The Reading Warehouse

Covering the period from 1890 to 1933, this book analyzes social, economic, and cultural variables down to the village level throughout Northwest Germany. Vascik gathers together an incomparable amount of data - including a complete set of local polling place results for 583 towns and villages along the North Sea coast - and links this to a GIS interface that enables him to spatially analyze and visually represent a new picture of Agrarian politics and its relationship to Antisemitism.

Vascik uses this data to argue that, prior to the First World War, Antisemitism was of marginal importance to the politics and culture of the North Sea coast. Jews and gentiles lived profitably together and Jews in small towns were accepted participants in village life and provided needed, appreciated services. The book then moves on to discuss how the nature of the Jewish/peasant relationship changed dramatically as a result of the First World War in a number of significant economic and political ways, and how this heralded in a fervent Antisemitism in the rural Northwest region of Germany.

Antisemitism and Rural Politics in Northwest Germany employs a groundbreaking application of Historical GIS (Geographic Information Science) to completely revise our understanding of the relationship between Antisemitism and Agrarianism in Northwest Germany.