Replication Data for: The Political Effects of Witnessing State Atrocities: Evidence from the Nazi Death Marches

How does witnessing regime atrocities influence the political attitudes of bystanders? We argue that observing regime violence against innocent civilians triggers psychological dissonance between beliefs about the regime and the witnessed moral transgression. As a result, regime support should decrease among bystanders of state atrocities. We analyze original, highly disaggregated archival data from the Nazi death marches at the end of World War II, which confronted ordinary German citizens with the regime's crimes. We find that locations with higher victim numbers had lower vote shares for right-wing nationalist parties after the war. Supporting our proposed mechanism, we show that 1) this effect was strongest when Nazi crimes were at the center of public discourse, and 2) that witnessing Nazi atrocities was associated with individuals' rejection of Hitler twenty years later. The findings have implications for understanding democratization prospects and people's nostalgia for fallen autocrats.目睹政权暴行如何影响旁观者的政治态度？本文提出，观察到政权针对无辜平民的暴力行为，会引发个体对政权的既有信念与所目睹的道德越轨行为之间的心理认知失调。据此，国家暴行的旁观者对政权的支持度应当下降。我们分析了二战末期纳粹死亡行军的原始、高度细分的档案数据——该事件令普通德国民众直面该政权的罪行。研究发现，受害者人数更多的地区，战后右翼民族主义政党的得票率更低。为佐证本文提出的作用机制，我们证实：其一，当纳粹罪行成为公共话语的核心议题时，该效应最为显著；其二，目睹纳粹暴行与二十年后民众对希特勒的拒斥态度存在关联。本研究发现有助于理解民主化前景，以及民众对倒台独裁者的怀旧情绪。