The Protocols of the Elders of Zion emerged at the dawn of the 20th century and has since become a cornerstone of antisemitic conspiracy theories. This fabricated text has been exploited by those seeking to propagate the falsehood that a clandestine Jewish body secretly manipulates global affairs. Despite being repeatedly exposed as a forgery, the Protocols has persisted across decades, undergoing numerous editions and adaptations. In contemporary times, this deceitful document continues to proliferate through diverse media, notably the internet and social media platforms, demonstrating the enduring nature of antisemitic conspiracy theories.
First surfacing in a Russian Empire newspaper in 1903, the Protocols purported to be authentic minutes unveiling a Jewish plot for world domination. This claim was entirely baseless. Investigations by journalists, legal judgments, and governmental inquiries have unequivocally demonstrated the Protocols to be a fabricated text designed to incite antisemitism.
However, for over 120 years, those intent on spreading conspiracy theories targeting Jewish people have weaponized the Protocols. The Protocols is frequently revised to reflect contemporary events, its appeal, characteristic of conspiratorial thinking, lies in offering simplistic interpretations of a complex world, blaming Jewish people for societal problems.
Unpacking The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Media Essay
Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Media Essay)
The Protocols falsely presents itself as a confidential record of meetings supposedly convened by a group identified as “The Learned Elders Of Zion.” These alleged meetings are fictitious; they never occurred, and the purported leaders, the so-called Elders of Zion, are entirely mythical figures.
Early publications of the Protocols comprised 24 chapters or “protocols,” each purporting to be minutes from these fabricated meetings. These chapters detailed the non-existent elders’ supposed clandestine schemes to seize control of global politics, economies, financial systems, media outlets, educational institutions, and other societal spheres for Jewish benefit. Additional antisemitic fabrications within the Protocols include assertions that Jews aim to eradicate Christianity and all other world religions, and that they profit from global conflict.
While editions and versions of the Protocols vary, their underlying purpose remains consistent: to attribute global issues to Jewish people, a classic example of scapegoating. Scapegoating, the practice of blaming others for misfortunes, is central to the antisemitic agenda of the Protocols. Promoters of the Protocols consistently seek to demonize Jewish people by falsely associating them with various societal problems.
The Protocols and Deep Roots of Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories
Antisemitic conspiracy theories are not a modern invention; they have a long and disturbing history spanning centuries. These theories have mutated and adapted over time, drawing upon religious, economic, nationalist, and racial prejudices to fuel hatred against Jews. Throughout history, Jews have been falsely accused of deicide (killing Jesus), instigating wars and revolutions, and even causing plagues and epidemics. The false narrative of Jewish control over politics and global finance is a recurring theme in these conspiracy theories.
The 19th century witnessed a surge in antisemitism. Rapid societal transformations in Europe and North America during this period, driven by advancements in communication technologies like printing, facilitated the swift dissemination of ideas, including antisemitic propaganda. A prevalent antisemitic trope during this era claimed that Jews were secretly orchestrating these changes for their own gain. These very conspiracy theories found their way into numerous iterations of the Protocols.
While the Protocols did not originate antisemitic prejudice, it served to consolidate and amplify existing conspiracy theories into a single, potent text. It became a vehicle for reinforcing and disseminating the most prevalent antisemitic conspiracy theories, lending them a false sense of authority and coherence.
Origin Story: Tracing the Lie of the Protocols
The earliest version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion emerged in 1903. It was serialized in Znamia (The Banner), a St. Petersburg, Russia newspaper, beginning that fall. Znamia was owned by Pavel Krushevan, a writer known for both his literary work and his virulent antisemitism. Krushevan utilized his extensive newspaper network within the Russian Empire to disseminate hatred against Jews. Notably, antisemitic articles published in one of Krushevan’s newspapers in April 1903 contributed to inciting a pogrom in Kishinev.
Scholarly consensus points to Krushevan as the likely original author of the Protocols. When Znamia published the text, Krushevan penned both a foreword and an afterword. He falsely asserted that the Protocols were verbatim minutes from a clandestine meeting of the “World Union of Freemasons and Elders of Zion.” Krushevan accused Jews of plotting global domination, citing the burgeoning Zionist movement as supposed “evidence.” Zionism, aligned with other nationalist movements of the era, advocated for the establishment of an independent Jewish state in their ancestral homeland. False claims have linked the Protocols to the First Zionist Congress held in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, alleging it to be the meeting minutes from this event, a claim that is demonstrably untrue.
