Hitler or Judah?
A Second Nuremberg Tribunal, Chapter 3

6,284 words

Previous chapter here

Chapter 3

First Session

The snow was falling over Nuremberg on 23rd December when President Schoepf declared the session open. He had been elected the day before, with Joyce-Spencer and Leone Brignano as his assessors, while Stanislas Loubski was to be public prosecutor. There were a few journalists in the press box, French friends invited by myself and the jury, without reference to political creed. A few Germans came in of their own accord, probably to enjoy the warmth of the auditorium, because we had made no publicity to attract their attention. Of course, one of them could have been a member of the Secret Police!

President Schoepf made a short opening speech.

“Members of the jury, we have known one another for some time now; we do not, therefore, need any introductions. We are a people’s tribunal, representing to the best of our ability a new Europe, which claims to be different from the old one, and we have been called upon to judge a man who has already been condemned as a criminal by the International Court of Nuremberg. We must confirm or reverse this judgment, and possibly also indicate other guilty parties. The public prosecutor may begin.”

Public Prosecutor Stanislas Loubski: “Gentlemen, the historians tell us that the crimes perpetrated by Hitler against humanity took their heaviest toll of the Jewish people. It is not important that the figure of 6,000,000 victims is today contested everywhere, because if Hitler had only destroyed 60 persons with his system of concentration camps, he would still have to give account of his actions. However, I should like our people’s tribunal, before examining the matter in detail, to explain why an Austrian of humble extraction, but favored by good fortune, after attaining the heights of supreme power which he could have transfigured by a show of clemency, should for twelve years have given free rein to his hatred for a people which had never done him any wrong? When, why, and how did Hitler become anti-Semitic?”

One of the deputy jurymen asked for permission to speak.

Juryman Georg Krefka: “The question asked by the public prosecutor seems to be of great importance. Anti-Semitism is not a hereditary affliction, such as syphilis or hemophilia. Yet it is constantly to be found cropping up in societies which are forced by geopolitical necessity to maintain contact with certain Jewish communities: in your country, the Ukraine; in the Baltic countries, in Poland, North Africa and the Middle East and also Alsace, isn’t it true, Mr. President? There is a certain kind of anti-Semitism which we could call hereditary, in spite of the law of separate development — or perhaps because of it! On the one hand we see the ghetto, on the other the village or the medina: the Jews withdraw voluntarily into the former, the peasants or fellahin into the latter, thereby seeking a precarious equilibrium with which to reduce as far as possible the settling of accounts which we usually call pogroms, an old custom of which the Jews are always the victims. In those countries where this ‘apartheid’ does not exist, anti-Semitism appears sporadically. It often starts as a result of the struggle for existence which is common to all peoples, including the Jews. The small trader turns anti-Semitic because the shoemaker on the corner, an African Jew or a Jew of the Ashkenazim, does better business than he. He often forgets, of course, that the Jew works harder than he does, contrary to those legends propagated by the anti-Semites. However, Hitler was not placed in a situation of this kind, and the public prosecutor can rightly inquire why and how he became anti-Semitic. Could Advocate Kleist offer us some explanation?”

Advocate Georg Kleist: “Gentlemen of the tribunal, gentlemen of the jury, this statement might surprise you, but let me say that it took my client more than fifteen years to become an anti-Semite!”

President Schoepf: “On what do you base this assertion?”

Adv. Kleist: “On my client’s own evidence in Mein Kampf.”

President Schoepf: “The tribunal rejects this kind of evidence, since it is a book written by the accused.”

Adv. Kleist: “Quite right, but it has one incontestable merit, one which has indeed never been questioned. Every time that Hitler exposed in Mein Kampf one or other of his political or social ideas, he applied them later rigorously, developing them to their final consequences as soon as he had been given the power to do so. It might be claimed that this policy was a subtle form of Machiavellianism, but does it matter if other politicians, professional liars that they are, should have been trapped by this honesty? I am not looking for proofs in Mein Kampf, as you seem to think, but merely for facts which could explain certain events.”

President Schoepf: “On this basis we will accept Mein Kampf as evidence.”

