The Diabolization of The Jews

The Jew as International Conspirator

The idea of Racism was often combined with the belief that Jews were conspiring to take over Germany and the world. The myth of a Jewish conspiracy began with the forgery of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. The Protocols was written in France in the 1890's by an unknown author in the service of the Russian secret police. The forger describes an alleged meeting of the Jewish elders in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Prague where they plan to take over the world and to reduce non-Jews to slavery. To implement this plan it would require them to undermine religion, assassinate monarchs, and weaken aristocracy and hatch revolutions. This included the French revolution which would spread the idea of liberty and equality. The Jews would also manipulate the stock exchange and cause economic crisis. Published in 1903 in Russia, the Protocols were widely distributed after World War I and was commonly believed.

Communism As A Jewish Conspiracy

In Russia under the communist government led by Vladimir Lenin, Jews were seen as excessively represented. In the 1870's the Jews increasingly discriminated against, barred progressively from universities, liberal professions, professoriate, the civil service and military careers except conscripts. In 1881 an official policy of anti-semitism came about and the black hundreds (dressed in black uniforms and dedicated to ravaging Jewish districts) of the Union of Russian People were organized in 1905. The Jews were still tortured even during the civil war, where no less than 100,000 Jews were killed. On the other hand, the Soviets defended the Jews with force, punished militia units that engaged in pogroms and outlawed anti-semitism as criminal.

The Protocols in Germany and in the United States

After the defeat of the Bolsheviks in the civil war and the soviet regime was secured it provided many opportunities for the Jews. They were able to start working again at universities and other higher positions. This was until Joseph Stalin came into power and anti-semitism and murderous purges where the norm until he died in 1953.

In 1921, the Protocols were proven to be a forgery by Philip Graves, an English journalist but it continued to be distrbuted. The Protocols was challenged in the court of law as being fraudulent. In 1934, several people with connections to the Nazis were tied to the editing, publication and distribution of the Protocols were put on trial. The judge denounced the Protocols as "ridiculous nonsense". The topic of and international Jewish conspiracy remained a core idea of Nazi propaganda until the war ended. In the United States the Protocols were also widely accepted. In 1920, Henry Ford published the International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, a reprint of the Protocols that he had in his newspaper Dearborn Independent. In this printing the Jews were blamed for World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. Eventually, Ford was confronted with a lawsuit and was forced to stop publication in 1927 and apologized for his "error" to the Jewish American community even though he later blamed Jewish bankers for starting World War II.

This is what my part of our presentation covered. I thought all of this was very interesting how anti-semitism spread around the world. I never knew that there was a publishing behind the idea that Jews were trying to take over the world and you can't trust them one bit.