter is one big pro-Nazi bundle of hate. I mean there are elements that are extremely Nazi such as Ministry of Magic (MoM) and The Death Eaters (obviously).

Now even before they were controlled by the Death Eaters, The MoM were using propaganda like there was no tomorrow. An example of this is in the fifth film (Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix) with the whole thing with the Minster pulling strings at The Daily Prophet to attack Harry and Dumbledore. With titles such as; ‘Potter or Plotter’ and ‘Dumbledore: Is he daft or is he dangerous?’

Let’s not get sidetracked with the fact J.K Rowling loves alliteration a little bit too much.

Anyone who even has a GCSE-level knowledge of Nazi Germany knows that propaganda was a huge part of the Nazi party. It was so important to them it even had its own department run by Joseph Goebbels. All media was controlled by the Nazis and like The Daily Prophet, the editors of the newspapers back then were told what to print.

Another thing that was extremely important to the Nazis was education. Hitler believed that if his dream of The Third Reich going on for 1000 years was to happen, children needed to have Nazi ideals. So the Nazis used schools to indoctrinate kids. All teachers that were not Nazi were removed and every subject was twisted to have a pro-Nazi slant to it.

In case it hadn’t already clicked in the minds of all the Potterheads reading this, yes this is exactly what happens with Umbridge in the fifth film. The Minister of Magic sends Umbridge to spy and attempt to control Hogwarts. She starts trying to shove the message and ideals of the MoM into students at Hogwarts first by using 'Ministry approved textbooks' in Defence Against The Dark Arts, which are coincidentally as useless as the MoM itself. She also attempted to remove any teachers that she feels don’t meet her standards, such as the poor Professor Trelawney, who is bullied mercilessly by her.

After a long period of her introducing rules that constrict the students at Hogwarts' every move, even banning all student-formed groups. Psst! The Nazis also banned all Workers Unions and they were replaced by Nazi-run groups, which is most definitely not what Umbridge does with the Inquisitorial squad, which definitely does not scream Hitler Youth at all.

Let's also not forget Umbridge’s hate for Half-breeds, pointed out by Sirius when he asks what she is doing, "training you to kill Half-breeds?", which once again definitely does not scream out indoctrination or wanting a master race/pure blood. No, not at all.

I’ll write another article soon talking about the Post-Death Eater-controlled MoM. As if the MoM wasn’t already totalitarian enough, it now has a bunch of well Nazis running it.

I don’t care what anyone says, there is no arguing against the fact that the Death Eaters were basically Nazis.

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13 Comments – Post a comment

hisgirl210410

Commented 41 months ago - 28th December 2012 - 18:36pm

I love this! you are so right, never really thought about it this way! x

MarshMallo

Commented 41 months ago - 29th December 2012 - 03:38am

I'm not going to lie, I laughed at the title when I first saw it, but then I realised that you were taking it seriously, so I shut up.

This article is really interesting. I love reading people over-analysing things, but both Harry Potter and the Second World War are very interesting subjects to me. I didn't notice the points you brought up before, but I can see what you mean.

Maybe it was a writing technique. People perceive the Nazis as bad (rightly so) so as the Ministry started getting darker and more corrupt, J.K. Rowling added more aspects of Nazism into the Ministry so that we thought of the Ministry as bad, even though I don't think it says "The Ministry Is Bad" in the books.

I really liked the article. It was well written, informative and there was obviously a lot of research involved. Keep it up. :)

End0fDarkness

Commented 41 months ago - 1st January 2013 - 10:52am

Use of propaganda automatically equals Naziism? Are they the ones who have ever used propaganda? Not Kim Jong Il or any other dictator? Why jump straight to the Nazis?
You also mentioned racism against half bloods in the book, but again, are the Nazis the only ones guilty of that?
Plus, i"m entirely sure of your point, you say that JK Rowling included some of the tactics which the Nazis used, which I do agree with, but are you saying that that's a good thing, or bad thing or something you just noticed?
If your saying its a bad thing, that i'd have to ask the question, if you were a novelist what would you write if you wanted to portray a corrupt government who wanted to hide or deny something without the use of propaganda and slander? And, are you then saying that we should never include anything that relates to Nazi Germany in media again? Even if its meant to be inspirational like the film V for Vendetta?
If your saying that its a good thing that Rowling put in racism and propoganda, from a novel writing point of view I agree. If you want the readers to dislike a government, then making them use propaganda, lying to their people and so on is pretty good way to do it. If you want the readers to dislike a character like Draco Malfoy, making him a racist is a good way to do it. Which brings up the point of context, JK Growling means for you to dislike the people who use propaganda and racism, she doesn't support it.

After reading this article, the way you jumped to Naziism, makes me wonder why. You say that MoM uses propaganda and there is racism in the books and films, but like I said, many people in the world lie including governments sometimes, and many people are racist. This makes me think that you mention the Basis for 'shock value' so that people will read your article, which I find ironic because the article itself makes the point that people shouldn't frame information as to make people think in a certain way.
In terms of structure and writing and structure I find this article was good (except the dig to those people who just want to tune out and which a film as being 'pointless'), but in terms of information or insight, all I really got from this article is 'bad people in Harry Potter are bad'

AddictedToDrPepper1

Commented 41 months ago - 1st January 2013 - 18:36pm

N'awh does someone want to try and look clever? The essay I wrote was me looking for the Nazification, so everything you just wrote is incredibly pointless. Do not judge or make assumptions to why I wrote this article as you don't know me. Thank you for your comment but bloody hell, did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

End0fDarkness

Commented 41 months ago - 2nd January 2013 - 01:00am

*Are they the only ones

*I'm not entirely sure

*You mention the Nazi's

Sorry for the typo's, I typed this response on a phone the morning after NYE.

