In a warning for the potential political implications of coronavirus, a New York Federal Reserve paper has shown a link between the 1918 flu pandemic and the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany.
The study shows that cities with the greatest fatalities saw a reduction in social expenditure and that “influenza deaths of 1918 are correlated with an increase in the share of votes won by right-wing extremists.”
“This holds even when we control for a city’s ethnic and religious makeup, regional unemployment, past right-wing voting, and other local characteristics assumed to drive the extremist vote share,” economist Kristian Blickle wrote. “The deaths brought about by the influenza pandemic of 1918-1920 profoundly shaped German society.”
With the global economy facing its deepest peacetime recession in almost a century — since the depression era in which the Nazis came to power — as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, the report highlights the risk of enduring social effects if governments don’t do enough.