In 1905, the Protocols was included as an appendix to a book about the coming of the Antichrist, authored by Sergei Nilus, a Russian mystic known for his antisemitic views. Nilus’s work further propagated the lie that Jews were agents of demonic forces intent on destroying the world.
Global Spread of The Protocols
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion gained wider circulation following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In that year, amidst widespread popular unrest fueled by food shortages, war fatigue from World War I, and demands for an end to autocratic rule, the Russian Tsar abdicated. Months later, the Bolshevik Party seized power in Russia through a coup, later known as the Bolshevik Revolution, eventually becoming the Communist Party.
Fear of similar Communist uprisings across Europe amplified a central antisemitic conspiracy theory embedded in the Protocols: the false claim that Jews were responsible for Communism and were orchestrating revolution, often referred to as “Judeo-Bolshevism.”
In subsequent years, the Protocols found receptive audiences globally. It was translated into numerous languages and published worldwide. A German edition appeared in Germany in 1919. The 1920s saw versions of the Protocols emerge across Europe and in the United States, including French translations in Paris and English translations in London, New York, and Boston. By the early 1920s, editions were available in Japanese (1920), Italian (1921), Swedish (1921), Norwegian (1921), and Polish (1923), with an Arabic translation circulating in Syria by 1925.
The Protocols became the inspiration for numerous other books promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories. A prominent example in the United States was Henry Ford’s The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem. Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, was a highly influential figure in 1920s America. The International Jew was initially serialized in Ford’s newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, before being published as a book and translated into at least 16 languages, including German. Nazi Party leaders, including Adolf Hitler, drew inspiration from The International Jew.
As the Protocols spread globally, its content was frequently adapted to reflect contemporary events and local contexts. This explains the variations between different editions and language versions. However, the core antisemitic themes remained constant across all versions.
Exposure of The Protocols as a Forgery: The 1920s
The Times, August 17, 1921 (Media Essay)
In 1920, British journalist and diplomat Lucien Wolf published a detailed exposé revealing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a fabrication. Wolf traced elements of the Protocols to Biarritz (1868), a German-language novel. This fictional work contained similar themes of secret meetings of Jewish leaders, held in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, concluding with the arrival of the Devil to offer support.
The following year, The Times newspaper of London unequivocally declared the Protocols a “fake” and a “clumsy forgery.” The Times investigation demonstrated that substantial portions of the Protocols were plagiarized from Maurice Joly’s Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu (1864), a French political satire that makes no mention of Jews whatsoever.
Further exposés soon emerged in the United States and Germany. Herman Bernstein, a reporter for the New York Herald, published The History of a Lie: The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion in 1921. In 1924, German journalist Benjamin Segel authored The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Critically Illuminated (Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion, kritisch beleuchtet). In the preface to the English edition of his book, Segel underscored the devastating impact of the forgery:
“This forgery has caused untold misery to the Jews, and still exercises an incredible spell on the minds of the seduced masses.”
Adolf Hitler and The Protocols
During the early 1920s, Alfred Rosenberg, a leading Nazi ideologue, introduced Adolf Hitler to the Protocols. The conspiracy theories presented in the Protocols reinforced Hitler’s pre-existing conviction that Jews were responsible for Germany’s defeat in World War I.
Hitler referenced the Protocols in his early political speeches throughout the 1920s. He also discussed the book in his autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf (1925). Hitler asserted that the Protocols “reveal the nature and activity of Jewish people and expose…their ultimate final aims.” He also predicted that the “Jewish menace,” as he termed it, would be “broken” as awareness of the Protocols grew.
After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hitler ceased directly referencing the Protocols in public speeches. However, he frequently echoed its central antisemitic lies, including the false claim that Jews were responsible for the spread of Communism – the Judeo-Bolshevism conspiracy theory.
Nazi Propaganda and The Protocols
Front page of a German newspaper Der Stürmer July 1934Artifact: Der Stürmer, number 29, July 1934
Der Stürmer, number 29, July 1934 (Artifact)
Nazi Germany’s virulently antisemitic semi-official newspaper, Der Stürmer, utilized the Protocols to promote fear of Jewish world domination, as seen in this 1934 issue. The article, titled “Who is the Enemy?”, blamed Jews for societal disorder and falsely claimed they desired war, contrasting them with a peace-loving world. Der Stürmer, July 1934.
