BOWLING FOR FASCISM: SOCIAL CAPITAL AND THE RISE OF THE NAZI PARTY IN WEIMAR GERMANY, 1919-33

1. BOWLING FOR FASCISM: SOCIAL CAPITAL AND THE RISE OF THE NAZI PARTY IN WEIMAR GERMANY, 1919-33 Shanker Satyanath Nico Voigtländer Hans-Joachim Voth (NYU) (UCLA and NBER) (UZH and CEPR) 26 May 2015

2. Background: Social capital • Social capital = a dense network of civic associations “[t]he study of social capital is that of network-based processes that generate beneficial outcomes through norms and trust” (Durlauf and Fafchamps, 2004) • Social capital typically associated with benign outcomes: • Vigorous democracy (Tocqueville, 1835 and Putnam, 1994,1995) • Economic development (Knack and Keefer, 1997) • Pro-social behavior (Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales, 2008, 2010) Also acknowledged that social capital can have negative effects, such as social polarization (Durlauf and Fafchamps, 2004); crime (Field, 2003) Autocratic rulers can use social capital as a means of control  entrench elites  persistence of “bad” institutions (Acemoglu, Reed, and Robinson, 2013) This paper: Can social capital also contribute to the fall of existing democracies and the emergence of autocracies?

4. Origins of Totalitarianism: • Mass-society, decline of traditional ties  susceptibility for totalitarian doctrine • Large-scale, impersonal, social institutions: Individuals cut off from traditional and communal ties (Ortega y Gasset) • Social isolation is key: Appeal to marginal loners on the fringes of society (Arendt, 1958). • Stern (1972): Germany lacked “the kind of voluntary, civic activity that attracted their English and American counterparts.” • Mass movements – NS, Communists – offer an alternative identity weakness of German civic society facilitated rise of the Nazis • Contrast: Berman (1997): Weimar Germany had comparatively high social capital, successfully exploited by NSDAP

5. This paper Construct novel dataset for association density in more than 225 towns and cities in the 1920s Show that there is a robust, strong relationship between density of associations and Nazi Party entry Results equally strong for bowling, singing, and animal breeding clubs etc. Address concerns over endogeneity Show that “dark side” of social capital was particularly strong where regional institutions were weak 5

6. Background: Rise of the NSDAP • Founded 1919 • 1923 – attempt to overthrow the government (“Beerhall Putsch”) • Party banned in 1924 • Returns to the polls in 1928, receives 2.6% of the vote • In the late 20s, party organization growing rapidly • 100,000 members • 1,400 local chapters • By 1933, 850,00 members; “Storm Troopers” (SA) strong enough to challenge the government militarily • First major electoral success in 1930 (after the party had already built substantial membership base)

7. Why party entry matters • Membership expansion via local party cells was a critical pre-condition for subsequent electoral success and the collapse of democracy (Brustein, 1998) • Membership dues key source of financing • Members important for major modes of mobilization (rallies, leafleting, etc.) • NS entry rates predict (later) electoral success

8. How did the NSDAP exploit local associations? • Town chapters (Ortsgruppen) were responsible for recruiting members, collecting dues, coordinating activities, etc. • Koshar (1986) uses the example of Emil Wissner, a salesman in Marburg: • Member of a white-collar employee association (from 1921), and active in two gymnastics clubs (from 1904). • Joined the party in 1929, and actively used his position to proselytize for the party, and to win new members.

9. Social Networks and Party Entry • Fellow association members more trusted than randomly matched acquaintances: makes it easier for Nazi party ‘political entrepreneurs’ to spread the message • One Nazi Party member recounts how he… “…became acquainted with a colleague of my own age with whom I had frequent conversations. He was a calm, quiet person whom I esteemed very highly. When I found out that he was one of the local leaders of the National Socialist party, my opinion of it as a group of criminals changed completely…”

10. NSDAP members were mostly members of ‘ordinary’ associations From Koshar (1987):

11. Data • Collected data on associations from 229 town and city directories, altogether 22,127 associations • 2.61 associations per 1,000 inhabitants on average • Conditions to be in the sample: • Contacted all towns larger than 10,000 in 1925 (~550) • Surviving directories listing associations in the 1920s • For many towns and cities, this information was lost, destroyed during the war, or it did not exist in the first place • Core measure: “Association density” number of associations per 1,000 inhabitants (Unfortunately, no systematic data on number of members) • Matched with sample Falter-Brustein computerized sample of 38,752 Nazi Party members for 1925-33 (Schneider-Haase, 1991). • Identify 9,169 members in the 229 towns and cities

12. Towns and cities in the sample, by association density and party entry Association density Nazi Party entry Note: Full dots = above median; empty dots = below median. 12 12 12 12

14. Balancedness • Omnibus test: • Test if predicted NSDAP entry (by all controls) is correlated with club density • p-value 0.19 for baseline controls • p-value 0.80 for all controls, conditional on baseline controls

15. Baseline results:Nazi Party entry and association density Baseline

16. Partial scatter plot, NSDAP entry rate and association density (baseline)

17. Baseline results – some robustness

18. More robustness… • Subsamples by high/low Catholic, blue-collar, city size • Bonding and bridging social capital • Matching estimation (also by location)

