IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/auu/hpaper/113.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

From the Death of God to the Rise of Hitler

Author

Listed:
  • Sascha O. Becker
  • Hans-Joachim Voth

Abstract

Can weakened religiosity lead to the rise of totalitarianism? The Nazi Party set itself up as a political religion, emphasizing redemption, sacrifice, rituals, and communal spirit. This had a major impact on its success: Where the Christian Church only had shallow roots, the Nazis received higher electoral support and saw more party entry. “Shallow Christianity†reflects the geography of medieval Christianization and the strength of pagan practices, which we use as sources of exogenous variation. We also find predictive power at the individual level: Within each municipality, the likelihood of joining the Nazi Party was higher for those with less Christian first names.

Suggested Citation

  • Sascha O. Becker & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2023. "From the Death of God to the Rise of Hitler," CEH Discussion Papers 03, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:auu:hpaper:113
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/CEH/WP202303.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sascha O. Becker & Ludger Woessmann, 2009. "Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 531-596.
    2. Davide Cantoni & Jeremiah Dittmar & Noam Yuchtman, 2018. "Religious Competition and Reallocation: the Political Economy of Secularization in the Protestant Reformation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 2037-2096.
    3. Nico Voigtländer & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2012. "Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1339-1392.
    4. Keisuke Kondo, 2016. "Hot and cold spot analysis using Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 16(3), pages 613-631, September.
    5. David Clingingsmith & Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Michael Kremer, 2009. "Estimating the Impact of The Hajj: Religion and Tolerance in Islam's Global Gathering," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1133-1170.
    6. David Clingingsmith & Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Michael Kremer, 2009. "Estimating the Impact of The Hajj: Religion and Tolerance in Islam's Global Gathering," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1133-1170.
    7. Simon Heß, 2017. "Randomization inference with Stata: A guide and software," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 17(3), pages 630-651, September.
    8. Shanker Satyanath & Nico Voigtländer & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2017. "Bowling for Fascism: Social Capital and the Rise of the Nazi Party," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(2), pages 478-526.
    9. Doerr, Sebastian & Gissler, Stefan & Peydró, José-Luis & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2022. "Financial crises and political radicalization: How failing banks paved Hitler’s path to power," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 77(6), pages 3339-3372.
    10. Jörg L. Spenkuch & Philipp Tillmann, 2018. "Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(1), pages 19-36, January.
    11. Matthias Schonlau & Rosie Yuyan Zou, 2020. "The random forest algorithm for statistical learning," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 20(1), pages 3-29, March.
    12. Alessandro Lizzeri & Nicola Persico, 2004. "Why did the Elites Extend the Suffrage? Democracy and the Scope of Government, with an Application to Britain's "Age of Reform"," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 707-765.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sascha O. Becker, Sascha O & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2023. "From the Death of God to the Rise of Hitler," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1478, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    2. Valencia Caicedo, Felipe & Dohmen, Thomas & Pondorfer, Andreas, 2023. "Religion and cooperation across the globe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 479-489.
    3. Samuel Bazzi & Gabriel Koehler-Derrick & Benjamin Marx, 2020. "The Institutional Foundations of Religious Politics: Evidence from Indonesia [“The Classical Islamic Law of Waqf: A Concise Introduction”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 845-911.
    4. Becker, Sascha O. & Rubin, Jared & Woessmann, Ludger, 2020. "Religion in Economic History: A Survey," CEPR Discussion Papers 14894, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Nathan Nunn, 2012. "Culture and the Historical Process," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(S1), pages 108-126.
    6. Sascha O. Becker & Luigi Pascali, 2019. "Religion, Division of Labor, and Conflict: Anti-semitism in Germany over 600 Years," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1764-1804, May.
    7. Oeindrila Dube & Joshua E. Blumenstock & Michael Callen & Michael J. Callen, 2022. "Measuring Religion from Behavior: Climate Shocks and Religious Adherence in Afghanistan," CESifo Working Paper Series 10114, CESifo.
    8. Alberto Alesina & Paola Giuliano, 2015. "Culture and Institutions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(4), pages 898-944, December.
    9. Spenkuch, Jörg & Tillmann, Philipp, 2014. "Elite Influence? Religion, Economics, and the Rise of the Nazis," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100491, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Boris Gershman, 2016. "Long-Run Development and the New Cultural Economics," Working Papers 2016-06, American University, Department of Economics.
    11. Baele, Lieven & Farooq, Moazzam & Ongena, Steven, 2014. "Of religion and redemption: Evidence from default on Islamic loans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 141-159.
    12. Becker, Sascha O. & Mukand, Sharun & Yotzov, Ivan, 2022. "Persecution, pogroms and genocide: A conceptual framework and new evidence," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    13. Mathias Bühler & Leonhard Vollmer & Johannes Wimmer, 2024. "Female education and social change," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 79-119, March.
    14. Baele, L. & Farooq, M. & Ongena, S., 2012. "Of Religion and Redemption : Evidence from Default on Islamic Loans (Replaces CentER DP 2010-136)," Discussion Paper 2012-014, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    15. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/68bdjcjoob8kh8nu5vcmetkbf3 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Sascha O. Becker & Jared Rubin & Ludger Woessmann, 2024. "Religion and Growth," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1094-1142, September.
    17. Gharad Bryan & James J Choi & Dean Karlan, 2021. "Randomizing Religion: the Impact of Protestant Evangelism on Economic Outcomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(1), pages 293-380.
    18. Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2020. "Persistence – Myth and Mystery," CEPR Discussion Papers 15417, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Noury, Abdul G. & Speciale, Biagio, 2016. "Social constraints and women's education: Evidence from Afghanistan under radical religious rule," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 821-841.
    20. Barber, Luke & Jetter, Michael & Krieger, Tim, 2024. "Foreshadowing Mars: Religiosity and pre-Enlightenment conflict in Europe," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302355, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    21. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/71lh5oncqk84tbb1d1a8gujtq6 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Sriya Iyer, 2016. "The New Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 395-441, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political Religion; Behavioral Political Economy; Voting; Nazi Party; Protestantism; Shallow Christianity; Political Religion; Paganism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N14 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • Z18 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Public Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:auu:hpaper:113. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chanuau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.