Mordor inspired by Nazi Germany?

I know Tolkein had flatly refused to link the LOTR with World War II, but who can resist drawing the comparisons between the mighty Dark Lord Sauron, amassing armies to assault Middle Earth, as with Adolph Hitler during his reign in Nazi Germany and his seige on Europe? Their respective ends differ somewhat, but their ambitions in life were tragically similar and malicious. Was this then the inspiration for the settings of Mordor and it's ruler as described in the LOTR?

[Groin Redbeard]

There might be something to what you say. Hitler was a manipulator and a deceiver, like Sauron. However, I do not think that this slight similarity was intentional.

Originally Posted by Mansun

Their respective ends differ somewhat, but their ambitions in life were tragically similar and malicious.

World domination were both of their goals, but isn't that every evil geniuses dream? You would think that they would come up with something different but no... they have to have the world or die trying. It would be very weird if Sauron proclaimed orcs to be the arian race.

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

There might be something to what you say. Hitler was a manipulator and a deceiver, like Sauron. However, I do not think that this slight similarity was intentional.


World domination were both of their goals, but isn't that every evil geniuses dream? You would think that they would come up with something different but no... they have to have the world or die trying. It would be very weird if Sauron proclaimed orcs to be the arian race.

It is interesting that the Last Battle could have been compared with the Great War, and the Third Age reflecting the events of the Second World War. Mordor and Nazi Germany were perhaps too ambitious with their strategy for domination of other countries, leaving themselves exposed to a counterattack of some description.

Sauron could have held Mordor, in theory, for eternity if he chose to remain interested in defending Mordor only. I wonder if the same could have been true for Nazi Germany?

[Kitanna]

One of the things I love about good, solid literature is the ability to find symbolism where the author hadn't intended to put it. In this way you are free to draw your own conclusion to your life, to history, or to what you will without being right or wrong in your analysis.

Though Tolkien refused the connection to WWII in his works what an author witnesses in their lifetime can and often will come across in their writings, whether directly (as C.S. Lewis often did) or indirectly in Tolkien's case.

After taking a class about the military history of WWII I was often drawing connections to LOTR. Obviously Mordor can be seen as playing the role of Nazi Germany. There's a leader who was defeated once and spent time licking his wounds before unleashing himself on the world. Isengard plays a more Italian role. A great threat, but one that proves easier to beat thanks to the strength of an allied cause. In this case the Ents.

Gondor can be seen as the British. Gondor fought long and hard against Mordor often times holding it alone, much like Great Britain did after the defeat of France and while Russia and the US were trying to steer clear of trouble. And Rohan can be a more American role. They were fully roused to action after a grievous attack on their native soil (Helm's Deep as a sort of Pearl Harbor attack). In this case it would make Eomer an FDR figure, always pushing his countrymen forward because he understands this looming evil.

Sauron could have held Mordor, in theory, for eternity if he chose to remain interested in defending Mordor only. I wonder if the same could have been true for Nazi Germany?

The world probably would have let Hitler get away with violence and murders and defense of his borders as long as he stayed within his borders. Once he institutes blitzkrieg on a neighbor though... Sauron on the other hand was a known threat and countless lives would be lost trying to break through his border defenses to overthrow him.

[Rumil]

Go not to the elves etc.

One thing to remember is that Tolkien was writing LoTR during the Second World War.

In spite of the darkness of the next five years I found that the story could not now be wholly abandoned, and I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria. There I halted for a long while. It was almost a year later when I went on and came to Lothlorien and the Great River late in 1941.

I don't want to get into allegory or applicability territory but I'm sure that WWII must have affected the story. Remember that as the Prof was writing 'Balin son of Fundin' the War was still very much in the balance. Perhaps the overwhelming power of the Sauronic forces reflects Britain's plight during that time. We could very well have lost without the Soviets and the USA. By late '41 both were our Allies and it looked as if we were going to be on the winning side, did this perhaps inspire the continuation of the story, knowing that someone would probably read it in the future? I'd guess that it would have been banned as 'anti-totalitarian propaganda' had the war gone the other way.

Also, a major influence was Tolkien's own front-line service in the tenches of WWI, which comes across to me in the Dead Marshes and the pits before the Morannon, and in the early Fall of Gondolin.

