Nazi propaganda is still working

New research is showing how tremendously effective Nazi propaganda was. In fact, it’s still working. An analysis of survey data from Germany in 1996 and 2006 reveals that native German respondents who were born in the 1930s showed significantly more anti-Semitism than those who were born earlier or later, even controlling for other individual and contextual factors. This was especially true for residents of areas with an early history of anti-Semitism — as measured by vote shares of anti-Semitic parties from 1890 to1912.

And while this generation is dying off, younger residents of those same areas also exhibited more anti-Semitism, even controlling for historical anti-Semitism — what the researchers term an “echo effect.” Other sources of propaganda — radio, movies, or Nazi member prevalence — did not appear to explain the attitudes of the 1930s generation, suggesting that propaganda in schooling and youth organizations was the source.

Voigtländer, N. & Voth, H.-J., “Nazi Indoctrination and Anti-Semitic Beliefs in Germany,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (forthcoming).