real world connections

has anyone else noticed any real world connections or similarities (sp?) with the books or was it just me? in the chapter where it talks about grindewald (i forgot exactly which chapter it was) & it was saying about the prison he created and just generally about the muggle-borns being targeted, it dawned on me "oh my god, this makes me think of WWII & the holocaust!"
did anyone else have that feeling?

has anyone else noticed any other real world connections or similarities (sp?)?

I did notice that (if only from all the fanfictions conspiring that Grindelwald and WWII were one and the same thing- two sides, magical and muggle, of the same war. But DH has enough implications to disprove that particular theory, I think.) JK may have wanted to echo something of that- but it could have just been a coincidence, because there were also quite a few differences. Dumbledore's personal relationship, for instance, to Grindelwald, nor does the idea of "The Greater Good" pertain to WWII, as far as I know.
Still, Nuremgard sounds rather fimiliar- a a reference to te Nuremburg trials, perhaps?

Also makes you wonder if JK is unhappy with (her own?) goverment, what with all the rebellion and incompetence of the Ministry. Just a random thought, though.

I believe that the whole story based of a real happened. Do you know Hitler? he was a german man who was exactly like voldemort. He found an organisation that followed a certain race. The jewish people-or in the potter world the muggleborns.
Hitler created, like voldemort a special sign of his.
Killed peoples and familys and it all ends in a war.
(Hitler killed himself-thats the only thing whats not as voldy)
Okay hitler don´t want to kill a certain person... but... i find its a bit like this deatheater thing o.O

The real world connection is interesting. Hitler's connection was a good one I think. But I tend to favor the notion that JKR based Voldemort on Sauron from Lord Of The Rings. Dumbledore would be a version of Gandalf. The Order of the Pheonix would be a version of the Union of the Ring (or something .. I think that's what it was called). Pettigrew/Snape represents versions of Gollum.

Thank God that Harry Potter has stronger women figures than Lord of the Rings! Strider (aka Aragon) is kind of like Lupin or maybe another member of the Order. Gimili (or however you spell his name) is like Dobby or Kreacher?

nooo gimly is like hagrid.... a lil dwarf

i woulnd´t compare HP and LOTR. Thats a completly other thing.
and by the way hp world is much bigger than this short isengard or what they called this part^^

Well, in the Fellowship, Frodo + Aragorn =Harry, and Mithandir = Dumbledore, Merry/Pippin/Sam = Ron, and.... Legolas = Hermione? I'm not wuite sure of that one, although Snape, to me, is more like Boromir. Gimli just doesn't really have a counterpart, unless Mad-Eye? I think Faramir might be more similar to Lupin, although Aragorn does seem rather nice, Eowyn as Tonks or Ginny, more likely, Theodred as Sirius, Gollum as Pettigrew sounds about right, or Wormtongue.

Voldemort's war seems less based on real life, but if it was, I think it would lean more towards terrorism and guerrila style-attacks than full-out war, like in WWII.

I think the "real world connections" in principle are hard to oversea. But I do not think that Voldemort or Grindelwald have Hitler or one of his fellows as direct antetype.
I think they are just part of a principle of our world. Even though I agree that there are not much differences between Hitler and Voldermort (and after all we know also Grindelwald) - they are all "evil" - they are not alone on this world, in history and in our presence.
The idea of the "pureblood" was not an invention of Hitler, and unfortunately - it did not die out with him.

To the other connections mentioned above- with characters of Lord of the Rings, sorry I have read the books, and I can not see any connections between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. I see them in a completly different way. Both great, but different.