Hysteresis and Selection in the Rise of Fascism: The `Ordinary Men' of the Nazi Party (opens in new tab)

We digitize and analyze the near-universe of National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) membership records and link them to newly digitized population and industrial censuses. Four findings emerge. First, as the party expanded, its membership came to resemble the broader population more closely in occupational, demographic, and religious terms. Second, SS members remained distinctly different: younger, more educated, and more fanatical, as...