Despite being exposed as a forgery over a decade before the Nazi rise to power in 1933, Nazi propaganda strategically employed the Protocols to mobilize German public opinion. The narrative was crafted to portray Germany as needing to defend itself against Jewish aggression. While it’s unlikely most Germans directly read the Protocols, its core antisemitic lies were widely disseminated through relentless Nazi propaganda campaigns.
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda, recognized the power of the Protocols to demonize Jews. Even before assuming his ministerial role, Goebbels acknowledged in his diary: “I believe that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a forgery.” However, he continued, “I believe in the inner, but not the factual, truth of The Protocols.” For Goebbels and the Nazi regime, the utility of the Protocols in advancing their antisemitic agenda outweighed its factual inaccuracy.
Some of the Nazi Party’s most aggressive antisemitic propaganda initiatives leveraged the Protocols. Julius Streicher, publisher of Der Stürmer, consistently featured stories in the 1930s drawing upon themes and lies from the Protocols. The Nazi Party’s central publishing house, Franz Eher Verlag, issued 22 editions of the Protocols between 1919 and 1938, contributing to its wide dissemination.
Further Exposure in the 1930s and Beyond
Nazi sympathizers beyond Germany also actively circulated copies of the Protocols. Their activities faced legal challenges in two significant court cases during the 1930s.
In 1934, in Grahamstown, South Africa, legal action was taken against leaders of the South African Gentile National Socialist Movement (the Greyshirts). They were sued and subsequently fined for distributing a document closely resembling the Protocols. The South African Supreme Court ruled the Protocols to be a “defamatory document.”
In 1935, a Swiss court fined two Nazi leaders for distributing a German edition of the Protocols at a demonstration by the National Front, a far-right antisemitic organization in Bern, Switzerland. The presiding judge famously dismissed the Protocols as “ridiculous nonsense.”
Wartime Nazi Editions of The Protocols
During World War II (1939–1945), as Nazi Germany occupied vast swathes of Europe, including parts of the Soviet Union, they actively disseminated the Protocols in occupied territories. Even amidst the ongoing genocide of European Jews during the Holocaust, in 1943, German authorities published editions of the Protocols in Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. Versions of the Protocols and related antisemitic conspiracy texts also appeared in German-occupied France, Belgium, and Poland.
Post-Holocaust Exposure and Enduring Legacy
In 1964, a US Senate subcommittee issued a report definitively declaring the Protocols to be “a vicious hoax.” This report, released during the Cold War amid heightened anxieties about Communism, explicitly identified the Protocols as “one of a number of fraudulent documents that peddle the myth of an ‘international Jewish conspiracy.’” The Senate report unequivocally labeled the Protocols as “gibberish.”
However, repeated exposures of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a fabrication, even in the aftermath of the Holocaust, have failed to diminish its insidious influence. The Protocols and the conspiratorial antisemitic worldview it promotes continue to fuel antisemitism globally. Editions of the Protocols, in numerous languages, remain readily available in print and online. References to the text are commonplace on social media platforms, demonstrating its continued, albeit often underground, circulation. According to a 2024 US Department of State report, the Protocols retains significant influence in Russia, its country of origin.
Contemporary adaptations of the Protocols falsely blame Jews for current events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, wars, and terrorist acts, including the September 11, 2001 attacks. Alarmingly, in some regions, the Protocols has been incorporated into school textbooks and even adapted into television programming, suggesting a normalization of antisemitic conspiracy theories.
The Protocols has also been utilized in political propaganda and by heads of state. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–2013) frequently drew upon themes from the Protocols in his antisemitic rhetoric. Influential political and social leaders, particularly in the Middle East, have publicly asserted the authenticity of the book. The terrorist organization Hamas has cited the Protocols to justify its calls for the annihilation of both Jewish people and the State of Israel, highlighting the real-world dangers of this fabricated text.
Furthermore, some recent versions of the Protocols incorporate Holocaust denial, while others distort Holocaust history, falsely claiming, for instance, that Jews collaborated with the Nazis to establish the State of Israel.
The underlying purpose of these modern adaptations of the Protocols remains unchanged: to perpetuate antisemitic conspiracy theories and incite hatred against Jewish people in contemporary contexts.
Footnotes
Last Edited: Nov 26, 2024 Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
