Hello, welcome to my website!
I am currently a PhD-Candidate at the Berlin School of Economics - Humboldt University Berlin - under the supervision of Nikolaus Wolf.
My research interests lie at the intersection of quantitative economic history and political economy, with a particular focus on the rise of political extremism in 20th-century Germany. In my dissertation, I investigate how economic deprivation and party strategies, such as targeted repressive violence, contributed to the rise of the Nazi party before 1933.
You can find my CV here and get in contact at monique.reiske@hu-berlin.de.
Research in progress
Losing the country: Debt, deflation, and the rural rise of the Nazi party
with Thilo Albers and Felix Kersting
Abstract
Using interwar German agriculture as a case, this paper explores the political cost of debt deflation which we characterize with farmers' leverage ratios. Primary deficits drove their increase during 1924-1928, but deflation pushed them to unsustainable levels during 1929-1932. We construct corresponding exogenous county-level exposure measures and show their effect on economic distress as well as political radicalization. Our results suggest that debt deflation increased the Nazi party's rural vote share by over 8 percentage points relative to a counterfactual baseline scenario and was thus a necessary condition for its rural dominance and ascension to parliamentary power.
Effects of political violence: The Nazis’ “Fight for Berlin”
Abstract
Under which circumstances can a violent movement succeed in attracting new members and quelling opposition and when does it create backlash? To address these questions, I examine the Nazis’ “Fight for Berlin” between 1928 and 1933. Particularly in the capital city, establishing control over opposition strongholds was a central strategic objective for the Nazi party to suppress protest in case of its ascension to power. For this purpose, the stormtroopers - the NSDAP’s fighting force and under its directive - initiated a sustained campaign of establishing permanent operational bases in predominantly Communist areas. These so-called ‘Sturmlokale’ served as launching points for confrontations with the political enemy and thus introduced a sustained increase of violence into the respective neighborhoods. In this article, I proceed in three steps: First, I show how the stormtroopers successfully expanded into opposition strongholds between 1928 and 1932 and how they strategically positioned themselves closely to Communist meeting places and police stations. Second, I show that increased Nazi presence did in fact lead to more violent incidents in surrounding areas. Third, I investigate the effects of Nazi presence on subsequent election results and explore potential heterogeneity along local Communist strength and police activity. To pinpoint the exact place and timing of stormtrooper presence, I build on previous historical research by cross-referencing information extracted from NS sources with police archives. Similarly, I build detailed point data on Communist meeting places and police stations. Combined with an original data set of Weimar-era election results on the precinct level and equally granular economic information, such as floor prices, this allows me to trace the strategic interactions of the three relevant groups.