The impact of holocaust survivors' testimonies and politicians' framings on political attitudes in Germany

Abstract

How do politicians' framings of the need to remember the past shape contemporary political attitudes? This research note addresses this question by focusing on the case of the memory of the Holocaust in Germany. We conduct a survey experiment in which respondents are confronted with a testimony by a Holocaust survivor on its own or by that testimony followed by an excerpt from a speech by a politician either emphasizing the need to remember the past or minimizing it. Our results suggest that politicians' framings have an important effect on respondents' attitudes on the importance to remember and on agreement with certain antisemitic statements. Furthermore, we find significant differences in the reaction of respondents from eastern and western Germany and among those with extreme ideological views.