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Challenge #2: Wizarding Nazis! (Well, not quite)

Summery:

In the original Harry Potter, after Voldemort was vanquished, the Wizarding World put away as many death eaters as they could, and those with enough money managed to convince the Ministry of Magic that they had been Imperiused.

In 1918, an inconsequential corporal in the German army, so devastated by Germany's loss of the first World War, decided to become a politician and managed in fifteen years, to become the country's dictator. This guy would only need a few years since the population of Wizarding England is much smaller than that of Germany.

What if, like Hitler, a totally inconsequential and undetected Death Eater managed to rally the whole of Wizarding Britain (or at least, enough of them) behind him to become first the Minister of Magic, and then Wizarding Britain's dictator? He need not necessarily even be a dark lord. After all, Hitler came to power legally. This guy could even have read up on his muggle history, and decided that the terror tactics of the Death Eaters, and their attempt to support a Dark Lord, whose name people are too fearful to even utter, just did not work.

The Muggleborn Faction has demonstrations too, demanding equal rights under the law, and an end to passive pureblood discrimination (stuff like, "sorry, I just filled that job post", when clearly they hired the pureblood for being a pureblood).

He also decides to work from the bottom, up. The first time around, most of the Death Eaters seemed to have come from wealthy pureblood families. Taking a cue from the Southern USA of the early 1800s, he realizes that there are a lot of not-so-rich purebloods (think the Gaunts), who have almost nothing BUT their pure blood. Like the way the plantation owners convinced their white brethren to help fight the Civil War because they were white, and how Hitler managed to convince lots of Germans to go along with his policies because they were German, he decides to do the same thing.

He manages to convince many poor purebloods that their lot in life is caused by the "mudbloods," and the blood-traitors. He knows the power of symbols, and uniforms, and soon he's got the Wizarding Equivalent of the Brown Shirts marching through Diagon Alley and Hogsmead, and a number of other places where there are heavy populations of magical folk. To non-magical folk, the parades are charmed to look like normal parades so no one raises an eyebrow at a parade full of people marching, each carrying a banner with the Wizarding equivalent of the Swastika. There is plenty of propaganda with sayings like "One Magic, One Blood, One Leader!"

Meanwhile, the muggleborns are getting more politically active. Voldemort's rise to power showed them that they could no longer simply enter the Wizarding world and react to it. They must be a proactive political entity.

Of course, he has opposition, and needs bodyguards, so he forms his own Schutzstaffle.

After he is elected, the Ministry of Magic burns down, and a well-known member of the Muggleborn Faction is "caught" trying to escape the fire. This allows the man to declare martial law and begin suspending rights. He makes all other political parties illegal.

Eventually, he and his SS have a Night of the Long Knives and incorporate the Aurors and Hit wizards into themselves.

Muggleborns are "relocated" (sent to Azkaban, where they are either given the Dementor's kiss immediately or put to work).

Dumbledore convinces a small number of people to flee across to France, but the majority stay because recent laws make it impossible for muggleborns to leave England.

He has Harry moved to France and Harry eventually goes to Beauxbattons.

The Dictator of England has his sights set on the rest of Wizarding Europe too, and begins a war with France.

Dumbledore again flees with Harry to Germany, and the German Ministry of Magic declares war on England.

An optional Harry/Fleur romance could spring from this (assuming she also fled to Germany with other wizards and witches.

Voldemort himself decides to come back from the dark forests of Albania and take power, only to discover that doing so will not be so easy, since all his former supporters are now saying "Hail So-and-So!" and are fighting for their pureblood agenda, not for Voldemort's personal gain. He moves to either France or Germany to find a way to regain a permanent body and then start building up his own faction to fight against this Servant of his who dared to usurp his power.

I would personally recommend having maybe a couple of chapters about the takeover of England by So-and-So, and then skip ahead to Harry's seventh year. That way, he can soon enter the war itself (an actual Wizarding war, not just a camping trip across England's countryside like in Deathly Hollows).

Another optional road to take is somehow introducing Harry to Grindelwald. Perhaps Harry discovers that the aged former dictator still lives, confined in Nurmengard's walls, and goes to visit him for help against the current one.

The only rules I can come up with are:

Rules:
* The Death Eater who ends up taking control of Wizarding England must have a proper understanding of History, not just Wizarding history, such that he follows very closely Hitler's rise to power, but avoids Hitler's mistakes (like Hitler's 1923 Putsch).

* Since this is text, it's hard to come up with a symbol that isn't the Swastika, but would be used very much like it, but you ought to. I happen to like Escher triangles, which are not hard to draw, but are sufficiently well known. Do what thou wilt. I would avoid the Deathly Hallows symbol. A lot of people in England didn’t recognize it, but people who attended Durmstrang would apparently know precisely what it was (or at least what they thought it was). So-and-So is not looking to have a war against him started by Europe who remember Grindelwald's symbol, over his flying such a flag of it.

