Can anybody explain to me why Voldemort didn't know what Grindelwald looked like?
It's not like there were ages between them – both Grindelwald and Dumbledore were still alive in the era of Voldemort, their duel was famous, the information about it was virtually everywhere: in Hogwarts schoolbooks, in other books, even on Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog card.
In support of this notion I found some dates: Voldemort is believed to be born in 1926, while Grindelwald was defeated in 1945. Young Tom Riddle must have just graduated from school. Great dark wizard in the making, I don't believe he didn't keep watch on that confrontation.
And he didn't know how Grindelwald looked like? When Voldemort visited Gregorovitch and found out that the Elder Wand had been stolen, he forced the wandmaker's memory for an image of the thief and wondered who it might have been. Not until he visited the Godric's Hollow and saw Rita Skeeter's book did he know the mysterious thief was Grindelwald. How come?
It's like living in the former Soviet Union during World War II and not knowing how Hitler looked. Utterly impossible! Even at the time without the Internet and TV every child knew his face. Photographs, newspapers, books, etc...
And yet Voldemort didn't recognise the greatest dark wizard of his youth. And neither did Gregorovitch! An older man who lived in country where Grindelwald was most powerful, at the time when Grindelwald was most powerful, and he didn't know this wizard? It's like an old man in a Russian village during World War II who got the village occupied and his possessions taken and didn't know afterwards who it was, can't even imagine! Too far-fetched to be believable.
Or am I missing something?