Who Became a Nazi? A Structured Database of the Denazification Questionnaires from French and American Occupation Zones in Germany, 1945–1949

What led Germans to support and join the NSDAP? In this project, we propose to collect and analyze longitudinal data at the individual level from denazification questionnaires (questionnaires) distributed in the French and U.S. occupation zones of Germany between 1945 and 1949. The questionnaires contain detailed information on past memberships in Nazi organizations, retrospective voting records, and academic and professional careers, income, wealth, and other sociodemographic data. The project will contribute to our understanding of individual motivations to vote for and participate in right-wing populist movements. It will also add to the political science, economic, and historical accounts of the Weimar Republic's slide from democracy to dictatorship. In addition, the data will be made available to scholars and citizens in a relational database via a web platform.