The Political Effects of Witnessing State Atrocities: Evidence from the Nazi Death Marches

Alexander De Juan*, Christian Gläßel, Felix Haass, Adam Scharpf

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

How does witnessing regime atrocities influence the political attitudes of bystanders? We argue that observing regime violence against innocent civilians triggers psychological dissonance between beliefs about the regime and the witnessed moral transgression. As a result, regime support should decrease among bystanders of state atrocities. We analyze original, highly disaggregated archival data from the Nazi death marches at the end of World War II, which confronted ordinary German citizens with the regime’s crimes. We find that locations with higher victim numbers had lower vote shares for right-wing nationalist parties after the war. Supporting our proposed mechanism, we show that (1) this effect was strongest when Nazi crimes were at the center of public discourse and (2) that witnessing Nazi atrocities was associated with individuals’ rejection of Hitler 20 years later. The findings have implications for understanding democratization prospects and people’s nostalgia for fallen autocrats.
Original languageEnglish
JournalComparative Political Studies
ISSN0010-4140
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 1 Jun 2023

Keywords

  • Faculty of Social Sciences
  • repression
  • regime breakdown
  • voting
  • extremisme
  • democratization
  • authoritarian legacy

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