* Dumbledore has to flee England with Harry. He knows he cannot combat this, and he knows that Harry will likely be seen as a rallying symbol for the resistance, who would be killed quickly if they could.

* If you do decide to incorporate romance into this, it might be cool to have it be with Fleur, but no romance need be present in the story.

* It might be cool to introduce Harry to Grindelwald.

* By the time Harry is in his 4th year (which you may or may not have skipped over), Voldemort has a permanent body of his own, and has become a sufficient force such that this is a "two front" war against Wizarding England. Voldemort has decided to abandon the pureblood bit, since he only needed it to gain supporters during his first rise to power, and now, he's sort of the "Soviets" of this war. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of thing. The wizards and witches of France and Germany fight England's Wizarding army but they are not allied with Voldemort's faction. The evil bastards of Europe join Voldemort against England, whilst the good join the Germans. Dumbledore can play whatever roll you wish. The ICW might say "you fought against Grindelwald and won, you fought against Voldemort, you lead this war too!" Or not. Whatever.

 

My first question is what are Voldemorts true intentions? What is he preaching as his goal to gather supporters know that he has abandoned his pureblood banner? I love the idea of a somewhat three sided war, but it would fail if all three sides weren't fleshed out well.

I have to agree that it would probably be best to skip most of Harry's schooling and get to the point where you can mainly focus on the politics behind the war and the actual war.

 

Well, I've always been under the impression that Voldemort just wants power. He found a bunch of rabid supremacists and started singing their tune, promising that they would get what they wanted if they followed him.

While he clearly hated muggles, I don't believe that he really had any faith in the idea that purebloods are superior to halfbloods and muggleborns. After all, he considers himself to be the most powerful wizard of all, and he's only a halfblood. He was probably snickering behind the backs of all his Death Eaters.

Anyway, you could have Wormtail help resurrect him, and then he can work on gathering followers on the continent with his charm and reputation. I could easily see there being lots of little enclaves of dark wizards in hiding, who would just need a unifying figure. If they swear loyalty to him, then he'll ensure that no one can touch them and they can live openly. I can see Voldemort operating in a similar way that Vladimir Lennon did: take advantage of an already turbulent and violent situation, and sweep in to pick up the pieces and moulde them into your own image.

He unifies all the dark wizards of Europe outside England, and then makes an un-easy truce with the Germans and Dumbledore, with the intention of wiping out the weakened victor, be it England, or Germany, then taking over. Dumbledore is willing to make this truce by virtue of Harry's scar, which lets him spy in on what Voldemort is doing, and consequentially, Voldemort can do the same. They agree that so long as neither side fires a "shot" at the other, then they can "work together" to defeat a common enemy.

I think the story would be best if it focused on Harry entering a full blown Wizarding World War, and becoming a hero in his own right, and using his Boy-who-Lived status to be a potent rallying point for the "allies". Of course, in order for it to be a WWW, England will need allies as well - a Wizarding Axis. Perhaps the actual Wizarding Soviets and Chinese.

I also like the idea of reversing the roles. Here, England is the "Nazi-Germany," whilst Germany and its allies are the last bastion of hope.

Of course, as in the actual WWII, the Americans will not feature in it for a while, unless someone does something increadibly stupid. Perhaps Wizarding China decides that they want to piss all over Wizarding America's cornflakes later in the war, there by inciting them to join, but that shouldn't be a focus. Harry should.

Hitler needed Oil, so he sent Rommel down to Africa and the Middle East to secure a source of oil. It might be good to involve Africa by virtue of vast resources of certain key potions ingredients.

 

I think this would be an excellent story if it was writtien well, but it would be extremely hard. There are just to many origional things that the author would have to make up.

But if someone did manage to do this right, it would be epic.

 

That's why I posted it as a challenge. I can't write for shit.

Personally, I don't see too much needing to be made up. Since the focus of the story is Harry, you could limit much of the cast to Harry and whoever is already extant in the Lexicon. We don't have to follow Volemort's every move, or anyone elses. Of course, a few OCs here or there would need to be made up, but only passing mention of them to let the reader know of what's going on around them in the story.

I can see this Dumbledore realizing that instead of molding Harry into someone willing to die to get rid of Voldemort, he instead decides to personally train Harry and mold him into a potent and competent leader. This is also how you could get Harry to meet Grindelwald: Dumbledore takes him to Grindelwald to get training as well - not physical or magical, but more stratagy and psycological - How does the enemy think? What's he going to have to deal with when he enters this war? How does he go about rallying troops and leading them into battle most effectively (not just a few loyal friends, but people who could really give a shit about him)?

