Die "Protokolle der Weisen von Zion" vor Gericht: Der Berner Prozess 1933–1937 und die "antisemitische Internationale," by Michael Hagemeister (review)

Michael Hagemeister, a German historian and Russianist at Bochum University, has dedicated nearly thirty years to clarifying the origins, diffusion, and reception of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The bibliography of this volume lists twenty-three of his works in Russian, German, French, Italian, and English. Nor is this a complete listing. The hardest part of his mission has not been exposing the lies, chicanery, cynicism, and fanaticism of the hoax's promoters; this has been done quite well and quite often over the past one hundred years. Rather, the most difficult part has been to convince the opponents of the fraud to observe the elementary laws of historical research—to stay within the evidence, to refrain from fabulation, and to eschew sensationalism, no matter how noble the cause.

The present book gives readers all they will need to arrive at an evidence-based appreciation of the history of the Protocols. In a concise introductory sketch, Hagemeister tells us the little we can reasonably claim to know about the origins, contents, and early dissemination of the work. He informs us from the outset that much of this history remains unknown—and perhaps unknowable—starting with the identities of the true authors. He lays out the current situation regarding key sources, their locations and their state of orderliness, as well as information about documents that once existed and now are lost (p. 11). He includes forty-two pages of published and unpublished sources, certainly the most exhaustive accounting of Protocols literature, an essential tool for future researchers.

The centerpiece of the work is a three-hundred-page chronicle of the Bern trials between 1933 and 1937. Having combed the often disorganized holdings of thirty archives in ten countries, Hagemeister presents virtually day-by-day entries regarding the public actors, the operatives in the murky background, the research carried out in the trial context, witness testimony, and extensive correspondence between major and minor actors. The level of scurrility to be found among the defendants being sued by the Jewish Community of Bern and the Swiss United Jewish Communities for the spread of Schundliteratur (broadly defined as publications that offend public morals, promote crime, or exercise a corrupting influence) is still capable of shocking. The whining of Russian emigrés, with their incessant pleas for money; the complaints lodged by the antisemitic organization running the defense, the Welt-Dienst, lamenting, in particular, the lack of open support from the Third Reich; and the backstabbing Byzantinism of the defense "team"—all this makes for sometimes rather amusing reading.

However, the plaintiffs' doings are also far from uplifting. Respectful of the utter lack of moral equivalency in motivations, Hagemeister nevertheless shows their knowing reliance on dubious witnesses and strategies designed to win, at any cost, maximum public recognition that the Protocols was shamelessly fraudulent and that there was no Jewish world conspiracy. Seeking to convict the defendants was a means to a much more significant end: using a neutral court to put antisemitism and its most potent promulgator, Hitler's Germany, in the worst possible light.

Both teams had support from far-flung organizations and individuals. The defense made use of what Hagemeister refers to as the "Antisemitic International," a shadowy network of emigrés, professional "Aryans," and extreme antisemites, several said to have connections to Henry Ford and Nazi Germany. The plaintiffs had recourse to more reputable, out-in-the-open organizations, such as YIVO, the American Jewish Committee, the German Jewish Centralverein, and their British and French equivalents. They also deployed their own crew of Russian emigrés as researchers and witnesses, some of whom who were paid for their testimony. Hagemeister provides nearly two hundred thumbnail biographies of individuals connected in one way or another to the Protocols and the Bern trial. This, in itself, is another valuable resource for future research.

The three sessions...