Replication Data for: PROPAGANDA AND COMBAT MOTIVATION Radio Broadcasts and German Soldiers' Performance in World War II

What explains combat motivation in warfare? Scholars argue that monitoring, material rewards, and punishment alone are insufficient explanations. Further, competing ideological accounts of motivation are also problematic, since ideas are difficult to operationalize and measure. To solve the problem, the authors combine extensive information about German soldiers' combat performance from World War II with data about conditionally exogenous potential exposure to Nazi radio propaganda. They find evidence that soldiers with higher potential exposure to propaganda are more likely to be decorated for valor even after controlling for individual socioeconomic factors, home district characteristics such as urbanization, and proxies for combat exposure.