Adv. Kleist: “At the age of fifteen, when he was still in the Realschule at Linz, Hitler recalls that there were very few Jews in this town and that he furthermore considered them to be Germans, like everyone else. The unfavorable comments, made by certain elements about the Jews, filled him with feelings of antipathy which could almost be classified as revulsion. I want to spare the jury long references which could encumber the debates, and I refer members therefore to the defense dossier where these references may be freely consulted.[1] Let us continue. On his arrival in Vienna my client was not yet an anti-Semite, but he makes no mystery about the way in which he became one. Initially it was the physical contact with the Jews, living in the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who came, generally speaking, from the East. It must be admitted that they were not particularly attractive, having been molded by the misery of the Galician, Ruthenian, and Polish ghettos from which they had escaped westwards.”[2]

Jury Member Karl Verschaeve: “We all know that Hitler was an artist, but to become an anti-Semite for purely aesthetic considerations seems to me to be rather frivolous, do not you agree, Advocate Kleist?”

Adv. Kleist: “Hitler became anti-Semitic for much more serious reasons. He may well have been robbed by the Viennese dealers, all of them Jews, but that was not sufficient to determine the ideological orientation of a man who never allowed his political conduct to be guided by his private life.[3] No, the anti-Semitism of the Führer was the result of his racialism. With men, just as with animals, two different races that have by chance occupied the same territory will fight until one of them has become master of the terrain. At this time, the Jews occupied in Vienna every single position which could influence the press, literature, art, politics, social life, customs, private and public morality. My client was of the opinion that the Jewish race was in this way undermining the Germanic peoples, together with their concepts of man and the world in which he lives, with a view to destroying them, so that the Jews could take their place.”

Jury Member Charles Zermatten: “Counsel for the Defense seems to me to be in error when he talks of a Jewish race, and it is, by the way, the same error as that of his client in Mein Kampf. There is no Jewish race, only a Jewish people. The notion of race has today been scientifically defined as a “biological group, whose relative homogeneity is the product of natural selection, offering a sufficient basis for an attempt at direct evolution, that is to say, voluntary selection.”[4]

Adv. Kleist: “The Jewish people fits into the framework of this definition, Mr. Zermatten. Beginning with the relative originality which it presented on leaving its Afro-Asian area of cross-breeding at the start of our era, it has never stopped evolving voluntarily in an even more Jewish sense. Think of Israel today, where the law defining Jewish nationality is centered on the womb of the mother, who alone is considered to be a proper instrument for perpetuating a Jewish concept which has been biologically founded.”

President Schoepf: “Gentlemen, we must not be side-tracked. This tribunal is not concerned with establishing whether the Jews are a race or an ethnic group, a people or a religious community.”

Adv. Kleist: “I do not agree, because I have to defend Hitler against Judah. If I am expected to produce a proper portrait of Hitler then I must do the same for the people of Judah. Objectivity is indivisible! May I return to the argument which I was busy developing when the jury raised the question of race. Having started out from a completely neutral position, indeed, a position which was almost favorable to the Jews until he reached the age of sixteen or eighteen, Hitler became anti-Semitic on making contact with the Viennese Jews who were very numerous and active. First of all, he dissociated the concept of a Jewish race or, if you prefer, a Jewish people, from the Hebrew religion which everyone had up to that time considered to be the most important aspect in the particular genius of this people. What he says on this matter in Mein Kampf [5] merely confirms the declarations of important Jewish personalities who are both sincere and also well informed.[6] At a later stage, considering the problem not from the vantage point of personal interest or taste, but as future leader of the Germanic race — a vocation which he already felt was growing within him — he condemned the Jews because of the nationalism which they generated for their own profit, and because of the degrading ethical and aesthetic ideas which they imposed on Austria through their domination of her press, her literature and her art.”[7]

Adv. David Hollander: “Mr. President, gentlemen of the jury, my colleague, who has been called upon to defend the indefensible Adolf Hitler, has just explained how the greatest criminal of all times became an anti-Semite. He has spoken in an objective manner about Hitler’s development. I can confirm this because I too have read Mein Kampf. Everyone is entitled to become an anti-Semite but . . .”

Interruption by a member of the jury: “No one is entitled to say so anymore, not since 1939, because the Jews have had laws passed in all parliaments, curtailing freedom of speech for their benefit alone, on the pretext that discussions about race and religion could unleash hatred!”

