Anti-Semitic cultural context magnified the Danat crisis’s radicalizing effect

Evidence

The surge in Nazi voting was more pronounced in towns and cities with a long history of anti-Semitism: there, Danat’s presence added 6 p.p. to the Nazi party’s electoral gains after 1930 – a sizeable increase relative to a mean change of 17 p.p. from 1930 to July 1932. Comparing Danatbank and Dresdner Bank further underlines the role of cultural factors. While both bank failures had economic effects, exposure to Danat had a much stronger effect on Nazi voting – possibly reflecting that Danat’s Jewish chairman was singled out during the crisis, while the same was not true of Dresdner’s chairman. More frequent attacks on Jews and deportations to concentrations camps after 1933 further suggest that the financial crisis created hatred. This is, voters were not only radicalized at the ballot box, they also became radicalized in their actions. — Sebastian Doerr et al., Financial Crises and Political…, 151

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does the stronger Danat effect over Dresdner hold after accounting for local Jewish financial presence, which chapter 7 tested and did not find amplifying? The cultural mechanism here merges pre-existing anti-Semitism with the singled-out Jewish chairman.
• XREF: connects to: Local Jewish financial presence did not amplify the Danat effect on Nazi voting — Sebastian Doerr et al., Financial Crises and Political…, 142; Media scapegoating, not economic loss alone, drove post-crisis Nazi radicalization; Prior crisis research neglected electoral radicalization and cultural factors — Sebastian Doerr et al., Financial Crises and Political…, 148 (+6 more)

Related

• Danat’s Jewish chairman being singled out explains its stronger radicalization effect over Dresdner’s. (similarity 0.94)
• Danat exposure radicalized Nazi voting beyond the income losses it caused (similarity 0.92)
• Local Jewish financial presence did not amplify the Danat effect on Nazi voting (similarity 0.91)
• Anti-finance sentiment alone cannot explain the Danat effect on Nazi voting (similarity 0.90)
• Prior anti-Semitism roughly doubled the radicalizing effect of bank distress. (similarity 0.88)
• Only exposure to Danatbank, not Dresdner, raised Nazi voting despite identical economic losses. (similarity 0.88)
• Media scapegoating, not economic loss alone, drove post-crisis Nazi radicalization (similarity 0.87)
• The crisis could boost Nazis through economic misery or through Jewish scapegoating propaganda. (similarity 0.85)
• Danatbank-exposed cities saw a 2.9-percentage-point extra rise in Nazi vote share. (similarity 0.85)
• Prior crisis research neglected electoral radicalization and cultural factors (similarity 0.85)
• Both income shocks and elite scapegoating jointly drove Nazi radicalization (similarity 0.84)
• Identical bank-failure income losses radicalized voters only where media singled out the bank (similarity 0.84)
• The Danat collapse boosted Nazi votes beyond nationwide crisis effects (similarity 0.84)
• Danat exposure raised Nazi voting 1.7 to 2.5 percentage points across robustness checks. (similarity 0.84)
• Danatbank exposure raised Nazi vote share across multiple federal elections. (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Anti-Jewish prejudice attached to modernity and revolution across the political spectrum #expands (0.85)
• Social factors, not just politics, turned antisemitism into extermination #expands (0.78) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 273
• The Danat collapse boosted Nazi votes beyond nationwide crisis effects #complicates (0.72) — Sebastian Doerr et al., Financial Crises and Political…, 150