On WWII specifics, I've always had a fancy that the Nazgul's steeds were inspired by Stukas, same nasty wail and terrifying effect no doubt, and continually being shown bombing refugees in the British propaganda films of the time.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Mansun

but who can resist drawing the comparisons between the mighty Dark Lord Sauron, amassing armies to assault Middle Earth, as with Adolph Hitler during his reign in Nazi Germany and his seige on Europe?

Me.

[Inziladun]

Rohan can be a more American role. They were fully roused to action after a grievous attack on their native soil (Helm's Deep as a sort of Pearl Harbor attack

Helm's Deep was not exactly a 'sneak attack'. The Rohirrim had already fought Saruman's forces at the Fords of Isen, which was where Théoden's son Théodred met his end. It must also be remembered that if not for Gandalf the victory at Helm's Deep would very likely not have occurred, and the King would have been captured or killed at Edoras. That said, I don't think Éomer can be compared to FDR. He was a military leader, perhaps more of a Patton, and had little influence on 'policy' decisions for the Rohirrim until very late in the War..

[Kitanna]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Helm's Deep was not exactly a 'sneak attack'.

I was speaking of it more on the fact it was on Rohan's land rather than it being a sneak attack. Rohan was no stranger to attacks like the US, but it took a major battle to move them forward into an aggressive position, much the the US couldn't be moved until after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

And as for FDR and Eomer both were trying to push their countries toward war for the security of their lands.

[Groin Redbeard]

Originally Posted by Kitanna

And as for FDR and Eomer both were trying to push their countries toward war for the security of their lands.

I wouldn't go that far, FDR was cautious to keep America out of the war because the Americans wanted to stay out of it. Most likely America would have stayed out of the war in Europe entirely if it wasn't for Hitler declaring war on us.

I am entirely convinced that Tolkien meant what he said with not being inspired by events of WWII for the The Lord of the Rings, indeed I think that you could draw comparisons between any two things if you put your mind to it. It is neat to look at SOME of the similarities between the two. Gandalf for example would probably be the Winston Churchill of Middle Earth: desperately trying to wake people up to the danger that is coming and eventually succeeding.

That was a nice point that you made, Kitanna, in post four.

[Bêthberry]

Whoops, let's not get into personal attacks here; let's just look at the ideas.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

If I may be permitted to take up Burrahobbit's mantle...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Me.

A clever acknowledgement of burrahobbit's clever and witty eloquence, Formendacil. I will go, however, for something less succinct.

Gondor can be seen as the British. Gondor fought long and hard against Mordor often times holding it alone, much like Great Britain did after the defeat of France and while Russia and the US were trying to steer clear of trouble.

Well, let's take this further to see what legs it can stand on. Who in Gondor would play Chamberlain's role of appeasement? What to do about that awkward bit about the king with Nazi sympathies who abdicated? Would that be Boromir, whose actions actually could have led to defeat? Who else would be the Mordor/Nazi sympathisers who were not uncommon in Britain before the war? Who would play Churchill's role of defiant conservative? Faramir? And what about those former colonies who came to the aid of Great Britain, as the little island didn't exactly stand alone--one of which was "rewarded" for its support and participation by having a beach all of its own to attack, Juno Beach, on D-Day.

And how would mad Denthor fit into the British situation of the time? Or would that be the king who abdicated rather than give up the woman he loved? Denethor's descent into depression, despair and madness began with his wife's death. Is there something here about men who care too much for their women? No, not really.

It is really important to look specifically at what Tolkien said about how a true comparison to WWII would look--it is not a very flattering portrayal of the Allies at all.

It would also be very easy to make comparisons between Mordor and Stalinist/communist Russia--both perpetrated unspeakable horrors on people who lived within their territories and both maintained prison camps for people and both persued networks of spies against their own citizens. Generalities can be compared easily but details are what makes a comparison really sustainable. jmho

[Kitanna]

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

I wouldn't go that far, FDR was cautious to keep America out of the war because the Americans wanted to stay out of it. Most likely America would have stayed out of the war in Europe entirely if it wasn't for Hitler declaring war on us.

But FDR did everything in his power to bring the US into the war. He pushed buttons so the US would be a attacked and he knew the Americans wouldn't stand for an attack. FDR was eventually going to war with Germany and FDR was going to ensure that. He just got lucky when Hitler declared war first. Though I do understand what you mean by cautious. When playing the political card and reelection he had no choice.

