Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

PROTOCOLS OF WISE MEN OF ZION 11military in organization. Its storm troops rode through the country,performing 'propaganda by action.' Chief among their activities was abloody persecution of the Jews, the aim being to call attention to theJews as the ostensible cause of bad conditions. Always strike theminority was their principle — for when a minority is punished, it isguilty in the eyes of the masses. The name of the movement was 'TheBlack Hundreds,' which meant simply: the black guard. The Protocolsof the Wise Men of Zion became the program of this movement; with itthey were born, and with it they grew. Even the primitive version, basedon Godsche's nocturnal conspiracy of rabbis, had a terrible effect. It wascirculated widely, and in 1903 gave the signal for the Kishenev pogrom,in which several thousand Jews were massacred.By its very nature every fascist movement strives to harness both thepeople and the state power to its will. The men who cooked up theProtocols wanted not only to stir up the masses, but also to take in thecredulous tsar. To this end, they gave the book a political timeliness. Afirst version had been prepared toward the end of the nineties byGolovinski and Manuilov, two journalists in the service ofRatchkovsky. This version included Joly's most impressive bits. Forsome reason or other the bombshell was left unused for a few years. Itwas not hurled until political developments offered a particularlygrateful target. In 1904-05, the pamphlet was refurbished as an attack onPrince Svatopulk-Mirski, minister of the interior, and Count Witte, thefinance minister, who were too liberal for the Ochrana. A pamphlet onfinancial policy, by a certain Sharapov, attacking Count Witte wasappended. References to the unfortunate Russo-Japanese War and toWitte's role as peacemaker were woven in. All this, of course, beneaththe paper-thin trimming of a Jewish conspiracy. Other propagandaworks represented the Jews as warmongers; now, on the contrary, theyhad to be peacemongers; for if Witte made peace with the Japanese, hedid so — say the Protocols — on the instigation of the Jews, who wereopposed to a Russian victory. They did not want a Russian victory,because it would have thwarted their plan for world domination.This is the origin of the supposed textbook of Jewish world dom-