Averting the Nazi Seizure of Power

The Great Depression in Germany led to the radicalization of the
electorate, leading the country and then the world into the darkest
days of Western Civilization. Could it have been otherwise? This
paper explores whether the NSDAP takeover might have been averted
with a fiscal policy that lowered the unemployment rate in those
parts of Germany where their support rose most rapidly. A
counterfactual simulation model based on estimates of the
relationship between unemployment and the radical vote at the
electoral district level provides a framework for considering how
much lower unemployment would have to have been in those districts
to prevent the NSDAP from becoming a formidable political force in
Germany. Budget neutrality is maintained, so that the simulations
do not depend on an expanded fiscal policy. The results indicate
that such a policy could well have averted the NSDAP's seizure of
power, and the catastrophe that followed in its wake.