Who indeed gets to be Stalin?

Who played both sides enough to warrant it? Saruman maybe, but only to the fact he switched sides. He certainly wasn't doing things for the same reason Stalin was.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Me.

Perhaps this thread is not for you then, Formendacil. This thread seeks intelligent posters of the highest order.

[burrahobbit]

Originally Posted by Mansun

This thread seeks intelligent posters of the highest order.

Good luck, buddy.

Anyway.

I don't think you can say any of the events in the Lord of the Rings, or indeed any of Tolkien's work, is directly based on any events in the real world. Except perhaps Dinner. Dinner is a nice event that we don't take enough time with anymore.

That being said, the physical descriptions of Mordor are very clearly based on "no man's land" in WW1 which Tolkien experienced firsthand. So not Nazi Germany, and not politically any kind of Germany, but geographically related to German activities in some abstract way.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, Foreword to 'The Lord of the Rings'

As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical...The crucial chapter, 'The Shadow of the Past', is one of the oldest parts of the tale. It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted. Its sources are things long before in my mind, and little or nothing in it was modified by the war that began in 1939 or its sequels.

The War of the Ring does not emulate WWII in the least, per the author. If anything, the battle and horror in the story reflect Tolkien's recollections of WWI:

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, Foreword to 'The Lord of the Rings'

One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.

Originally Posted by burrahobbit

That being said, the physical descriptions of Mordor are very clearly based on "no man's land" in WW1 which Tolkien experienced firsthand. So not Nazi Germany, and not politically any kind of Germany, but geographically related to German activities in some abstract way.

Precisely, burrahobbit. The no-man's land of Mordor reflects Tolkien's memories of the barren no-man's land of the Somme, just as the Dead Marshes reflect the bloated, dead bodies of his comrades-in-arms floating in flooded bomb craters, and the valiant charge of the Rohirrim on Pelennor Field represents the last formidable cavalry charges of WWI (Tolkien being a cavalry man himself), before mechanized war and machine guns made cavalry obsolete.

But the political climate of Middle-earth does not reflect WWI Europe anymore than it does WWII. One could just as well equate Sauron to Kaiser Wilhelm's bloody imperialism and compare the Haradrim to the Turks, and the Hobbits as wild-eyed and innocent English boys naively marching towards the blood-strewn fields of Flanders. But one would be just as wrong.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

The War of the Ring does not emulate WWII in the least, per the author. If anything, the battle and horror in the story reflect Tolkien's recollections of WWI

Much agreed.

Towards the end of Summer, I came across a brown patch on one of the backyard stepping stones. Upon closer examination, I saw that it was composed of ants - some alive, but most of them dead. What struck me was the shear number of ants, as they collectively made an area about the size of a circle with a radius of about 6 inches.

As I live in a temperate zone, these are not huge Amazonian army ants that are the size of small dogs. No, these were the typical brown-colored carpenter ants (I surmised, as I don't even pretend to be an entomologist) native to the region.

The swarm was again sizable, but again they were mostly dead. I couldn't see any signs of their demise - no chemical residue, no child-sized foot prints, no magnifying glass burns. Just dead ants.

Out came the hose. Whatever it was with the ants, they - the living and the dead - were washed away, and now that we're into Fall, are long forgotten.

***

At least sixteen million people died as a result of WWI, the war that J.R.R. Tolkien experienced. Here's how some of his contemporaries saw that time (all quotes and poems taken from Martin Gilbert's The First World War):

Originally Posted by Captain Spears

In the splendor of conquest, or at rest, troops could try to forget realities of the battlefield, but for those who were at the Front, or even near the front as it moved swiftly forward, a new, harsh world was beginning to impinge upon the accepted conventions of armies at war. For Captain Spears, who had been with the French Fifth Army for the previous two weeks, that moment came on August 20, as he sat on a hill with a French officer overlooking the fields, towns and villages of the Sambre valley south of Charleroi. 'A dog was barking at some sheep. A girl was singing as she walked down the lane behind us. From a little farm away on the right came the voices and laughter of some soldiers cooking their evening meal. Darkness grew in the far distance as the light began to fail. Then, without a moment's warning, with a suddenness that made us start and strain our eyes to see what our minds could not realise, we saw the whole horizon burst into flame.'