President Schoepf: “I must inform you, Mr. Guadamur, that I have no intention of tolerating any political controversy before this tribunal. Advocate Hollander, please proceed.”

Adv. David Hollander: “I was saying that anyone is entitled to become an anti-Semite. We have had enough examples of this over a period of 2,000 years and longer, to be sure! Hitler even claimed that anti-Semitism had almost always been of benefit to the Jewish people.[8] Be that as it may!”

“What I should ask the tribunal, can be summed up as follows: does anti-Semitism confer the right of life and death over the Jewish people?”

President Schoepf: “Your question will be answered in the Judge’s summing up.”

Adv. Kleist: “Mr. President, counsel for the defense intends to examine various aspects of the matter at once. Firstly, my client never claimed the right of life and death over the Jewish people, and I will prove it. Secondly, the anti-Semitism of the Führer was based on the principle of legitimate self-defense!”

Counsel for Judah affected a show of great surprise and murmurs could be heard throughout the assembly. One journalist called out: “Kleist is not an advocate but an agent of the Gestapo!”

President Schoepf: “Mr. Ziegler, please leave this hall. I cannot allow you to insult counsel for the defense.”

Ziegler closed his brief-case and walked red-faced towards the exit. The session proceeded, in an atmosphere of great excitement.

Adv. Kleist: “Hitler never had any intention of destroying the Jewish people!”

Adv. Hollander: “What about the ‘final solution’?'”

Adv. Kleist: “We can discuss the matter with the greatest of pleasure! My client often spoke of a final solution even before the war, and not merely during those tragic days which might compel a head of State to adopt desperate measures. As my client saw it, the final solution of the Jewish problem was to be the normalization of this people’s existence. The Jews were to leave the territory of the host nations, establish themselves on a piece of land, and live by their own labor, as everybody else does, instead of behaving like parasites. Hitler never thought of any other final solution, and I shall prove it. I am stunned by the fact that in 1946 the so-called tribunal of Nuremberg should have been content to pick on one short phrase, taken out of context! But of course, every fraudulent inquisition uses this procedure!”

Adv. Hollander: “I understand that you were formerly a Nazi, my dear colleague? Are you still a Nazi?”

Adv. Kleist: “Definitely!”

President Schoepf: “Gentlemen, gentlemen, the first session is adjourned!”

The President wanted to keep the peace during the debates, but I think that he was also hungry. The tribunal dispersed for lunch at the Baeren, and I accompanied Hollander and Brentford, who were the guests of an American diplomat. The members of the jury went off in different directions. It was snowing, and the wind kept lifting the grey curtains which veiled the distant view of Nuremberg. The advocate from Rotterdam said:

“It is snowing harder than in the Nazi film Jud Süss, Mann’s novel [actually by Lion Feuchtwanger — Ed.], when they hanged the wretched Jew, locked-up in his cage. We shall never see that again!”

“Can you be so sure?” asked Brentford. “History has a habit of repeating itself!”

At 3 o’clock we were back in the auditorium, and a few minutes later the session was resumed in an atmosphere of greater calm.

President Schoepf: “Advocate Kleist was explaining to us this morning how his client had changed from indifference to a state of anti-Semitism, and he gave a few reasons as justification for this evolution. The tribunal will admit that anti-Semitism exists, although it cannot approve of such a thing, but it cannot understand how an Austrian could have established a complete system of Government on this principle, or how he could have engaged 80,000,000 Germans in a war to justify it. However, while Advocate Kleist was speaking, he mentioned a rather unusual argument, namely, that Hitler considered himself to be acting from motives of legitimate self-defense vis-à-vis the Jewish people. On what do you base this argument?”

Adv. Kleist: “On the existence of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a series of strategic and tactical plans for a secret war, waged by the Jews for a period of centuries against the goyim, that is to say, against all non-Jews. These documents came to light only at the beginning of this century, but previously the Christians had suspected their existence and had defended themselves vigorously. In this they acted very wisely. Since the end of World War II, which they won, the Jews have occupied a position of strength from which they could continue their operations of condemning the defense measures which Hitler had adopted with regard to the Protocols — documents with which he was acquainted, although the popes and kings had apparently forgotten about their existence. The Jews are experts when it comes to the ideological lie, and they have since the Middle Ages been reversing responsibilities so cleverly that they can today disclaim all guilt for the crimes, imputed to them by Hitler, and also by all other Christians.”

