HELD FORGERIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 157, 5 July 1935, Page 15

HELD FORGERIES.

"PROTOCOLS OF ZION."

SWISS COURT DECISION.

GENEVA, May 22.

The notorious "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"—alleged to he the record of a meeting of Jewish Elders at Basle in 1897, at which a plan for Jewish world domination was drawn up —were declared to he forgeriee by the Swiss Court at Berne. The presiding judge described the protocols as "ridiculous nonsense and sa.id that they were clearly not authentic This decision is the outcome ot a year-old legal battle in the Swiss Courts. A charge was brought by Jewish communities in Switzerland that the publication of the protocols by two Nazi organisations constituted an offence under the Swiss Penal Code, which forbids the publication of "shameless literature likely to cause bad feeling between sections of the community. Small fines were imposed on the Nazis, the judge stating that he had no wish "to create martyrs." The action was in the nature of a test caee and has been followed with close interest by Jews throughout the world. For the past thirty years the "Pro tocols" have been used to arousf VntiJewish hatred. Though on sions experts have pronounced to be forgeries, the Nazis, ; rom i/i tiers earliest days, have repeatedly broadcast them to bolster \ip allegations against Jewry. The "Protocols" were first produced in 1909 by the anti-Semites of Czarist Russia. The "Protocols" have long ago been proved to be nothing more than the reproduction of "A Dialogue in HeU between Machiavelli and Montesquieu."