Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany / Nico Voigtlaender, Hans-Joachim Voth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Voigtlaender, Nico.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Voth, Hans-Joachim.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w17113.

NBER working paper series no. w17113

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Persecution Perpetuated

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.

Summary:

How persistent are cultural traits? This paper uses data on anti-Semitism in Germany and finds continuity at the local level over more than half a millennium. When the Black Death hit Europe in 1348-50, killing between one third and one half of the population, its cause was unknown. Many contemporaries blamed the Jews. Cities all over Germany witnessed mass killings of their Jewish population. At the same time, numerous Jewish communities were spared. We use plague pogroms as an indicator for medieval anti-Semitism. Pogroms during the Black Death are a strong and robust predictor of violence against Jews in the 1920s, and of votes for the Nazi Party. In addition, cities that saw medieval anti-Semitic violence also had higher deportation rates for Jews after 1933, were more likely to see synagogues damaged or destroyed in the 'Night of Broken Glass' in 1938, and their inhabitants wrote more anti-Jewish letters to the editor of the Nazi newspaper <i>Der Stürmer.</i>

Notes:

Print version record

June 2011.