'A chill of horror came over us. War seemed suddenly to have assumed a merciless, ruthless aspect that we had not realized till then. Hitherto it had been war as we had conceived it, hard blows, straight dealing, but now for the first time we felt as if some horrible Thing, utterly merciless, was advancing to grip us.'

Originally Posted by A.P Herbert

This is the Fourth of June

Think not that I never dream

The noise of that infernal noon,

The stretchers' endless stream,

The tales of triumph won,

The night that found them lies,

The wounded wailing in the sun,

The dead, the dust, the flies.

The flies! oh God, the flies

That soiled the sacred dead,

To see them swarm from dead men's eyes

And share the soldiers' bread!

Nor think I now forgot

The filth and stench of war,

The corpses on the parapet,

The maggots on the floor.

Isaac Rosenberg
The wheels lurched over the sprawled dead
But pained them not, thought their bones crunched,
Their shut mouths made no moan,
They lie there huddled, friend and foeman,
Man born of man, and born of woman,
And shells go crying over them
From night to night and now.

Earth has waited for them
All the time of their growth
Fretting for their decay:
Now she has them at last!

Originally Posted by Wllfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eye writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick with sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

As above, it wasn't a country or person that Tolkien was equating with Mordor; it was WAR! It was this ugliness, this waste of lives, the destruction of the world, the pitiful sacrifices on Mars' altar, the suffering of those just trying to find a quiet place (just think for a moment of all of the children!) - that I think was what Tolkien saw as the 'evil,' not some specific European country.

Reading the book with the stories and poems like those above, I couldn't help but be touched by the huge mess the whole affair was...and yet, for what? What did it accomplish again? Ask someone on the street to see if they even know about what had taken place.

All of it washed away by some big hose?

Originally Posted by burrahobbit

Good luck, buddy.

I say rather that fate will bring intelligence to this thread. Karma existed in Middle Earth, so why not here also?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Mansun

Perhaps this thread is not for you then, Formendacil. This thread seeks intelligent posters of the highest order.

Originally Posted by Mansun

I say rather that fate will bring intelligence to this thread. Karma existed in Middle Earth, so why not here also?

Intelligence is all relative; in this case, relative to the replies and not to the original posit, which is faulty and incongruous with facts presented to the contrary.

I suggest you refrain from character judgements.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Mansun

Karma existed in Middle Earth, so why not here also?

I had originally intended to leave this thread alone--though I have no grudge, I really don't have anything constructive to say that will in any way further an intelligent conversation about Tolkien and World War II--but if perhaps that particular topic is exhausted, I'd like to enquire about the above quote.

Personally, I'm inclined to give karma as much of a chance on the shooting range as I would allegory, but I'm also inclined to think, Mansun, that you wouldn't post that if you didn't have something in mind.

So I must ask... is there karma in Middle-earth? Obviously, not under that name... but still...

?

[davem]

Originally Posted by burrahobbit

That being said, the physical descriptions of Mordor are very clearly based on "no man's land" in WW1 which Tolkien experienced firsthand. .

There's also a very interesting verse in King Harald's Saga (part of Snorre's Heimskringla) :

Waltheof's Fighters
Bitten with weapons,
There lay dead
Deep in the Marshes,
So that the war-keen
Northmen could
Cross over there
On Corpses only.

[Elessar]

the answer for me is no......why did he use a german name "frodo" to be the ring bearer....for in the first place their in war with germany....and why did sauron was defeated earlier???

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Elessar

the answer for me is no......why did he use a german name "frodo" to be the ring bearer....for in the first place their in war with germany....and why did sauron was defeated earlier???

It's my understanding Frodo was simply a modernised version of his 'real' Shire name, as Meriadoc was the modern rendering of Kalimac. I wasn't aware there was a connexion there with German. I don't understand what you mean with reference to Sauron.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Originally Posted by Elessar

Why did he use a German name "Frodo"?

I live in Germany, and I have never seen the name "Frodo" used other than in the book LotR. "Bodo", a first name that does exist here, is the closest thing that occurs to me.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

I live in Germany, and I have never seen the name "Frodo" used other than in the book LotR. "Bodo", a first name that does exist here, is the closest thing that occurs to me.

Further to Estelyn's point, "Frodo" and "Bilbo" are very similar to "Mungo", the common name of the saint who founded Glasgow.