THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PROTOCOLS OF THE WISE MEN OF

FIRESIDE DISCUSSION GROUPof theANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUEB’NAI B’RITHNo. HI THE TRUTH ABOUT THEPROTOCOLS OF THE WISEMEN OF ZION Suite 1414-1415-1416-1417130 North Wells StreetCHICAGO, ILL.

These latest documents upon which anti-Semitism bases its attacks upon the Jewsare called “ The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.” They consist of twenty-fourdocuments supposed to be taken from the secret archives of a Jewish conspiracy for worlddomination.These Protocols were translated into many languages and had a world-wide circula tion. Various extractions and additions w ere made depending upon the country in w hichthey were to be read.Czar Nicholas II, the feeble-minded Russian autocrat, whose spirit was alreadyfilled w ith hatred o f the Jew, was sitting on a throne tottering from under him, as aresult of the Russo-Japanese W ar, and naturally was easily influenced to do anythingthat would save the Russian dynasty.It was first General Orzhevsky and later Ratchkovsky, unscrupulous Paris repre sentatives of the Russian Okhrana (political secret police departm ent), who conceivedthe idea o f fabricating the docum ent w ith w hich to impress the Czar that the Jews and theFree-Masons were responsible for the revolutionary upheavals in Russia and that theywere also engaged in a conspiracy for w orld dom ination.The Jews were represented as possessing all the infernal w isdom and the wealthw hich would enable the revolutionary ideas of the Free-Masons to be realized, thus bring ing about the subjugation o f Russia and then of the rest o f the world. To the politicaldanger of anti-Czarism was added the spiritual danger of the anti-Christ, and the fabrica tors of the Protocols strove to persuade Czar N icholas that it was in his power alone tosave the w orld and especially his own dynasty from the threatening forces of disruptionand revolution.The Czar was inform ed that already in 1901 a “ m ystic saint,” Sergius Nilus, had pub lished a deeply religious and pow erful book, “ The Great in Little— The Com ing o f theAnti-Christ and the Rule o f Satan on Earth.” In 1905 that book by Nilus was reprinted bythe Government Press at Tsarskoye Selo, the home o f the Czar, and the Protocols wereadded as a commentary on the Nilus prophecy and as an illustration o f its approachingfulfillment. Thus appeared the notorious Nilus edition o f the Protocols, a copy o f whichis registered in the British Museum under the date o f August 10, 1906.Soon after, the Russian Black Hundred organizations, whose program was Jewbaiting, w ere organized. It was then that Russia adopted a definite anti-Jewish policy ofvengeance— a Pogrom policy.Sergius Nilus is credited with several versions o f how he had secured the Protocolsand his stories flatly contradict one another. In 1905 he said that the Protocols were givento him by a prom inent Russian conservative whose name he did not mention, and who inturn had received them from an unnamed woman who had stolen them from “ one o f themost influential leaders o f Freem asonry at a close o f a secret m eeting o f the initiated inFrance.” Then, several years later, Nilus w rote that his friend h im self had stolen theProtocols from the “ headquarters o f the Society of Zion in France.” Several years after wards, in a new edition of his book, Nilus said that the Protocols came from Switzerlandand not from France. This tim e he named his Russian conservative friend, Sukhotin,who had died in the meantime. He added that the Protocols w ere not Jewish-Masonicbut Z ionistic documents secretly read at the Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897.The anonym ous Am erican editor o f the Nilus book gave the follow in g inform ationabout Nilus:“ Serge Nilus, in the 1905 edition o f whose book was first published the ZionistProtocols, was as he states, born in the year 1862, o f Russian parents holding liberal opin ions. His fam ily was fairly well known in Moscow, for its members were educated peoplewho were firm in their allegiance to the Czar and the Greek Church. On one side he issaid to have been connected by m arriage with the n obility o f the Baltic provinces. Nilushim self was graduated from the U niversity of M oscow and early entered the civil service,obtaining a small appointment in the law courts. Later, he received a post under theProcurator of a provincial court in the Caucasus. Finally, tirin g o f the law, he went tothe Governm ent of Orel, where he was a landowner and a noble. His spiritual life hadbeen tumultous and full o f trouble, and finally he entered the Trotsky-Sergevsky Monas tery near Moscow. ‘In answer to his appeal fo r pardon, Saint Sergei, stern and angry,appeared to him tw ice in a vision. He left the M onastery a converted man.’“ F rom 1905 until the present, little is known o f his activities. Articles are said tohave appeared from tim e to time in the Russian press from his pen. A returning travellerfrom Siberia in August, 1919 was positive in his statement that Nilus was in Irkutskin June o f that year. W hat his final fate was is n ot known.”“ D irectly after the Protocols, com es a statement by Nilus that they are ‘signed byrepresentatives of Zion o f the 33rd degree.’ These Protocols were secretly extracted or*

