Publication history The first known mention of
The Protocols was in a 1902 article in
Saint Petersburg's conservative newspaper
Novoye Vremya by journalist Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov. He wrote that a venerable lady of the upper class had suggested he read a small booklet,
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which denounced "a conspiracy against the world". Menshikov was strongly skeptical of the authenticity of
The Protocols, dismissing its authors and spreaders as "people with
brain fever". As the
Russian Revolution unfolded, causing
White movement–affiliated Russians to flee to the West, this text was carried along and assumed a new purpose. Until then,
The Protocols had remained obscure; it now became an instrument for blaming Jews for the Russian Revolution. It became a tool, a political weapon, used against the
Bolsheviks who were depicted as overwhelmingly Jewish, allegedly executing the "plan" embodied in
The Protocols. The purpose was to discredit the
October Revolution, prevent the West from recognizing the
Soviet Union, and bring about the downfall of
Vladimir Lenin's regime.
First Russian language editions The chapter "In the Jewish Cemetery in Prague" from Goedsche's
Biarritz, with its strong antisemitic theme containing the alleged rabbinical plot against the European civilization, was translated into Russian as a separate pamphlet in 1872. In 1944, German writer
Konrad Heiden identified Golovinski as an author of the
Protocols. Radziwill's account was supported by Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine, whose claims were published in November 1999 in the French newsweekly ''
L'Express. Lepekhine considers the Protocols
a part of a scheme to persuade Tsar Nicholas II that the modernization of Russia was really a Jewish plot to control the world. Ukrainian scholar Vadim Skuratovsky offers extensive literary, historical and linguistic analysis of the original text of the Protocols'' and traces the influences of
Fyodor Dostoyevsky's
prose (in particular,
The Grand Inquisitor and
The Possessed) on Golovinski's writings, including the
Protocols.
Krushevan and Nilus editions The
Protocols were published at the earliest, in serialized form, from August 28 to September 7 (
O.S.) 1903, in
Znamya, a Saint Petersburg daily newspaper, under
Pavel Krushevan. Krushevan had initiated the
Kishinev pogrom four months earlier. In 1905, Sergei Nilus published the full text of the
Protocols in
Chapter XII, the final chapter (pp. 305–417), of the second edition (or third, according to some sources) of his book,
Velikoe v malom i antikhrist, which translates as "The Great within the Small and the Antichrist". He claimed it was the work of the
First Zionist Congress, held in 1897 in
Basel, Switzerland. When it was pointed out that the First Zionist Congress had been open to the public and was attended by many non-Jews, Nilus changed his story, saying the Protocols were the work of the 1902–03 meetings of the Elders, but contradicting his own prior statement that he had received his copy in 1901:
Stolypin's fraud investigation, 1905 A subsequent secret investigation ordered by
Pyotr Stolypin, the newly appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers, came to the conclusion that the
Protocols first appeared in Paris in antisemitic circles around 1897–98. When
Nicholas II learned of the results of this investigation, he requested, "The Protocols should be confiscated, a good cause cannot be defended by dirty means." Despite the order, or because of the "good cause", numerous reprints proliferated.
