Working Paper: NBER ID: w17113
Authors: Nico Voigtländer; Hans-Joachim Voth
Abstract: 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 Der Stürmer.
Keywords: antisemitism; cultural persistence; Nazi Germany; historical violence
JEL Codes: N33; N34; N53; N54; Z1; Z10
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| historical antisemitic violence (N93) | contemporary antisemitism (B20) |
| pogroms during the black death in 1348-50 (N93) | antisemitic violence in the 1920s (N93) |
| pogroms (N93) | Nazi Party's share of the vote in 1928 (N24) |
| cities with a history of pogroms (N93) | higher deportation rates for Jews post-1933 (K37) |
| cities with a history of pogroms (N93) | more incidents of synagogue destruction during the Night of Broken Glass in 1938 (N64) |
| cities with a history of pogroms (N93) | higher frequency of antisemitic letters in Der Stürmer (Y50) |