The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – French edition distributed by the Germans in occupied France. [Early 1940s]

Unknown edition of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" – distributed by the German occupation in occupied France. [French edition, early 1940s]. On the page preceding the introduction, an early antisemitic postcard Gruss aus Karlsbad has been affixed, depicting an Eastern European Jew with a beard and sidelocks being thrown off a cliff. Printed below the image: HIRSCHENSPRUNG – “The Stag’s Leap.” Above it, handwritten in German: "Vertreibung aus dem Paradies" – “Expulsion from Paradise.”

The challenge faced by the antisemites in publishing this edition was the trial that took place in Bern shortly beforehand (in May 1935), in which the court ruled that the "Protocols" were a forgery and prohibited their printing in Switzerland. The introduction states that the trial was biased in favor of the Jewish prosecution after the judge allegedly refused, without any reason, to accept the testimony of forty witnesses who came to prove that the document was authentic, and that throughout the trial, there were evident “procedural errors.” It continues: “Thus, the spectacular trial in Bern ended in a complete failure for the purposes of Jewry. The Protocols will remain a document which, thanks to that trial, will be recognized as all the more authentic, since Jewry, in order to refute this authenticity, found nothing better than to incite a judge to deliver an erroneous verdict, relying on an irrelevant clause of the law, violating procedure, and using inaccurate data.”

In the introduction to this edition, the author accuses the Jews of having taken control of all centers of power in European countries - economy, commerce, politics, law, and the arts - as part of the realization of their master plan. He further claims that, based on Jewish writings and transcripts of various speeches by leaders of world Jewry in the early decades of the 20th century, the Jews are actively working to carry out the plan laid out in the original Protocols of 1897. The author reviews the various editions of the Protocols that were published in different languages from the early 20th century through the 1930s, and asserts that in several copies of the Protocols that have been found, certain passages were omitted due to Jewish intervention, effectively censoring the text. According to the introduction, the present edition restores those omissions and presents the complete version.

"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is the most widely circulated antisemitic document in the world, and one that had an enormous impact on the fate of the Jews in the 20th century. This forged libelous text was first disseminated in Russia as early as 1903, with the encouragement of the Russian Orthodox Church and the imperial court. It later became one of the key books used by the Nazis as ideological justification for the persecution of the Jews. The original compositions were written over a period of approximately 35 years (1868–1903). The “document” outlines a global action plan composed of 24 chapters, each referred to as a “protocol” - all of which are complete fabrications, the invention of antisemitic minds. Each protocol includes numerous sections and subsections that detail a practical plan for Jewish world domination, allegedly ready for implementation. According to the Protocols, the elders of the Jewish nation, forming a secret society called the “Elders of Zion, ” convened at the First Zionist Congress in 1897 for a secret meeting. At this gathering, they supposedly conspired to seize the world’s wealth and take control of global leadership by corrupting great civilizations morally, exploiting money that was not theirs, and inciting wars between friendly nations. (Even today, antisemitic elements continue to use this text extensively in their campaign against the Jews and the State of Israel.)

160 [2] pages. Good condition.