The Protocols in the West In January 1920,
Eyre & Spottiswoode published the first English translation of
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Britain. According to a letter written by art historian Robert Hobart Cust, the pamphlet had been translated, prepared, and paid for by
George Shanks and their mutual friend, Major Edward Griffiths George Burdon, who was serving as Secretary of the
United Russia Societies Association at that time. In an edition of
Lord Alfred Douglas’
Plain English journal dated January 1921, it is claimed that Shanks, a former officer in the Royal Navy Air Service and the Russian Government Committee in Kingsway, London, had found post-war employment in the Chief Whip's Office at 12 Downing Street, before being offered a position as Personal Secretary to Sir
Philip Sassoon, at that time serving as Private Secretary to British Prime Minister
David Lloyd George in Britain's Coalition Government. In the United States,
The Protocols are to be understood in the context of the
First Red Scare (1917–20). The text was purportedly brought to the United States by a Russian Army officer in 1917; it was translated into English by
Natalie de Bogory (personal assistant of
Harris A. Houghton, an officer of the
Department of War) in June 1918, and Russian expatriate
Boris Brasol soon circulated it in American government circles, specifically diplomatic and military, in typescript form, a copy of which is archived by the
Hoover Institute. On October 27 and 28, 1919, the
Philadelphia Public Ledger published excerpts of an English language translation as the "Red Bible," deleting all references to the purported Jewish authorship and re-casting the document as a
Bolshevik manifesto. The author of the articles was the paper's
correspondent at the time,
Carl W. Ackerman, who later became the head of the journalism department at
Columbia University. In 1923, there appeared an anonymously edited pamphlet by the
Britons Publishing Society, a successor to
The Britons, an entity created and headed by
Henry Hamilton Beamish. This imprint was allegedly a translation by Victor E. Marsden, who had died in October 1920. On May 8, 1920, an article in
The Times followed German translation and appealed for an inquiry into what it called an "uncanny note of prophecy". In the leader (editorial) titled "The Jewish Peril, a Disturbing Pamphlet: Call for Inquiry",
Wickham Steed wrote about
The Protocols: Steed retracted his endorsement of
The Protocols after they were exposed as a forgery.
United States For nearly two years starting in 1920, the American industrialist
Henry Ford published in a newspaper he owned—
The Dearborn Independent—a series of antisemitic articles that quoted liberally from the Protocols. The actual author of the articles is generally believed to have been the newspaper's editor
William J. Cameron. Ford later published a compilation of the articles in book form as "
The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem". Robert A. Rosenbaum wrote that "In 1927, bowing to legal and economic pressure, Ford issued a retraction and apology—while disclaiming personal responsibility—for the anti-Semitic articles and closed the
Dearborn Independent". Ford was an admirer of
Nazi Germany. In 1921, while at the US Embassy in
Istanbul,
Allen Dulles, who later became the first civilian
director of central intelligence, helped expose
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a forgery. Dulles unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the
US State Department to publicly denounce the forgery. In 1934, an anonymous editor expanded the compilation with "Text and Commentary" (pp 136–141). The production of this uncredited compilation was a 300-page book, an inauthentic expanded edition of the twelfth chapter of Nilus's 1905 book on the coming of the
anti-Christ. It consists of substantial liftings of excerpts of articles from Ford's antisemitic periodical
The Dearborn Independent. This 1934 text circulates most widely in the English-speaking world, as well as on the internet. The "Text and Commentary" concludes with
a comment on
Chaim Weizmann's October 6, 1920, remark at a banquet: "A beneficent protection which God has instituted in the life of the Jew is that He has dispersed him all over the world". Marsden, who was dead by then, is credited with the following assertion:
The Times exposes a forgery, 1921 In 1920–1921, the history of the concepts found in the
Protocols was traced back to the works of Goedsche and
Jacques Crétineau-Joly by
Lucien Wolf (an English Jewish journalist), and published in London in August 1921. Then an exposé occurred in the series of articles in
The Times by its
Constantinople reporter,
Philip Graves, who discovered the plagiarism from the work of
Maurice Joly. According to writer Peter Grose,
Allen Dulles, who was in Constantinople developing relationships in post-
Ottoman political structures, discovered "the source" of the documentation and ultimately provided him to
The Times. Grose writes that
The Times extended a loan to the source, a Russian émigré who refused to be identified, with the understanding the loan would not be repaid. Colin Holmes, a lecturer in economic history at
Sheffield University, identified the émigré as Mikhail Raslovlev, a self-identified antisemite, who gave the information to Graves so as not to "give a weapon of any kind to the Jews, whose friend I have never been." In the first article of Graves' series, titled "A Literary Forgery", the editors of
The Times wrote, "our Constantinople Correspondent presents for the first time conclusive proof that the document is in the main a clumsy plagiarism. He has forwarded us a copy of the French book [
The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu] from which the plagiarism is made." In the same year, an entire book documenting the hoax was published in the United States by
Herman Bernstein. Despite this widespread and extensive debunking, the
Protocols continued to be regarded as important factual evidence by antisemites. Dulles, a successful lawyer and career diplomat, attempted to persuade the
US State Department to publicly denounce the forgery, but without success.
