We must first begin this book by stating the state of witches and wizards on the eve of the great muggle war.

Europe is a very diverse place with many cultures, religions, races, and magical creatures. However witches and wizards a like, as much as many of us would not like to concede, are connected to the muggle world. This just as true as it is today as it was on the eve of war. Knowledge of the muggle war is recommended before reading this book.

Great Britain

In Great Britain, Witches and Wizards continued their lives as normal, at least as normal as they could. While a great deal of young male British muggles died in the Great War, also known as World War I, young British wizards managed to avoid the draft by virtue of memory spells, transfiguration, etc.

It is not surprise then that the post-war period saw a large spike in mixed-blood unions. With less young male muggles around, a young wizard was in short supply. 

However, not all witches and wizards stayed at home. Some wizards took up muggle weapons and fought on the front line for King and Country. However, even those that were shot and wounded were able to heal themselves.

France

The story was completely different in France. French witches and wizards felt obligated to defend their homeland. The young witches from Beauxbaton's Academy of Magic were notorious for their ability to make the entire school invisible to muggle eyes. There are reported cases of wizarding duels taking place on the front lines between French and German wizards. What was often mistaken as an artillery shell was in fact a duel between witches and wizards of opposing sides.

The ranks of French witches and wizards were decimated by the Great War and as a result there were far less French witches and wizards than British. The French witches and wizards also harbored a greater resentment towards Germany for their losses.

Germany

Germany's poor economic situation deeply affected the German wizarding family. German witches and wizards tried to recover as best as they could under the circumstances but to no avail. It is at this time were you see books such as "Transfiguration: how to turn rocks into foods" flying off the shelves of German book stores. 

The unrest on German streets was not confined to muggle battles, wizarding duels were commonplace, albeit during the night, over simple amenities. The consumption of fire whiskey went through the roof as many wizards resorted to drowning their sorrows.

With the rise of Hitler came the rise of attitudes regarding racial superiority. Among the many wizarding families, this idea of Aryan superiority extended to pure-blood families. Prominent pure-blood families became infamous for marrying into other pure-blood families and brutally punishing all those who eloped into a union with a non-pure-blood with banishment and full emancipation.

Some Wizards even became involved with the muggle Nazi party. In fact there are allegations that Goebells, Hitler's minister of Propaganda was either a squib or very good with manipulation charms though these allegations have yet to be proven.

Soviet Union

With the Bolshevik revolution came the regime of Lenin and eventually Stalin. While Russian witches and wizards could live relatively comfortably in the West before the revolution, collectivization and industrialization made it far more difficult to accomplish secrecy.

As a result many wizarding families fled their starving homes and headed for either other countries or Siberia. In a very odd phenomena, you had Russian wizarding families camping with other Russian wizarding families and eventually forming a small wizarding community out in the middle of the Siberian tundra. These wizarding communities usually comprised around fifty to a hundred witches and wizards, around ten to fifteen families each.

Since getting caught would result in dire consequences, these wizarding communities spent many hours on concealment spells and muggle aversion tactics. Luckily since muggles weren't fond of taking a random walks in the Siberian snowstorms, these wizarding communities remained well hidden. In fact there are some wizarding communities which are still hidden even after nearly a century in hiding. The most recent discovery of a hidden wizarding community was in 2008 (by the muggle calender) wherein a community of over three hundred Russian witches and wizards were discovered.

The life of exile was far from easy for these Russian wizarding families. Being out in the wilderness intruded on many ancient and powerful magical areas and beings. One particularly bad instance occurred when a wizarding settlement was discovered slaughtered by a Soviet Air Patrol in 1973. It seemed that a war had broken out between this settlements inhabitants and a local enclave of mountain giants.

Not all Russian witches and wizards decided to leave their homes and head to Siberia however. Many decided to remain at home. For these unlucky families, collectivization, suffering, and often death were their fate. Those few witches and wizards that resisted were put down violently by the Red Army and Secret Police. Stalin eventually got wind of these people with special abilities and began capturing witches and wizards for experimentation; the horrors of which were not nearly as horrible as Nazi experimentation on witches and wizards but of which I shall not go into detail. Stalin actually created a small reserve of wizards who were fanatically loyal to him. They were his personal guard and followed him everywhere. Their parents were killed by Stalin (thought they did not know this) and Stalin raised them as his own shaping them into brutal warriors.

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Now that we have covered some of the basics of Pre-World War II in the wizarding world, we shall head into Chapter 2; the outbreak of the war.