 

Yeah, that can be done, but if he is going to different countries, the author will have to make all new locations. For example, If he is going to Beauxbatons, all new teachers, students and a school will need to be made.

 

And whoever it is will find some way to get R&H out of the spotlight. They get really irritating when you're trying to read a dark fic and they keep popping up.

Also, I love this idea, if anyone decides to take it up, let me know. And if nobody decides to, write it. I don't care if you say your writing is shit, the plot alone would make up for it.

 

I purposefully left them out of the challenge to let the prospective author decide what they wanted to do with them, but I can add my own thoughts:

The Weasleys:

They're pureblooded, so they wouldn't have anything to worry about from the new governement. I can actually even see Percy with his law-and-order attitude joining the "SS". Since he's not much of a fighter, I guess that would leave him to be part of the Totenkopf division - i.e., the division that would be guarding Azkaban and deciding whether muggleborns got immediately kissed or put to work.

I don't believe that "I was a prat!" would have been a sufficient defence at the Nuremberg trials.

Hermione:

I would suggest the actual takeover take place in and around 1986, five years after the fall of Voldemort. However, the gassing of Jews kissing of muggleborns wouldn't begin until around 1989, so if Hermione is discovered within enough time, the author could have Dumbledore going around and finding them and trying to convince their families to leave England. He can't help those he doesn't know about, or those that refuse to leave. If she's not found in time, then she'll either be just another kiss-victim, or found in Azkaban when it's liberated.

As for making up a bunch of new people for Beauxbattons and Durmstrang:

You could have it so that Dumbledore moves almost his whole staff with him, and thereby, the English take classes with their fellow English, or maybe the staff is integrated into the school.

Once again, it's possible to limit the number of OCs one has to create. If the author avoids Harry's schooling altogether, or almost altogether, then that list can be further eliminated.

It's up to whoever picks it up, and how much they're willing to make OCs.

 

Like I said earlier I think the best choice would be to mostly avoid Harry's schooling years. Too many OCs just weakens a story's foundation for me. I think this idea could become a great story, but I'm not sure how likely it is for someone to pick it up. You'd need a lot of confidence in your own writing to take on something like this.

Concerning Voldemort, I like what you've come up with in the way of him unifying the dark wizards of Europe. It'd also be nice to see him hampering Germany in his quest to destroy both England and Germany. After all he can't have Germany getting so powerful that after the war is done they just wipe his forces out. The same goes for Germany though. Dumbledore would likely be thinking the same thing. So it'd be interesting to see the cluster fuck and how it affects both forces battle agaisnt England.

 

I think that another important thing would be for the writer, whoever he or she may be, to have at least a basic understanding of the events that occured from 1918 to 1945 in Germany, and how Hitler rose to power.

For example, Hitler was still in the army after the war, and was recruited to spy against the German Workers Party - what the government thought was a radical liberal organization. He liked their actual conservatism so much that he joined and quickly rose in their ranks to become their head, whenc he renamed it the National Socialist German Workers Party.

From that angle, you could actually have the "Death Eater" be an auror who was sent in as a spy, but ended up joining for real due to liking their politics so much. He got off scott free because he was officially a spy against the Death Eaters, and everyone assumed that he didn't actually "join" them.

There's enough pureblood supremacists in the Ministry (Umbridge, anyone?) that he could probably earn himself a substantial base, from many of the ministry employees alone.

 

Holy Hell. This looks like it could be a crazy fucking story to read, and I'm all for that.

Also, if you're going to bring Grindelwald into the story for some form of tutoring...Let's look at Dumbledore's possible reasoning for introducing Harry to the last major Dark Lord before Voldemort. I dont think learning the psychology of the enemy would be a good enough reason to introduce his supposed protoge to his last major enemy. Wouldn't it make more sense for Dumbledore to have Grindelwald brought in (or Harry brought to him) if he wanted Harry to learn something he refused to teach? Like the Dark Arts? Just my opinion, but yeah.

Love the challenge.

 

Thanks, ParseltonguePhoenix.

It's certainly not necessary if the author does not wish to do so to introduce Harry to Grindelwald.

The only reason I suggested it is that Grindelwald was a dark lord during WWII, and this so-and-so who just took over England is mirroring Hitler's actions rather than Voldemort's actions during the Merauder's era. Maybe it isn't even Dumbledore, but the German ministry of magic that sees Harry becoming a young Major and decides that he could use a little training that Dumbledore just isn't giving him so they decide to take Harry to visit Nurmengard.

