PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION
THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION, HISTORY OF A FRAUD
1905 — The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the most notorious and widely distributed antisemitic publication of modern times, is published in Russia. The book is used to portray Jews as enemies of the state.
1917 — Russian Revolution brings Bolsheviks to power. Anti-Bolshevik émigrés bring the Protocols to the West.
1920 — The Secrets of the Wise Men of Zion, published in Charlottenburg, Germany, is the first documented version of the Protocols published outside of Russia.
1920 — The Jewish Peril: Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is published. The London Times calls for inquiry into the claims. Later that year, London’s Morning Post implies Jews are the cause of world unrest.
1920 — Henry Ford publishes The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem, originally a series of articles that appeared in Ford’s Dearborn Independent newspaper. The book, based largely on the Protocols, sells more than 500,000 copies and is translated into at least 16 languages.
1920 — British journalist and diplomat Lucien Wolf becomes the first to document the sources from which the Protocols had been fabricated. Translations of the Protocols already were published in Berlin, London and Boston. Soon after, editions appeared across Europe, South America and Japan. An Arabic translation appears by 1925.
Early 1920s — Nazi Party ideologue Alfred Rosenberg introduces Hitler to the Protocols.
1921 — The London Times presents conclusive proof that the Protocols is a “clumsy plagiarism.”
1924 — Journalist Binjamin Segel becomes the first to expose the Protocols as a fraud to a German audience.
1928 — New York Herald reporter Herman Bernstein declares the Protocols “a cruel and terrible lie invented for the purpose of defaming the entire Jewish people.” Bernstein sues Henry Ford for libel in connection with The International Jew series, and Ford admits that the Protocols are “gross forgeries.”
1933 — The Nazi Party seizes power in Germany. The Protocols are introduced into some German schools. Between 1919 and 1939, the Nazi Party publishes at least 23 editions of the Protocols.
1934 — Victor E. Marsden, a Russian correspondent for the British Morning Post, produces the standard English translation of the Protocols. (An English translation of the Protocols by Marsden had appeared as early as 1921.)
1935 — A Swiss court fines two Nazi leaders for circulating a German-language edition of the Protocols in Berne. The presiding judge declares the Protocols “libelous” and “obvious forgeries.”
1938 — The popular and controversial American “radio priest” Father Charles Coughlin serializes the Protocols in his publication Social Justice (Royal Oak, Michigan).
1939–1945 — Nazi Germany distributes copies of the Protocols throughout many of the countries it occupies.
1964 — A U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary report calls the Protocols “obviously gibberish,” and declares that “peddlers” of the Protocols use the “Hitler technique of the ‘big lie.’”
Early 1970s — King Faisal of Saudi Arabia regularly presents a copy of the Protocols to state visitors.
1993 — A Russian court rules that the far-right, nationalist party, Pamyat, committed an antisemitic act by publishing the Protocols.
2003 — Egyptian state television airs a mini-series based on the Protocols.
2004 — Syrian state television airs a mini-series based on the Protocols.
2005 — An Iranian bookseller at the Frankfurt Book Fair exhibits a copy of the Protocols published by the Islamic Propaganda Organization in Iran. Displaying the book violated Article 130 of Germany’s Criminal Code.
2006 — Hamas wins a majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament. Its charter contains a reference to the Protocols.