were stolen from a whole volumue of Protocols. All this was got by my correspondent outof the secret depositories of the Head Chancellery of Zion. This Chancellery is atpresent on French territory.”In the edition of 1917 Sergius Nilus w rote:“ My book has already reached the fourth edition, but it is only definitely known tome now and in a manner w orthy o f belief, and that through Jewish sources, that theseProtocols are nothing other than the strategic plans for the conquest o f the world underthe heel of Israel, and w orked out by the leaders o f the Jewish people— and read by the‘ P rince o f E x ile ’-— T h eod ore H erzl, during the first Zionist Congress, sum m oned by himin August, 1897, in Basle.”The Russian and German anti-Semites have maintained that the Protocols were them inutes o f the secret proceedin gs o f the first Z ion ist C ongress at Basle, held in 1897,presided over by Dr. Theodore Herzl. Dr. A lfred Rosenberg, the Nazi idealist o f antiSemitism and translator o f the Protocols into German, declared that they w ere the worko f the Zionist leaders, Herzl, Nordau and Achad H a’am.W hile the Russian fabricators and forgers o f the Protocols could not agree on anyone version o f how and when the P rotocols reached Russia, and under whose sponsorshipthe spurious anti-Sem itic document first made its appearance there, they all sought toidentify the Protocols w ith the first Zionist Congress held in Basle in 1897.Fortunately, there has been found docum entary evidence, subm itted by the antiSemites themselves, in their desperate effort to prove the authenticity o f the first Russianversion o f the Protocols, that they w ere brought to Russia in 1895. This date happensto be two years before the first Zionist Congress ever met.This docum entary evidence furnishes the m issing link in the chain o f incontrovertibleevidence establishing the falsity o f the Protocols and the sinister m otives of the antiJewish forgers. It also confirms the fact that officials close to the Czar’s fam ily partici pated in the launching o f the Protocols in Russia.Several years ago the Library of Congress, of W ashington, had purchased a collectionof books belonging to the library of the Czar N icholas II. That collection, as yet uncata logued, is now in a vault in the Department o f Rare Books and Manuscripts.R ecently an exam ination was made of the volum es of the Czar’s library and there wasfound am ong the volum es the 1906 edition of Butm i’s book, “ The Enemies of the HumanRace,” dedicated to the Union of the Russian People (T h e Black H undreds) and con taining the Protocols. The special binding bears the Im perial Crest o f the RussianEmpress. Butm i’s forew ord to that edition dated St. Petersburg, Decem ber 5, 1905, offersthe follow in g explanation:"T h e Protocols, being secret, were obtained with great difficulty, in fragm entaryform, and translated into Russian on Decem ber 9, 1901. It is almost im possible to getagain at the secret depositories where they are hidden, and therefore they cannot bereinforced by definite inform ation concerning the place, the day, or the month, where andwhen they w ere composed. This circum stance m ight arouse suspicion as to the genuine ness o f the P rotocols.”“ In January, 1917, Nilushad prepared a second edition, revised and documented,for publication. But before itcould be put on the m arket the revolutiono f March, 1917had taken place, and Kerenski, who had succeeded to power ordered the w hole edition ofNilus’ book to be destroyed. In 1924 Professor Nilus was arrested by the Cheka in Kiev,im prisoned and tortured; he was told by the Jewish president o f the court, that thistreatment was meted out to him ‘for having done them incalculable harm in publishingthe Protocols.’ Released for a few months, he was again led before the G. P. U. (C h ek a),this time in M oscow and confined. Set at liberty in February, 1926, he died in exile inthe district o f V ladim ir on January 13, 1929.“ A few copies o f Nilus’ second edition w ere saved and sent to other countries wherethey w ere published: in Germany by Gottfried zur Beck (1919); in England by the Britons(1 9 2 0 ); in France by Mgr. Jouin in La Revue Internationale des Societes Secretes, andby Urbain Gohier in La V ieille F rance; in the United States by Small, Maynard and Com.pany (Boston, 1920), and by the Beckwith Company (N ew York, 1921). Later, editionsappeared in Italian, Russian,A rabic and even in Japanese.The authors o f the Protocols had evidently no idea o f the hopes, the ethical aspira tions, the religious traditions, the historical destiny o f Judaism and the Jew. Everyintelligent reader o f the Melange o f ignorance and venom contained in the Protocols mustrecognize that the w riter o f these calumnies had never read a Jewish or even an authori tative non-Jewish book dealing with Jewish history. None of the plans, ideas and aspiras