Switzerland Berne Trial, 1934–35 The selling of the
Protocols (edited by German antisemite
Theodor Fritsch) by the
National Front during a political meeting in the Casino of Bern on June 13, 1933, led to the
Berne Trial in the
Amtsgericht (district court) of
Bern, the capital of
Switzerland, on October 29, 1934. The plaintiffs (the Swiss Jewish Association and the Jewish Community of Bern) were represented by Hans Matti and
Georges Brunschvig, helped by Emil Raas. Working on behalf of the defense was German antisemitic propagandist
Ulrich Fleischhauer. On May 19, 1935, two defendants (Theodore Fischer and Silvio Schnell) were convicted of violating a Bernese statute prohibiting the distribution of "immoral, obscene or brutalizing" texts while three other defendants were acquitted. The court declared the
Protocols to be forgeries, plagiarisms, and obscene literature. Judge Walter Meyer, a Christian who had not previously heard of the
Protocols, said in conclusion,
Vladimir Burtsev, a Russian émigré, anti-Bolshevik and
anti-Fascist who exposed numerous
Okhrana agents provocateurs in the early 1900s, served as a witness at the Berne Trial. In 1938 in Paris he published a book,
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Proved Forgery, based on his testimony. On November 1, 1937, the defendants appealed the verdict to the
Obergericht (Cantonal Supreme Court) of Bern. A panel of three judges acquitted them, holding that the
Protocols, while false, did not violate the statute at issue because they were "political publications" and not "immoral (obscene) publications (Schundliteratur)" in the strict sense of the law. The Swiss
Frontists Alfred Zander and Eduard Rüegsegger distributed the
Protocols (edited by the German Gottfried zur Beek) in Switzerland. Jules Dreyfus-Brodsky and Marcus Cohen sued them for insult to Jewish honour. At the same time, chief rabbi
Marcus Ehrenpreis of Stockholm (who also witnessed at the Berne Trial) sued Alfred Zander who contended that Ehrenpreis himself had said that the
Protocols were authentic (referring to the foreword of the edition of the
Protocols by the German antisemite Theodor Fritsch). On June 5, 1936, these proceedings ended with a settlement.
Finland The first Finnish edition of the
Protocols was published in Swedish in 1919. In 1920, the
Protocols were published in Finnish as "
The Jewish Secret Program“. Four additional editions of the Swedish edition were quickly published, and the Finnish edition was re-released in 1933 under the title "
The Scourge of Nations“. Another edition of the
Protocols was published by the Nazi group
Blue Cross in 1943. The
Party of Finnish Labor also published their edition of the
Protocols translated by party secretary Taavi Vanhanen. The
State Police had copies of the
Protocols in its libraries available to those wishing to read them, along with other antisemitic books. It is unknown if the
Protocols were officially considered legitimate, but the chief of the State Police Ossi Holmström subscribed to the
Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy theory.
Germany According to historian
Norman Cohn, the assassins of German Jewish politician
Walther Rathenau (1867–1922) were convinced that Rathenau was a literal "Elder of Zion". It seems likely
Adolf Hitler first became aware of the
Protocols after hearing about it from ethnic German
white émigrés, such as
Alfred Rosenberg and
Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter. Rosenberg and Scheubner-Richter were also members of the early
Aufbau Vereinigung counterrevolutionary group, which according to historian Michael Kellogg, influenced the Nazis in promulgating a
Protocols-like myth. Hitler refers to the
Protocols in
Mein Kampf: The
Protocols also became a part of the Nazi propaganda effort to justify persecution of the Jews. In
The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933–1945,
Nora Levin states that "Hitler used the Protocols as a manual in his war to exterminate the Jews": Hitler did not mention the Protocols in his speeches after his defense of it in
Mein Kampf. Randall Bytwerk agrees, writing that most leading Nazis did not believe it was genuine despite having an "inner truth" suitable for propaganda. Publication of the
Protocols was stopped in Germany in 1939 for unknown reasons. An edition that was ready for printing was blocked by censorship laws.
