The well-known book and musical, Wicked, written by Gregory Maguire, is famous for its intriguing back story about the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum's. This fairy tale story's purpose is to have the reader develop a sense of empathy for Elphaba rather than see her as an antagonist, like she is seen in the Wizard of Oz. What many people do not know is Maguire actually incorporated several historical elements into the plot, one of the most prevalent being fascism, and even more specifically, Nazism. The Wizard's reign over Oz, the use of the Gale Force, and the treatment and discrimination of Animals all relate to the events that occurred in Germany during the 1930's. The similarities between Wicked and Nazi Germany allowed Maguire to teach readers a powerful lesson about how dangerous a fascist government and racial superiority really is. Maguire uses a fairy-tale type of story to demonstrate that fascism cannot occur without suffering.

The Wizard's rise to power can be related to Adolf Hitler and his political party's rise in the early 1930's. Before the Wizard's arrival in Oz, the country was a mess. There were severe droughts, major poverty, and a lack of faith in their ruler, Ozma. The Wizard's takeover was beloved to be crucial for the survival of the country. Similarly, Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party began gaining followers and growing in power after Germany's defeat in World War I. Resentment of the loss, the severity of the peace terms, and economic downturn brought widespread depression ("The Holocaust"). The type of event that occurred in Oz and Germany helped make a political turnover much easier. The Wizard also uses many of the same power and control techniques that were used by the Nazis. Hitler's rise to power is a very famous event in history, and by drawing similarities between Hitler and the Wizard, Maguire shows the potential danger of repeating history. 

 During the Nazi control, a political police force terrorized the country. The Gestapo, an abbreviation for "Geheime Staatspolizei," which is German for Secret State Police, was the political police of Nazi Germany. The Gestapo eliminated opposition to the Nazis within Germany, and was responsible for the roundup of Jewish people being deported to concentration camps. They were controlled by the government and operated under no civil restraints ("Gestapo"). The Wizard used a similar type of  police in Oz, in order to keep control of opposition. The Wizard employs the Gale Forcers to do his dirty work and ensure that anyone resisting his rule is kidnapped or murdered. The use of secret police forces makes it hard for the people to go against the leaders, which is how both the Nazi Party and the Wizard are able to stay in power. Without terror and violence, neither of these fascist leaders would be able to stay in power. 

One of the most memorable events of the Nazi Party's reign was the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime ("Introduction to the Holocaust"). The Nazis believed that Germans were racially superior, and that Jews threatened the German racial community. Comparably, the Wizard thought that Animals were inferior to the population of Oz. Animals is spelled with a capital "A" in the book to separate them from lower-case "a" animals. The difference between Animals and animals were that Animals could talk, be educated, hold conversations, essentially everything that a human could do and animals could not. The Wizard wanted to demote them back to being regular animals. Early unionist teaching always had a subtle bias towards Animals, and the Wizard was acting on those biases. Doctor Dillamond, a notable Animal professor at the Shiz, the university in the book, expressed to Galinda his concerns about the Banns. Banns was a policy that would strip Animals of their rights, and essentially their citizenship. He explains, "If the Wizard's Banns went through the Hall of Approval, as they were likely to do, the goat himself would be required by law to give up the privileges he had earned through years of study, training, and saving" (Maguire 86). The Wizard's plan of action was very similar to that of the Nazi Party's, which suggests that a mass genocide would occur as it did in Germany. 

In 1935, the Nazis announced new laws called the Nuremburg Laws. These were very racial laws and because they did things like excluded German Jews from German citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having relations with anyone with German blood. These laws also stripped Jews of all their political rights ("The Nuremburg Race Laws"). The Nuremburg Laws are similar in Wicked through the Wizard's Banns on Animals. They are an attack on Animals' civil rights, including travel and education. Both the Nuremberg Laws and the Banns made discrimination truly effective, for these minorities now had legal restrictions. Both Oz and Nazi Germany had to come up with ways to make these racial attacks convincing to their people. 

