We measure how a network of heroes can legitimize and diffuse extreme political behaviors. We exploit newly-declassified intelligence files, novel voting data and regimental histories to show that home municipalities of French line regiments arbitrarily rotated under Philippe P´etain’s generalship through the heroic WWI battlefield of Verdun diverge politically thereafter, particularly following P´etain’s own overt espousal of authoritarian views. Further, under P´etain’s collaborationist Vichy regime (1940-44), they raise 7% more active Nazi collaborators per capita. These effects extend across all forms of Nazi collaboration and diffuse beyond the veterans themselves.