Public Prosecutor Loubski: “Had Hitler read these famous Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion?”

Adv. Kleist: “Of course! Hitler had read everything! I remind you of what he said in Mein Kampf.”[9]

Jury Member Brignano: “I have on occasion tried to read these documents. They are extremely boring, and very badly written. I could never summon up enough courage to finish them!”

Jury Member Kozica: “I have read them all! The plans set out in this program are so monstrous that I can scarcely believe them to be authentic!”

Jury Member Kittila Saronen: “I have not read them. Could Counsel for the Defense please give us a resume of the documents which are supposed to substantiate his plea of legitimate self-defense?”

Adv. Kleist: “With pleasure. I have here 12 copies of the book which I offer to the members of the jury.[10] But for the moment I shall sum up the contents with a single quotation, which is in itself sufficient to establish the criminal character of the plan for Jewish world domination.”

“Madam, gentlemen, please give me your attention:

‘We have a limitless ambition, we thirst for a pitiless vengeance, we are burning with hatred. It is from us that the all engulfing terror proceeds.

We have in our service persons of all opinions, of all doctrines: those who wish to restore the monarchy, demagogues, socialists, communists, and utopian dreamers of every kind. We have harnessed them all to the task: each one of them, on his own account, is boring away at the last remnants of authority, is striving to overthrow all established forms of order.

By these acts, all States are in torture: they exhort to tranquility, are ready to sacrifice everything for peace: but we will not give them peace until they openly acknowledge our International Super-Government, and with a submissive heart.[11].

“Gentlemen, this is the spirit in which the Jewish people wages its war against the Aryan world at a time when it has the audacity to pose as the pitiful victim of Hitler! Do you not think, Mr. President, gentlemen of the jury, that having learnt of such base intentions, my client had no other choice than to adopt a policy of legitimate self-defense, not only for the German people, but also for all other non-Jewish peoples who are governed by blind or venal rulers?”

President Schoepf: “Will Counsel for Judah please answer?”

David Hollander: “Gentlemen, I have listened with a great deal of patience to my learned colleague, and I see very clearly what he is getting at. Unfortunately, his apparently faultless arguments are utterly invalid.”

“Why?”

“Because the famous Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are fakes. They were forged by the Russian Czarist police so as to direct the discontent of the people on to the Jews. The intention was to harness anti-Semitic sentiments, which were always latent in Russia, to produce a pogrom. The Russian tyrants would have been extremely partial to Hitler’s ‘final solution’!”

“No! Hitler adopted his final solution with deliberate intent, and not as a policy of legitimate self-defense!”

Adv. Kleist: “For the past fifty years the Jews have quite naturally tried to explain the origin of the Protocols by the hypothesis which my learned colleague has just put forward. However, if these texts were mere fakes, forgeries of the Czarist Okhrana, why should the Jews have taken them so seriously as to have their agents discreetly buy up all copies, hidden away in the secondhand bookshops of every country in the world? Why do the Jews, who already enjoy considerable power at the international level, not try to have the apocryphal character of these texts established by a well-known historian or by a tribunal composed of non-Jews, a panel of impartial men?”

Adv. David Hollander: “It has already been done!”

Adv. Kleist: “Oh no, no, no! I am sorry that you should be defending so weak a case. The Jews did once try to obtain the required result by appearing before a Swiss tribunal. But a judgment which, thanks to some very clever manipulation of the evidence, appeared to favor their case, was immediately quashed by a decree of the Federal Tribunal.”

“They made a second attempt in 1968 when, on behalf of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, they took Dr. James-Albert Mathez to court for publishing an enormous book of 700 pages, entitled The Past, the Present, and the Jewish Question. It is true that Mathez was condemned by the tribunal of the Canton of Vaud, not however because he had quoted the supposedly fake Protocols, but because he had insulted Jews of Swiss nationality. This was perfectly in order, because although it might be deemed reasonable to fear and hate the Jews on account of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the ambition to which they bear witness, should to a certain extent command our respect” [12].

