Murder rate in the last years of Weimar Republic 1927-1933

Discussions on every day life in the Weimar Republic, pre-anschluss Austria, Third Reich and the occupied territories. Hosted by Vikki.
Post Reply
IlCreatore
Member
Posts: 4
Joined: 15 Jun 2018, 11:42
Location: Italia

Murder rate in the last years of Weimar Republic 1927-1933

#1

Post by IlCreatore » 15 Jun 2018, 15:43

I am writing a paper about mortality during the last years of Weimar Republic, namely 1928-1933. Presenting the data in Berlin, scholars were struck by the figures about people dead by murder and manslaughter (Mord und Totschlag in German) because they seem really high. During the period 1927-1937, homicide rate has its peak at 1.9 every 100,000 people in 1932, which reported to Germany entire population of that year is around 1249 murders in a year.

I made a Google search about crime in Weimar Republic and I actually found out that high level of crimes were mostly perceived rather than actual. Indeed, there has been three serial killers during that period and a bunch of political murders but nobody consider the numbers particularly astonishing.

The graph attached from Pinker (2011) shows that murder rates in Germany during the 20s and 30s are second only to that of Italy, thus even if it seems small in absolute number, it is large with respect to comparable countries

Does anybody know why this is the case? Why murder rate was that high in Germany? Any source/links are appreciated
Attachments
1.PNG
Murder rate comparison, Pinker (2011)
1.PNG (86.96 KiB) Viewed 4706 times

GregSingh
Member
Posts: 3877
Joined: 21 Jun 2012, 02:11
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Murder rate in the last years of Weimar Republic 1927-1933

#2

Post by GregSingh » 16 Jun 2018, 11:08

:welcome:

I'm not familiar with Pinker's work, so I can't comment on his data.
But I have copies of all available statistical yearbooks and official numbers for Mord und Totschlag were much lower. Eg. summary for 1932 - 726, for 1933 - 744. Possibly he used some kind of different methodology than just presenting raw data?

It's out of interest of your research, but murder rates jumped significantly in late 1943 / early 1944.
I presented some unique data from Kriminalpolizei earlier here: Crime rate in the Reich. I'm mentioning this because this jump is not shown on the chart you attached from Pinker.


IlCreatore
Member
Posts: 4
Joined: 15 Jun 2018, 11:42
Location: Italia

Re: Murder rate in the last years of Weimar Republic 1927-1933

#3

Post by IlCreatore » 16 Jun 2018, 12:11

GregSingh wrote:But I have copies of all available statistical yearbooks and official numbers for Mord und Totschlag were much lower. Eg. summary for 1932 - 726, for 1933 - 744. Possibly he used some kind of different methodology than just presenting raw data?
Forgot to say that my stats are based on a selection of German cities with population over 100,000. That may be the reason why my figures are higher.

Boby
Member
Posts: 2762
Joined: 19 Nov 2004, 18:22
Location: Spain

Re: Murder rate in the last years of Weimar Republic 1927-1933

#4

Post by Boby » 18 Jun 2018, 10:49


IlCreatore
Member
Posts: 4
Joined: 15 Jun 2018, 11:42
Location: Italia

Re: Murder rate in the last years of Weimar Republic 1927-1933

#5

Post by IlCreatore » 18 Jun 2018, 12:00

Boby wrote:Check the Statisches Jahrbucher:
https://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/to ... N514401303
Do you think they provide some description of trends too? Because we get the data from that sources but my question is about the interpretation of the rates

Post Reply

Return to “Life in the Third Reich & Weimar Republic”