German-language publications Having fled Ukraine in 1918–19,
Piotr Shabelsky-Bork brought the
Protocols to Ludwig Müller von Hausen who then published them in German. Under the pseudonym Gottfried zur Beek he produced the first and "by far the most important" German translation. It appeared in January 1920 as a part of a larger antisemitic tract dated 1919. After
The Times discussed the book respectfully in May 1920 it became a bestseller. Alfred Rosenberg's 1923 analysis "gave a forgery a huge boost".
Italy Fascist politician
Giovanni Preziosi published the first Italian edition of the
Protocols in 1921. The book however had little impact until the mid-1930s. A new 1937 edition had a much higher impact, and three further editions in the following months sold 60,000 copies total. The fifth edition had an introduction by
Julius Evola, which argued around the issue of forgery, stating: "The problem of the authenticity of this document is secondary and has to be replaced by the much more serious and essential problem of its truthfulness".
Post–World War II Middle East Neither governments nor political leaders in most parts of the world have referred to the
Protocols since
World War II. The exception to this is the Middle East, where a large number of
Arab and Muslim regimes and leaders have endorsed them as authentic, including endorsements from Presidents
Gamal Abdel Nasser and
Anwar Sadat of
Egypt, President
Abdul Salam Arif of
Iraq, King
Faisal of
Saudi Arabia, and Colonel
Muammar al-Gaddafi of
Libya. A translation made by an Arab Christian appeared in
Cairo in 1927 or 1928, this time as a book. The first translation by an Arab Muslim was also published in Cairo, but only in 1951. The
Protocols have continued to circulate in the Middle East and have exerted influence on political and polemical literature in the Arab world. Between 1965 and 1967 alone, approximately 50 Arabic-language books on political subjects were either based on the
Protocols or quoted from them. The
1988 charter of
Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group, stated that the
Protocols embodies the plan of the Zionists. The reference was removed in the
new covenant issued in 2017. Recent endorsements in the 21st century have been made by the
Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem, Sheikh
Ekrima Sa'id Sabri, and the education ministry of
Saudi Arabia. The book was sold during the conference in an exhibition tent set up for the distribution of antiracist literature. However, figures within the region have publicly asserted that
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a forgery such as former Grand Mufti of Egypt
Ali Gomaa, who made an official court complaint concerning a publisher who falsely put his name on an introduction to its Arabic translation.
Finland Pekka Siitoin's
Patriotic Popular Front published a new edition in the 1970s. In the 2000s, the
Protocols were published by the
Magneettimedia. In the 2020s, the
Protocols have been republished by a pseudonymous individual suspected of being a researcher at the
University of Helsinki according to
Demokraatti.
Greece In 2012, the
Protocols were read aloud in the
Greek Parliament by one of its members,
Ilias Kasidiaris, of the neo-Nazi party
Golden Dawn.
Contemporary conspiracy theories The
Protocols continue to be widely available around the world, in multiple formats, including print, the Internet, and social media, and remain influential in contemporary conspiracy literature. The work is widely considered influential in the development of other conspiracy theories, with its themes repeatedly adapted into new ideological contexts. Notions derived from the
Protocols frequently reappear in modern conspiratorial narratives, including claims that the "Jews" depicted in the Protocols are a cover for groups such as the
Illuminati, the
Priory of Sion or, according to
David Icke, "
extra-dimensional entities". In his book
And the truth shall set you free (1995), Icke asserted that the
Protocols are genuine and accurate. Similarities have been noticed between the
Protocols and the
Eurabia conspiracy theory. Scholars have documented that these structural themes continue to influence contemporary conspiracy narratives and online disinformation, which became significantly prevalent during the
COVID‑19 pandemic, ==Adaptations==