Det är svårt att förstå hur så många tyskar kunde stödja nazismen under 1920- och 30-talet. Kanske beror det på att en viktig förklaringsfaktor tycks ligga mycket långt tillbaka i tiden, enligt den nya studien ”Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany”:

How persistent are cultural traits? This paper uses data on anti-Semitism in Germany and finds continuity at the local level over more than half a millennium. When the Black Death hit Europe in 1348-50, killing between one third and one half of the population, its cause was unknown. Many contemporaries blamed the Jews. Cities all over Germany witnessed mass killings of their Jewish population. At the same time, numerous Jewish communities were spared these horrors. We use plague pogroms as an indicator for medieval anti-Semitism. Pogroms during the Black Death are a strong and robust predictor of violence against Jews in the 1920s, and of votes for the Nazi Party. In addition, cities that saw medieval anti-Semitic violence also had higher deportation rates for Jews after 1933, were more likely to see synagogues damaged or destroyed in the Night of Broken Glass in 1938, and their inhabitants wrote more anti-Jewish letters to the editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer.

Ett fascinerande resultat. Man undrar hur uppfattningar av det här slaget slår rot och blir så beständiga — och vad det finns för hemska tendenser i olika länders kultur och historia som kan dyka upp under vissa omständigheter samt vilka dessa omständigheter som kan aktivera dessa tendenser är.

Tips: William Easterly. Se även Christian Bjørnskovs inlägg om denna studie.