Maybe Dumbledore is just not the war tactition that they need him to be. He's good at running a little secret society that stands against the likes of Voldemort, both groups working in secret - but this isn't a group of terrorists - this is an entire government and a wizarding army that just took over France and has its sights set on the rest of Europe.

I'm thinking that this so-and-so might not give much of a shit about the statute of secrecy. He probably doesn't care about muggles - he just hates muggleborns - so as long as the muggles don't interfere or birth any magical children, then he's content to deal with taking over Wizarding Europe. After all, when fighting a war, you don't worry about dogs, you worry about men, and that's about what he thinks of muggles - they're just animals that he doesn't need to worry about.

Then again, if he wants to make sure the muggles don't even try to interfere, he might be just as concerned about he statute of secrecy as any other wizard.

 

I have an idea for the question about Hogwarts - before he left England Dumbledore sealed the school and took the Hogwarts Book of Births and the letter writing equipment with him. This way Dumbledore knows where all the muggleborns are and how to contact them.

 

This premise is full of win. If a capable author picks this up it could be fucking epic. However, due to the relatively small size of the British pureblood community, wouldn't the combined forces of Voldemort, Dumbledore, and the foreign ministries be enough to easily crush them? If I am wrong or missing the obvious, then please feel free to correct me.

 

Well population wise your right. The UK's last census says 58 million and there are approximately 3000 wizards. So there's a 19,333:1 ratio. If the UK is the third largest European country they would be easily outnumbered and outgunned by the rest of Europe. What if you threw the British empire's former colonial possessions in with the wizarding Britain as the axis powers. India alone would add 93 thousand wizards under the same ratio.

 

That sounds like a brilliant idea. As I had said earlier, since the original idea is supposed to reflect WWII, it needs to have the Axis Powers, not just England.

That works, but too well. I'm thinking that Dumbledore actually had to flee, not just take his time about it. He probably convinced as many as he could to follow him, but it's not so easy to convince people who have never heard of magic that "You have to leave the country, the wizarding nazis are going to kill you and your kid."

Many of them might assume that by not entering the wizarding world, they'd be safe. What they don't realize is that in Soviet Wizarding Nazi England, you don't enter the wizarding world, the wizarding world enters YOU!

 

Part of what made Hitler attractive was that he offered to replace class conflict with race conflict. In a racially homogeneous country like 1930s Germany with a history of class problems, that looks like a pretty good deal (rather than the nightmarish deal with the devil it actually was). I think the analogous move in the HP-verse would be to replace blood-based conflict with magical status conflict. That is, discrimination not against muggle borns but against muggles.

It wouldn't be that tough of a sell to convince wizards that they are the master race, given god-like powers over time and space, and that with great power comes the great responsibility to "guide" the "lesser people." Your pseudo-Hitler (Moody might fit, or some OC) could start out by proposing that all wizards must be raised by wizards... after all, muggles managed to twist the naturally gifted Tom Riddle into the evil Lord Voldemort. Then just go from there. Eventually the government would do something bad enough that Dumbledore would call for international intervention, leading to factional struggle and the exile of the good guys.

Regardless of the setup, I think the international balance of power works best if England is "naturally" the strongest Great Power but has been brought low by the civil war of the seventies(1). Thus the foreign powers could inflict some sort of humiliation on it in response to racist policies in the eighties, but by the time Voldemort gets his body back in the mid-nineties England is feeling its oats and ready to dish out some retribution.

It's not clear exactly how the combat power of an individual like Dumbledore or Voldemort stacks up against an army, but however you decide it does, you could just adjust the size of the faction Dumbledore peels away to make things competitive.

(1) I think this is the most natural reading of the books, and it would be a nice change of pace from the constant "backwater Britain" portrayals in fandom.

 

This is really good. That might work out better.

I think that Dumbledore and Voldemort might actually find themselves hard pressed to fight against a properly trained wizarding army. Keep in mind that in canon, the average wizard could barely cast a shielding spell. Imagine a large number of wizards who are not only trained in a fairly small number, but highly effective fighting spells, but through some sort of boot camp, highly skilled in working together and using military tactics. They don't even need to be "dark-arts." On top of that, give them mass-production charmed goggles that duplicate the effects of Moody's eye, uniforms that have a wide range of protective spells, etc.

Dumbledore and Voldemort might go out front with confidence and whip some ass, but the sheer numbers would show them that they would be better served being a general leading an equally large number of wizarding soldiers of their own, not a lone, super-soldier.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0rYsOpc3O4#

^^ What would happen in a Voldemort or Dumbledore vs. large trained army... without all the flashbacks and the like...

Take out a large number before biting the bullet.

 

Yeah, that's what I figured would happen too.