Chapter 494 The Cruel Truth
"Eh? Stalingrad?!"
Elena's expression was slightly startled, and then she looked at the old wizard in front of her in disbelief.
Thanks to the ghost animal feeding video that was popular on Bilibili in her previous life, she is very familiar with the pronunciation of this term - especially when it is pronounced with a slight German accent. Hey ~ Stalin, you will definitely not hear it wrong. of.
"Wait, you don't want to say... you wizards also participated in World War II?!"
"No, it's us, wizards."
Grindelwald raised his finger and shook it, with a complicated expression on his face.
"To be precise, that war was not only the cause of the Magic World War, but also the conflict that broke out along with the Magic World War. When the flames of war enveloped the entire world, no one was immune - no matter you Whether it's Muggles or wizards, they will inevitably be involved."
World War II was the largest world war in human history.
The war ranged from Europe to Asia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. More than 61 countries and regions, more than 2 billion people were involved in the war, and the combat area was 22 million square kilometers.
And this data is just a vague statistics from the non-magical world.
If we include the Wizarding War, which broke out before the Second World War officially broke out, and all the wizards and magical creatures involved, this number and scope of influence may need to be increased even higher.
However, in the magical world, "World War II" is usually not used to describe this war.
"The Crimes of Grindelwald, this is the name of the previous war."
Grindelwald glanced at Dumbledore beside him and shook his head rather self-deprecatingly.
"In the beginning, our purpose was not to provoke a war, but to nip all crises in the bud before the Muggles started a war. However, the whirlpool became bigger and bigger - by the time we came to our senses, everyone Everyone is already stuck in the quagmire, and taking a step back is even more terrifying than death."
"Around Stalingrad, the battlefield of the last and first wizards' showdown."
"Both Muggles and wizards participated in that tragic battle. The killing efficiency of wizards and Muggles on that battlefield of hundreds of thousands was not much different, until the end..."
When he said this, Grindelwald's cheeks twitched and he fell into a rare silence.
Elena, who hugged her knees obediently and huddled on the soft sofa to listen to the story, tilted her head curiously, looked at the first-generation Dark Lord who suddenly broke out of the chapter, a glimmer of understanding flashed in her eyes, and she subconsciously continued to ask.
"Until finally he was defeated by the righteous Soviet wizards and the Red Army, and then retreated all the way to Germany. Finally, he had a decisive battle with Professor Dumbledore at the top of the Forbidden City. He was defeated by one move, and finally closed himself off and was banned in Nurmengarde. How many decades does the castle last?”
"Of course not! In fact, even though it was a non-magical war, the Soviet Union won."
Grindelwald glanced at the white-haired dumpling with a strange expression on his face, shook his head again, and let out a long sigh.
"Those fools focused too much on supporting the Muggle battlefield, so on the battlefield in the wizarding world, we won - the magic school built next to Stalingrad was directly reduced to ruins, and the entire Soviet magic All the inheritance of the world was buried there. After the end of the Patriotic War, there were only a handful of young wizards left in the Soviet Union, so that they could only rely on translating even the most basic spells from the British side. Learn from the magic textbook."
After that war, the Soviet magic world almost became a joke.
Even after more than forty years of training, they have just breathed a sigh of relief. This is also due to their non-magical government's policy of vigorously encouraging childbirth. With a huge population base, the probability of giving birth to a wizard will eventually increase. Higher.
"Not only the Soviet Union, but also the British magical community, no, to be precise, the entire European magical civilization has suffered an extremely serious decline due to the decades of war! There are only eleven magic schools left in the world. Place."
Hearing Grindelwald take the initiative to talk about this topic, Dumbledore continued with a heavy tone.
As the principal of a magic school, a person who personally ended this war, his only regret is that he did not take action earlier. In that case, maybe the situation would not have become so out of control in the end.
Muggle weapons were constantly updated, coupled with the various war magics developed by wizards in the past thousand years. In that war where everyone lost their minds, people reached the pinnacle of how to kill each other.
Compared with those spells that were later included in the list of banned black magic due to the emergence of Voldemort.
Almost all of the war magic that was born, improved, or first used on a large scale during World War II was uniformly destroyed after the war. Whether it was spells or records, they were completely erased - the only remaining Apart from the survivors, the only ones who still have memories of war magic are old guys like them.
It turns out that this is indeed a wise choice.
At least when Tom Riddle transformed into Voldemort and attempted to impose a reign of terror in the UK, his biggest worry was that he could not find the powerful war magic that he once had - unless they created their own magic spells from scratch, otherwise they would not be able to find them. The magic that can be used is only an enhanced version of the spell on the human level.
"Is that so? No wonder..."
Silently listening to Grindelwald and Dumbledore telling each other the story of that year, Elena nodded thoughtfully, and the confusion that had been lingering in her heart was finally resolved.
It has to be said that since coming into contact with Grindelwald, she has been very confused about the current state of the wizarding world.
It stands to reason that with unscientific medical protection, strong self-sufficiency, closed and stable magical world, there is absolutely no reason for the current situation of sparse population and single social structure. Voldemort does not have such great destructive power.
The most bizarre thing about this is the unreasonable demographic structure of the magical world.
The population distribution in the magical world presents a very strange situation. The vast majority of wizards are under the age of sixty. Once they are over sixty, there will be an extremely terrifying age gap-this does not conform to the It is common sense that as a wizard whose theoretical lifespan is about half longer than that of Muggles, it is impossible that the population will not be aging.
If you think about it carefully, the eldest member of the Malfoy family is Lucius Malfoy; there is only one Sirius Black left in the Black family; even the flourishing Weasley family has very few wizards from the older generation. , and most of them are still witches; as for the Gaunt family, well, this one was exterminated because he committed suicide...
On the other hand, faculty members such as Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout lived exceptionally long lives, living into their seventies or eighties without illness or disaster - but it would be difficult to find the same people outside the confines of Hogwarts Castle. age group.
Not only is there a huge gap in the age group, as a Hogwarts student and a senior fan of the "Harry Potter" series, Elena has always had many doubts long before the time travel, and now they are all solved. .
For example...
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