Wartime-region adults retained anti-Semitic views that education and economics could not erase

Evidence

These numbers are shocking, but notably the national averages mask large regional variation in the endorsement of these beliefs. For example, the percentage of the population who believed that Jews should not have equal rights dropped to 10 per cent in Hamburg but rose to about half the population (48 per cent) in Lower Bavaria. Next, the researchers identified a narrower group of what they called ‘committed anti-Semites’. This group answered strongly in the affirmative to the following three questions specifically about Jewish people: 1) Whether they are responsible for their own persecution, 2) Whether they have too much influence in the world, and 3) Whether they exploit their ‘victim status’ for financial gain. Although the absolute incidence rate of ‘extremists’ in the sample was quite low (4 per cent), the authors found that there were clear generational trends. On average, younger Germans were found to be less anti-Semitic; specifically, individuals born in the 1930s were two to three times more likely to be anti-Semitic than those born later in the century. This finding remained stable even when taking into account other factors such as levels of education and perceptions of the economy. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 272

Categorization

• QUESTION: The generational effect surviving education and economic controls suggests early-life indoctrination windows — worth chasing the cognitive-science link to critical-period belief formation.
• XREF: Echoes how birthplace and era shaped durable caste/colonial belief systems in Along the Archival Grain and Annihilation of Caste work. — connects to: Anti-semitic resentment declines steadily across German postwar generations — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 1194; Antisemitism persisted as ideology after losing its social grounding; Antisemitism detaches from real conditions and becomes free-floating ideology once politically irrelevant — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 185 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Antisemitism persisted as ideology after losing its social grounding #corroborates (0.95)
• Antisemitism detaches from real conditions and becomes free-floating ideology once politically irrelevant #corroborates (0.90) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 185
• Anti-semitic resentment declines steadily across German postwar generations #corroborates (0.85) — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 1194
• Pan-movement antisemitism was severed from actual Jewish experience and followed ideological logic #qualifies (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 582