End0fDarkness

Commented 41 months ago - 2nd January 2013 - 12:30pm

In debating there's something called an ad hominim attack.This is when a person can't counter the arguments that are put forward but instead attack the person's character and is a tactic used when someone has nothing else to say. You didn't counter or address any of the points I made, you assumed that just because I said something that didn't agree with you that I must be trying to be clever or got up on the wrong side of the bed. I believe that if you make a point, you should back it up. If you were looking for nazification in HP but didn't really believe it was there, why upload it on the national site? If any comment to this article is pointless, it means that this article is pointless. I would suggest either making points you actually believe in or be more mature and not take criticism personally.
To be honest, I have very little faith that me and you can have an adult conversation, so I think it's best I leave it here.

AddictedToDrPepper1

Commented 41 months ago - 3rd January 2013 - 03:17am

It's rather adult to tear a 15 year old's article to pieces isn't it?You must feel great about yourself. You're not being pretentious at all. Nope, of course not.

I didn't realize that whether you believe something to be true or not makes it any less of a fact. There are extreme nazi elements in the Harry Potter films that are put there on purpose to emphias something. Another example of this is when Bellatrix cuts Mudblood into Hermonie's arm. Much like the tattoos they gave in concentration camps.

Another thing, I posted this on The Sprout not Clic. Check your facts before you decide to berate me.

If any comment to this article is pointless, it means that this article is pointless? U wat m8.

I can't take critism? Wow okay, that's a great judgement to make about me after what, one comment? You must know so much about me.

This article was about Nazis something I know alot on. If I knew more about the other subjects you brought up then I would of added them but then again there would be no point BECAUSE THIS FREAKING ARTICLE WAS ABOUT FREAKING NAZIS.

End0fDarkness

Commented 40 months ago - 3rd January 2013 - 11:15am

Your age is not listed anywhere on this site and I'll be honest from your writing style, I assumed you to be older, so my bad for assuming on that part. I still believe that if you make a point then you should back it up , however by definition, a younger person would have less experience in these kind of debates.

I bring up the idea of believing in something if you bring it up because of you saying in your previous comment that 'you were looking for the nazification'. If this was a school assignment where you are maybe forced to write an essay or article on something then I could understand, as we usually are made to force our way through them, looking for things that aren't really there. But if you were writing this due to your own interests, i'd wonder why pick to look for nazification in MoM? As if that was the aim you started with and tried to look for evidence later? If that is what actually happened.
In order to prove that naziism is in MoM, there would have to be something that directly links just nazis to them. Like a swastika or a solid reference to Hitler. The mud blood into Hermione's arm is...more of one, but again, it seems like a bit of stretch to me as this I would say is something that dictators commonly do. Kony if I remember right, used to disfigure those who spoke against him.

About the national site, I assumed that CLIC would have asked your permission first before uploading it to here. If not, then that is an issue I may have to bring up to CLIC staff, as our work done for articles surely belongs to us.

I believed the article to be pointless because of what you said about ny comment bringing up points against it was pointless. Not in a childish 'if you say mean things about mine, I say mean things about yours' kind of way. But, in my previous comment I made points against yours, which as far as I could see, were justified, or at least I tried to justify myself. However, if someone then says that all points raised against them are pointless because they were just looking for it, even if their points have been countered, robs them of credibility. It would be like.me saying that the internet is rub by a giant octopus who lives on a spaceship (absurd example just for sake of explanation). People could then point out logical reasons and show me that this isn't true, but then me saying 'no, there is one there because I'm looking for him', would give me no purchase in my argument.

When a person makes point and someone says something against it, if the first person has enough knowledge, the first person usually won't get angry unless they don't like criticism. For example, I'm into Martial Arts, so if I said 'Bruce Lee started learning Wing Chin King Fu first', then someone says 'no he started with boxing', I could reply ,Yip Man taught him Wing Chun when he was a teenager. He got into boxing after he was challenged to stop teaching martial arts'. If I responded instead with 'aww, look at this guy trying to prove he's clever, what's the matter, disn't like what I said, might be afraid that someone knows more than you', it would make me look a bit childish and as if I can't stand on my own knowledge and most people with experience in debating wouldn't take me seriously. This is the feel I kind da got from your comments. However, it is completely fine to admit you don't know something. If I didn't know about the boxing thing, I probably should say something like 'oh, I'm not sure, I'll have to look it up'. Then look it up, realise he's wrong and then go from there.

b00kw0rm99

Commented 40 months ago - 4th January 2013 - 10:51am

I really enjoyed reading this article. I was a bit stunned by the title at first, but then as I read on I realised you have a lot of good points and that the MoM really is a bit like the Nazis. Please write more of these articles. I can't wait for your death-eater MoM article!!!

National Editor

Commented 40 months ago - 4th January 2013 - 13:56pm

Hello AddictedToPepper1 & End0fDarkness,

There is some excellent debate going on here, but please let's be careful not to let personal opinions become personal insults. There is a skill to a conflicting exchange, and you both put your point across very well, but a good argument in the comments section always sticks to the points raised within the article, rather than suggesting things about another CLICer's moods or personality.

Regarding your comments about local articles on the national, anything uploaded locally deemed relevant for all Wales is put onto the national CLIConline site and translated into Welsh.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to drop me an email (ryan@cliconline.co.uk) or FB message (Ryan Clic).

Thanks,
Ryan

End0fDarkness

Commented 40 months ago - 5th January 2013 - 19:22pm

That's fair enough. If I have said anything that seemed personal, I do apologise for that, it wasn't my intention to attack or anything.

Btw Ry', could you take a look at my articles on Merthyr Noise, see if you think any of them would be good to put on the National site please?