19. NSDAP Party Membership and Success at the Polls

20. Mediation test: Club density  Party entry  Electoral success

21. Towards an Interpretation When do associations matter most? • Early vs. late party entry: Stronger results for early entry • Role of `Nazi potential’: Associations matter more in towns with lower right-wing votes in early 1920s • Panel results: Existing members most ‘useful’ for fostering party growth in locations with high club density Interpretation: • Local networks particularly useful for new parties that cannot rely on existing members for local recruitment efforts Further suggestive evidence: • Elections – Counterfactuals: Weak negative relationship with KPD (communists), none with DNVP (right-wing party) in 1928-33

22. Understanding the effects of social capital:The role of institutions • A lot of evidence – social capital positive for democracy • In Weimar – contributes to decline and fall of democracy • How do we make sense of the difference? • One answer – institutions • Strong, stable institutions align expectations • Provide a positive prior for democracy • Can crack down on anti-democratic movements while they’re still small

23. Example: Prussia 1919-32 = “The Weimar that works” • Stable Social Democrat coalition (narrow majority) • Vigorous defenders of democracy (against right and left) • Police stops paramilitary groups • Bans political marches (e.g., police shoots on Communist demonstrators on May 1, 1929) • Increasing pressure from central government starting 1930. • Prussian government deposed in a putsch in July 1932

24. Proxy for government stability(state-level): Three indicators over the period 1918-July 32 (ending with the Prussian coup d’etat) • the percentage of time that the longest-serving government was in office • the percentage of time that the longest-serving party was in office (possibly in different coalitions) • the percentage of time that a state was governed by at least one party from the “Weimar coalition” (SPD, DDP, Zentrum) • Compute first principal component • Prussia in the upper third, but some states equally or more stable

25. The role of stable government – preview

27. The net effect of club density on NSDAP entry

28. Towards causality IV Additional checks “Plausibly exogenous” Selection on unobservablesAltonji et al. 28

29. IV strategy • 1860s membership in gymnast associations • 1861 participation in the Nuremberg Singing Festival • 283 singing associations • 6,000-20,000 participants • [Friedrich Nietzsche among them] • Exclusion restriction • 19C nationalism vs. national socialism (“spirit of 1848”) • Turn towards the apolitical after 1850 • Evidence from Democratic congress in Berlin, 1848

30. IV results

31. Conclusions • Social capital associated with many beneficial outcomes • We showed: dense networks of clubs associated with rise of the Nazi party, and thus contributing to the collapse of Weimar Germany’s democracy • Does not depend on the type of association • Important interaction with institutions: Social capital can be exploited to undermine democracy when institutions are weak

32. Tocqueville knew it all along… “The most natural privilege of man… is that of combining his exertions with those of his fellow creatures and of acting in common with them. The right of association therefore appears to me almost as inalienable in its nature as the right of personal liberty. … Nevertheless, if the liberty of association is only a source of advantage and prosperity to some nations, it may be perverted or carried to excess by others, and from an element of life may be changed into a cause of destruction.” [italics added]

33. BACKUP

34. The basic result • Total entries per 1,000 • Below-median club denisty: 27.7 • Above-median club density: 35.2 Cumulative NSDAP membership, by association density Note: Each data point reflects the cumulative NSDAP entry rate (per 1,000 inhabitants), starting in 1925 and averaged across the cities with above- and below- median association density. The data are described in Section 3. NSDAP entries are from the Berlin-Minneapolis sample (Schneider-Haase 1991); starting in 1930, we correct aggregate entry rates for a change in sampling methodology, as described in Appendix C.

35. Partial scatter – exclude 90pctile of club density

36. Historians’ judgment “…the movement may have ‘fed’ on preexisting membership structures and clusters which the single members helped channel into the reestablished Nazi party. Ties with other ‘bourgeois’ associations of Germany’s civil society may well have enhanced this process by extending the reach of single members for recruitment purposes.” (Anheier 2003) “Weimar's rich associational life provided a critical training ground for eventual Nazi cadres and a base from which the NSDAP could launch its Machtergreifung(seizure of power).” (Berman 2007)

37. Example: Coburg

38. Veterans of 5th infantry Regiment Bamberg Soccer And athletics

39. Bad Langensalza[member count not listed]

40. Associations in the sample 40

41. Members per capita vs. Clubs p.c. Membership data for sports and gymnastics clubs members available for Prussian towns in 1927 41

42. Elections – Counterfactuals

43. Early and late Nazi Party entries, by locality Note: The x-axis plots average rates of Nazi Party entry (per 1,000 inhabitants) in each city over the period 1925-28, and the y-axis over the period 1929-33. Data are described in Section 3.

47. Location-specific ‘sociability’? Worker associations as counterfactual • Evidence for “general sociability”, but not for an effect on Nazi party entry • Working class associations did not act as gateways to the Nazi movement – "infection" apparently required a minimum degree of ideological compatibility

50. Civic vs. Military clubs