ONLINE APPENDIX Persecution Perpetuated: the Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany
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ONLINE APPENDIX Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany Nico Voigtländer Hans-Joachim Voth UCLA and NBER ICREA/UPF and CREi I. Data Description I.A. Medieval Data As described in section II in the paper, we use Germania Judaica [GJ] from Avneri (1968) as our principal source. We first establish the presence of a Jewish community based on its inclusion in GJ, volume II, which is for the period 1238-1350. Whenever later work by Alicke (2008) mentions that a Jewish community existed during this period, we use his information instead. For each town, city or village where GJ mentions pogroms, violent attacks on the Jewish population, the burning of Jews, or the wholesale extermination of the Jewish community in 1348-50, we code our dummy variable for Black Death pogroms, POG1349, as unity, and zero otherwise. I.B. Data on 20C Violence and Anti-Semitic Attitudes We collect data on pogroms in the 1920s, on the number of Stürmer letters, on deportations, and on attacks on synagogues. Our source for all of these variables with the exception of the Stürmer letters is Alicke (2008). For pogroms in the 1920s we use the dummy POG1920 that equals 1 for cities with documented pogroms during this period. Alicke focuses on ‘positive’ information, and mentions when an event actually occurred. We set POG1920 to zero otherwise. We define a pogrom as a violent outrage against the Jewish population, involving physical violence against and/or the killings of people. Therefore, political agitation through Brandreden (incendiary speeches), attacks on Jewish shows, or the desecration of cemeteries are not coded as pogroms. Only when physical violence against at least one Jewish inhabitant is mentioned in Alicke does this variable take the value of unity. From Alicke (2008), we also take data on the existence of a synagogue in 1933 (coded as 1 if mentioned as such, and 0 otherwise), as well as on the extent of attacks in 1938 during the ‘Night of Broken Glass’ (Reichskristallnacht). We construct two dummy variables – one for destroyed 1 synagogues, and one for damaged ones. For the former, we assign a value of 0 if no synagogue in use in 1933 was destroyed during Reichskristallnacht. “Destruction” occurred if the relevant building was damaged at least to an extent that it became unusable, in which cases Alicke mostly uses the term “zerstört” (destroyed). The variable then takes the value 1. We code our variable for synagogue damage in a locality as 0 if no synagogue/s in use in 1933 was damaged during Reichskristallnacht. “Damage” we define if the inventory of a synagogue was destroyed or the physical fabric of the building itself was damaged but remained intact. The variable takes the value 1 in these cases. From these two variables, we create a combined variable for synagogues destroyed or damaged. As an additional variable, the number of published letters to the editor from the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer is included in our dataset. For the four years 1935 to 1938, all letters to the editor published in one of three different categories were counted provided their place of origin matched a locality in our dataset. The three categories are: (1.) Letters that were published as articles, e.g., a schoolgirl writing about her classmates still interacting with Jewish pupils. (2.) Letters in which individual Jews or other people still talking to/doing business with Jews are denounced. (3.) The category “mailbox” in which Der Stürmer answers questions about Jews (“how many Jews live in xyz town?”). We count letters in these three categories for all three years in our analysis, and sum them by locality. I.C. Election Data We use election data initially collected as part of Jürgen Falter’s (1991) research project on historical elections in Germany (Hänisch 1988). The source for their database are the official statistics of the Weimar Republic (Statistik des Deutschen Reiches). The vote for each party is calculated as the ratio of the number of valid votes received by a party, divided by the total number of valid votes cast. For May 4, 1924, we analyze the results for the Deutsch-Völkische Freiheitspartei (DVFP) as well as for the Deutschnationale Volkspartei (DNVP). For the elections of May 20, 1928, September 14, 1930, and March 5, 1933, we focus on the Nationsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP). For these years, election data is available at the city level for municipalities with more than 2,000 inhabitants. For smaller towns, we use the observations on Restkreis (‘remaining county’), which correspond to the voting results for all towns and villages with less than 2,000 inhabitants. For the socio-economic correlates in our section on elections, we use data from Hänisch (1988) and Falter (1991), derived from the censuses of 1925 and 1933. These allow us to control for the number of inhabitants, the percentage of the population that is Protestant, the percentage of Jews, and of blue-collar workers. 