“I do not believe that one should be allowed to insult a man because of his race, his ethnic group, or his religion, and although I have agreed to defend Hitler before this People’s Tribunal, I would have refused in the case of Julius Streicher. Be that as it may, I would submit, my dear colleague, that the last attempt to prove these Jewish texts to be forgeries has failed, and to the best of my knowledge, no other attempt has yet been made.”[13]

“I am still convinced that this tribunal will recognize the authentic character of these texts and that it will consequently endorse the policy of legitimate self-defense which my client was compelled to adopt.”

Adv. Hollander: “Good common sense argues in favor of the apocryphal character of these texts. Mr. President, Mr. Public Prosecutor, Gentlemen of the Jury, please reflect for just one moment! Is it possible to suppose that the Jewish people should have brooded for centuries over this abominable plan for the destruction of other peoples when it is well-known that the Jew loves peace, and always preaches non-violence, since he has been himself the victim of violence for many centuries?”

“The Jew is a humanist, a lover of inoffensive intellectual speculation! And if these qualities, which are generally recognized throughout the world, were merely supposed to mask some dark design, why should we suddenly expose our terrible plans, why should we give them to our enemies and disclose the secret of our successful offensive against the goyim? Common sense is surely more valid than the decisions of a Swiss court!”

“And in any case, I could use my learned colleague’s arguments against him. Let us agree that the Protocols were not condemned as forgeries in Zurich, Bern, and Lausanne — but they were also not judged to be authentic: so where do we go from here?”

Adv. Kleist: “I shall prove the authenticity of the texts to this court by a process of cause and effect. For several centuries past, the subversive tactics, defined in the Protocols, have been a very grim political and social reality. Today, in 1976, the assault on the goyim is much easier to discern than in the 19th century. The motives of the Jew, whether he be Israeli or a member of the Diaspora, and the final stages of the struggle he is waging against us, are visible — so to speak — to the naked eye.”

Advocate Hollander was incensed: “This is the worst kind of anti-Semitism!”

Adv. Kleist: “Quite the contrary, my dear colleague. It is truth of the highest order. I have no quarrel with the ordinary Jew, a man who is generally honest enough. I also have no quarrel with the Jewish bourgeoisie, because neither the one nor the other has read the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. It is the secret leaders who have made these plans and who pull all the strings of the conspiracy. These Jewish leaders are hand in glove with American super-capitalism and with so-called Russian socialism! In the course of these proceedings I shall give irrefutable examples of what I have claimed.”

President Schoepf: “The tribunal will hear what you have to say about this matter with the greatest interest, just as it will also listen to your other arguments. During the first session you have provided an acceptable explanation for the birth and development of your client’s anti-Semitic feelings. I hope that tomorrow you will show us how this anti-Semitism was translated into acts of government.”

Adv. Kleist: “I shall need several sessions for this, Mr. President.”

President Schoepf: “You shall have them.”

The session was adjourned, and it was agreed that the whole assembly should meet again the following day.

Notes

1. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf: “Today it is difficult, if not impossible, for me to say when the word ‘Jew’ first gave me grounds for special thoughts. At home I do not remember having heard the word during my father’s lifetime. I believe that the old gentleman would have regarded any special emphasis on this term as cultural backwardness. In the course of his life he had arrived at more or less cosmopolitan views which, despite his pronounced national sentiments, not only remained intact, but also affected me to some extent.

“Likewise at school I found no occasion which could have led me to change this inherited picture.

“At the Realschule, to be sure, I did meet one Jewish boy who was treated by all of us with caution, but only because various experiences had led us to doubt his discretion, and we did not particularly trust him; but neither I nor the others had any thoughts on the matter.

“Not until my fourteenth or fifteenth year did I begin to come across the word ‘Jew’ with any frequency, partly in connection with political discussions. This filled me with mild distaste, and I could not rid myself of an unpleasant feeling that always came over me whenever religious quarrels occurred in my presence. At that time I did not think anything else of the question.

“There were few Jews in Linz. In the course of the centuries their outward appearance had become Europeanized and had taken on a human look; in fact, I even took them for Germans. The absurdity of this idea did not dawn on me because I saw no distinguishing feature but the strange religion. The fact that they had, as I believed, been persecuted on this account sometimes almost turned my distaste at unfavorable remarks about them into horror.