Both the Wizard and the Nazis used propaganda to promote their ideas and get mass amounts of people to follow them. Propaganda is information used to promote or a particular cause or point of view, and often the information given is untrue. A major tool of the Nazi propaganda was a German newspaper, Der Sturmer. At the bottom of the front page of each issue, the paper claimed, "The Jews are our misfortune!" ("The Holocaust"). The newspaper also featured cartoons of Jewish people in which their features were exaggerated to make them look like apes and look nonhuman. Posters were also distributed throughout Germany. In Oz, the propaganda was very different but had the same effect. For example, Madame Morrible, headmistress at the Shiz, gathered all students for a poetry reading. One of the poems ended controversially. "Whose Virtues do exemplify, And Social Good thus multiply. Animals should be seen and not heard" (Maguire 116). This poem was told to many young students that would be easy to influence. It was an effective approach because many of the students began to understand the Banns and why they were occurring. Propaganda is a powerful tool because it can make even the most ridiculous ideas make sense, depending on how it is presented. While not directly stated in the novel, it is implied that other forms of propaganda such as posters and books against animals were used. As time went on, the Banns turned into outright torture of Animals, as it had with the Jewish population of Germany. This shows how racial superiority may start with discrimination, but will end in the torment of the minority. 

Shortly after the Nuremburg Laws were put into place, the Nazis began combining their racial theories with the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin. They used science to justify their treatment of the Jews, claiming that the Germans were the strongest and fittest to rule, while the racially inferior Jewish people were doomed to extinction ("The Holocaust"). Hitler began burning books with Jewish authors, shutting down Jewish businesses, and even herding them into "ghettos," rundown neighborhoods excluded from the rest of the world. The Wizard also used science to justify the treatment of Animals, claiming that Animals were biologically and inherently different from humans. Those scientific claims were the grounds on which the Wizard could publish those Banns and not have any real opposition. Those who tried to argue against this difference were beaten and treated terribly. As unethical and horrific as these torture camps were, both Oz and Nazi Germany used them to control the minorities. Racial superiority combined with fascism can lead to torture camps and genocides, and Maguire used Wicked to remind readers this. 

In the early 1940's, Germany began the "Final Solution," which was the mass murder of the Jewish and other minority populations. All Jewish men, women, and children were rounded up into ghettos or concentration camps, where the conditions were barely livable. In those camps they would wait until they were taken off to "killing camps" where they would be herded into gas chambers and executed ("The Holocaust"). The Jewish people were dehumanized and stripped of every basic human right. The reason this continued for so long was because of the Nazi Party's total control, the use of the Gestapo and private armies, and the propaganda against Jewish people. Similar events occurred with the Animals. They were removed from their businesses and homes and forced back to farms and forests. Those who did not comply were sent to camps led by Gale Forcers, along with other minorities and resisters. After Elphaba's meeting with the Wizard, she left the Shiz and devoted herself to ending the war against Animals. She was one of the few who saw the immorality of the situation. Fiyero, Elphie's lover, did not understand what she was fighting for until he witnessed one of these Gale Forcer camps. This realization occurred with much of the German population after realizing what the Jewish people had suffered through. Fiyero was never supposed to see what happened in those prison camps, and likewise the concentration camps were kept hidden from the German population. Neither the Wizard nor Hitler would have stayed in power if the people knew everything that was going on.

 Gregory Maguire's fairy-tale novel, Wicked, is a great story that represents Germany during the Nazi rule. Through the strategically and beautifully written book, you can see the Wizard's rise to power and control over Oz represents Adolf Hilter and the control of Germany. The Wizard of Oz use of the Gale Forcers is a direct correlation with Hilter's army, the Gestapo, due to their very similar tactics and motives. The Gale Forces strip the Animals of their rights just like how the Gestapo strip the Jewish people of their rights. The similarities suggest that Maguire was making a powerful statement against fascist governments and racial superiority.  The images by Maguire's novel reminds readers of the horrific events occurred as a result of fascism and racial superiority, in an attempt to prevent these events from occurring again.