2 I.D. Deportations The German Federal Archives have compiled a comprehensive list of Jewish deportees during the Nazi period (Bundesarchiv 2007). We use the second, expanded and improved edition. It contains information on 159,972 individuals (Jewish or presumed Jewish by the authorities) who lived in what was considered Germany proper between 1933 and 1945. The database is available online (http://www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/directory.html). We consulted the database by entering every single locality in our dataset into the search engine (under the query term “Wohnort”), and then recorded the number of listed deportees for the years 1933-45. A typical entry reads: Lehmann, Helen Lehmann, Helen geb. Mayer née Mayer, born 24.7.1876 * 24. Juli 1876 in Maikammer living in Meckenheim (Rhineland) wohnhaft in Meckenheim th Deportation: deported from Camp de Vernet on 19 of ab Camp de Vernet August to Auschwitz (extermination camp) 19. August 1942, Auschwitz, Vernichtungslager Why do deportation rates reflect local sentiment? The paper already details some of the organizational and historical features that make this a valid interpretation. Here, we provide additional detail: Local initiative could increase the number of deportees, but hardly ever reduce it – by, for example, criminalizing Jews, who would then become “Schutzhäftlinge” (protected prisoners), which were deported as a matter of course. Löw’s (2006) analysis of deportations to the Litzmannstadt ghetto in Lodz (in 1941) argues that “for the transports to Litzmannstadt, there were no central directives; the respective administrative units (Stellen) proceeded in selecting the deportees according to their own criteria (Ermessen).” After the chaotic first stages, there were some attempts to regularize the deportation rules. The general guideline was that “Mischlinge” (Jews with two or less Jewish grandparents), and Jews married to gentiles were not deported; elderly Jews and war veterans went to Theresienstadt (from where they were often deported further East). The last rule was only applied consistently from 1942 (Hilberg 1961). The treatment of “Geltungsjuden” was also inconsistent. “Geltungsjuden” were sometimes deported in Germany, almost never in Austria, but routinely 3 deported in Poland.1 Differences were often driven by local power holders’ attitudes and their interactions with the Gestapo. In the case of marriages between gentiles and Jews, there was often massive pressure on the “German” part to divorce the Jewish partner, which would then result in deportation. Again, there were large local differences in the pressure applied. Meyer (2004) argues that “a close look at the deportation history demonstrates that local [Gestapo] units did not simply act in line with central RSHA directives, but were part of complex local and regional power structures… the extent to which [Gestapo] units forged alliances with the local party and other Reich administrative units or competed with them, were enlisted for the purposes of these other units or not, had a direct effect on the persecution and deportation process – and therefore on the ability of Jewish representatives to influence and modify the process.” (p. 63) I.E. Crime Data for Late Imperial Germany Crime data are from Eric Johnson’s study of Imperial Germany. They are available from the GESIS data archive (study ZA8069 – German Crime, Death and Socioeconomic Data, 1871–1914). We use information on the number of convictions for causing serious bodily harm and for simple theft (at the county level). II. Additional Empirical Results II.A. Additional Sample Statistics Table A.1 shows the summary statistics for our main variables for the extended sample, and Table A.2 shows the corresponding correlations. Table A.3 reports the means conditional on the existence of a medieval Jewish community (Panel A) for various 20C outcome variables in the extended sample, as well as regressions of these variables on POG1349 and JewCom1349. Table A.4 shows that there is no significant difference in election turnout across cities with and without Black Death pogroms, either in the main sample or in the extended sample. Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales (2008) use election turnout as a key indicator of social capital. The fact that there is no significant difference underlines the comparability of cities with and without pogroms along socio-economic dimensions. II.B. Additional Control Variables for Main Regression Results In our main results in Table VI in the paper, we use an identical set of covariates for all indicators of anti-Semitic sentiment (except where we need to control for population size or the number of Jews). This has the advantage of consistency, but begs the question if other factors – such as economic 1 Jews fulfilling at least one of the following criteria: they had to be half-Jews descended from two Jewish grandparents and were either members of a Jewish religious community after 1935, married to a Jew, or the illegitimate offspring of a Jew.