“Thus far I did not so much as suspect the existence of an organized opposition to the Jews.

“Then I came to Vienna.” (pp. 47-48, Hutchinson & Co., Ltd. May 1944.)

2. Mein Kampf: “Once, as I was strolling through the inner city, I suddenly encountered an apparition in a black caftan and with black hair locks. ‘Is this a Jew?’ was my first thought. “For, to be sure, they had not looked like that in Linz. I observed the man furtively and cautiously, but the longer I stared at this foreign face, scrutinizing feature for feature, the more my first question assumed a new form: ‘Is this a German?’

“As always in such cases, I now began to try and relieve my doubts by books. For a few Hellers I bought the first anti-Semitic pamphlets of my life. Unfortunately, they all proceeded from the supposition that in principle the reader knew or even understood the Jewish question to a certain degree. Besides, the tone for the most part was such that doubts again arose in me, due in part to the dull and amazingly unscientific arguments favoring the thesis. I relapsed for weeks at a time, once even for months.

“The whole thing seemed to me so monstrous, the accusations so boundless, that, tormented by the fear of doing injustice, I again became anxious and uncertain.

“Yet I could no longer very well doubt that the objects of my study were not Germans of a special religion, but a people in themselves; for since I had begun to concern myself with this question and to take cognizance of the Jews, Vienna appeared to me in a different light than before. Wherever I went, I began to see Jews, and the more I saw, the more sharply they became distinguished in my eyes from the rest of humanity. Particularly the inner city and the districts north of the Danube canal swarmed with a people which even outwardly had lost all resemblance to Germans” (p. 52).

3. “When he was in good form, Hitler could do one painting a day: he specialized in aquarelles, wash-tints, sketches and charcoal sketches. In 1938 buyers squabbled over these productions, the prices of which varied from 2,000 to 8,000 marks each! His friend, or rather his colleague, the engraver Reinhold Hanisch, was entrusted with the task of selling Hitler’s work, either to chance buyers, or to the picture-framer Wenzel Reiner, whose shop was situated in the Lichtensteinstrasse. It was in August 1910 that Hanisch — who changed his name to Fritz Walter for personal reasons, the secret of which died with him in an SS prison in 1938 — went to jail for eight days after Hitler had charged him with stealing 19 Kronen from him” (Pas à pas avec Hitler. Ray Petitfrere, Presses de la Cité, 1974, Paris. Vol. I, p. 93.)

4. Dictionary of the Uppsala Academy, a philosophical secret society. This should not be confused with the universities of this Swedish city.

5. Mein Kampf: “The Jew has always been a people with definite racial characteristics and never a religion; only in order to get ahead he early sought for a means which could distract unpleasant attention from his person. And what would have been more expedient and at the same time more innocent than the ’embezzled’ concept of a religious community? For here, too, everything is borrowed or rather stolen. Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason than because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world.

“The Jewish religious doctrine consists primarily in prescriptions for keeping the blood of Jewry pure and for regulating the relations of Jews among themselves, but even more with the rest of the world; in other words, with non-Jews. But even here it is by no means ethical problems that are involved, but extremely modest economic ones. Concerning the moral value of Jewish religious instruction, there are today, and have been at all times, rather exhaustive studies (not by Jews: the drivel of the Jews themselves on the subject is, of course, adapted to the purpose) which make this kind of religion seem positively monstrous according to Aryan conceptions. The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude towards the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties — and this against their own nation” (pp. 278–79).

6. Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State: “The Jewish question is neither social nor religious, despite the fact that it sometimes takes on this appearance” (pp. 75–76).

“The Jew remains a Jew, even if he changes his religion; if a Christian were to adopt the Jewish religion, he would not become a Jew, because the quality of Jewishness does not reside in religion, but in the race” (The Jewish World, December 14, 1922).

7. Mein Kampf: “The so-called liberal press was actively engaged in digging the grave of the German people and the German Reich. We can pass by the lying Marxist sheets in silence; to them lying is just as vitally necessary as catching mice is for a cat; their function is only to break the people’s national and patriotic backbone and make them ripe for the slave’s yoke of international capital and its masters, the Jews.”

