The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion, is a fabricated text purporting to detail a Jewish plot for global domination. Largely plagiarized from several earlier sources, it was first published in Imperial Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. It played a key part in popularizing belief in an international Jewish conspiracy.
Cover of the first book edition of The Great Within the Minuscule and Antichrist, in which the Protocols appeared as an appendix
The Book of the Kahal (1869) by Jacob Brafman, in the Russian language original
The frontispiece of a 1912 edition using occult symbols
A 1934 edition by the Patriotic Publishing Company of Chicago
Black propaganda is a form of propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propaganda, which does not disguise its origins at all. It is typically used to vilify or embarrass the enemy through misrepresentation.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1905), an antisemitic forgery which positions itself as a pamphlet from a fictitious Jewish conspiracy, is an example of black propaganda.
Sefton Delmer (1958)
Goebbels, German Federal Archive photo
Grigory Zinoviev