Language:
English
Year of publication:
2015
Titel der Quelle:
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
29,2 (2015) 212-229
Keywords:
Protocols of the wise men of Zion
;
Antisemitism History 1933-1945
;
Nazi propaganda
;
Anti-Jewish propaganda
Abstract:
Contends that both Hitler and Goebbels realized that "The Protocols" was a forgery, or at least doubted its authenticity; however, they thought it contained an "inner truth" - the existence of a Jewish world conspiracy. Notes that Nazi "racial scholars" and other antisemitic intellectuals avoided citing "The Protocols" after the exposure of its forgery in the early 1920s, because they did not want to appear foolish before professional colleagues. The use of "The Protocols" in Nazi Germany was relegated to non-academic antisemites, like Theodor Fritsch, Alfred Rosenberg, Ulrich Fleischhauer, and Julius Streicher. "The Protocols" was printed and reprinted in Germany in hundreds of thousands of copies, and its publication enjoyed the support of the Nazi Party. The Nazi press followed closely the Bern trials against the disseminators of "The Protocols" in Switzerland in 1934-37. However, although "The Protocols" was widely available and regularly mentioned and cited by the most vehement antisemites, it only rarely figured in propaganda aimed at a mass audience, unless the audience was of limited education. There were more "persuasive" tools in the Nazi arsenal to argue for the existence of a Jewish conspiracy.. For the Nazis, just as for present-day antisemites, "The Protocols" was merely a useful illustration of a conspiracy in which they already believed.
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