8. Mein Kampf: “. . . in the struggle against the Jews on a religious basis they thought they had discovered a slogan transcending all of old Austria’s national differences. It is obvious that combating Jewry on such a basis could provide the Jews with small cause for concern. If the worst came to the worst, a splash of baptismal water could always save the business and the Jew at the same time. With such superficial motivation, a serious scientific treatment of the whole problem was never achieved, and as a result far too many people to whom this type of anti-Semitism was bound to be incomprehensible, were repelled. The recruiting power of the idea was limited almost exclusively to intellectually restricted circles unless true knowledge were substituted for purely emotional feeling. The intelligentsia remained aloof as a matter of principle. Thus the whole movement came to look more and more like an attempt at a new conversion of the Jews, or even an expression of a certain competitive envy. And hence the struggle lost the character of an inner and higher consecration; to many, and not necessarily the worst people, it came to seem immoral and reprehensible. Lacking was the conviction that this was a vital question for all humanity, with the fate of all non-Jewish peoples depending on its solution. Through this half­heartedness the anti-Semitic line of the Christian Social Party lost its value. It was a sham anti-Semitism which was almost worse than none at all; for it lulled people into a feeling of security; they thought they had the foe by the ears, while in reality they themselves were being led by the nose. In a short time the Jew had become so accustomed to this type of anti-Semitism that he would have missed its disappearance more than its presence inconvenienced him.”

9. Mein Kampf: “To what an extent the whole existence of this people is based on a continuous lie is shewn incomparably by the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, so infinitely hated by the Jews. They are based on a forgery, the Frankfurter Zeitung moans and screams once every week: the best proof that they are authentic. What many Jews may do unconsciously is here conscientiously exposed. And that is what matters. It is completely indifferent from what Jewish brain these disclosures originate: the important thing is that with positively terrifying certainty they reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner contents as well as their ultimate final aims. The best criticism applied to them, however, is reality. Anyone who examines the historical development of the last hundred years from the standpoint of this book will at once understand the screaming of the Jewish press. For once this book has become the common property of the people, the Jewish menace may be considered as broken.”

10. The text used by advocate Kleist is the 1901 version, translated from Nilus. The references are those of the 1920 edition produced by La vieille France of Paris. There are many editions of the Protocols. The texts show variations in the translations, but the message never varies. Some of them have subtitles which do not appear in the original edition, 500 copies of which are said to have been printed by Nilus himself in 1905, with the approval of the Russian Synod. The manuscript, which he is said to have received in 1901 in circumstances which have never been clearly defined, was handled by the firm of Sergy Troitsky. Of the two copies of this original edition which are known to be in the West, one is in the British Museum, reference no. 3926-d-17, dated August 10, 1906. These extremely controversial texts should be treated with the utmost circumspection. (Note of the author.)

11. Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (Paris: La vieille France, 1920).

12. “The judge who, to quote Grossen, is called upon to weigh against each other the conflicting interests of author and injured party, does not need to decide in the abstract whether anti-Semitism as a system of ideas or doctrine may, or may not, be preached without committing an illicit act. He merely has to say whether the book of the accused is injurious to the interests of the plaintiff, and whether the interests of the accused can be considered to be more sacrosanct than those of the latter. We are forced to admit that the book in question is full of grave insults, expressions of utter contempt, serious accusations without proper foundation couched in general terms; the Jews, and especially the plaintiffs, are exposed to the contempt, reprobation, and hatred of their fellow citizens. It is inadmissible that the personal opinion of Mathez about the Jewish problem, sincere or otherwise, could justify such an action” (Minutes of the judgment pronounced by the civil court of the Vaud canton tribunal on April 17, 1968, presided over by Mr. Fitting, p. 30).

13. “This court is not of the opinion that it needs to decide whether certain documents, quoted by the defendant, to wit, the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, are authentic and to verify the correctness of their sources. Even if certain complaints, of a political nature or otherwise, made in every age and in every country with regard to the Jews, should appear to be well-founded, which this court cannot decide, the summary generalization of the said complaints to include all Jews, taken as a whole or as individuals, invalidates the proof of these accusations” (Ibid., p. 17.)