Experts for both sides in the famous trial now going on here through which the Jewish people once and for all hope to discredit the infamous “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” were instructed tonight by the Swiss court hearing the proceedings to submit by Wednesday evidence on the principal points raised regarding the spuriousness of the documents.
The court ordered the experts to answer three questions raised during the day today. They were:
1.—Whether the “Protocols” are authentic or forged as a series of witnesses testified today.
2.—Whether they are a plagiarism, as today’s witnesses contended.
3.—Whether they constitute scurrilous and defamatory literature the distribution of which is forbidden in Switzerland by law.
The order of the court, which presaged a speedy termination of the trial which has attracted world-wide attention, followed a day of testimony in which the story of the twisting of an obscure pamphlet written by a French lawyer in 1864, into the “Protocols” of a Zionist congress held thirty years later was unfolded before a crowded courtroom.
A series of witnesses took the stand throughout the day and recounted, in detail, how the so-called “Protocols” had been manufactured in France by Czarist agents.
Dr. Chaim Weizmann, former president of the World Zionist Organization and a leader in the Zionist movement since its organization, took the stand this afternoon to deny firmly and positively that the first Zionist congress at Basle in 1897 ever took secret action, as asserted in the “Protocols,” to establish Jewish domination of the world.
In the face of the obvious impatience of the defense attorney. Theodore Fischer, Swiss-German Nazi leader, Dr. Weizmann expounded the aims of the Zionist movement and denounced the “Protocols” as “absurd legends.” Efforts by defense attorneys to trap him into relating his present activities in behalf of the Palestine movement with the “plans” outlined in the “Protocols” only succeeded in drawing laughter from the spectators who filled every seat in the courtroom.
DENIES UNITY
He denied that the Jewish people acted as a unit and pointed out that they were divided on issues just as any other group.
G. Haller, a Nazi, testifying for the defense, unwittingly drew the lines of argument advanced by the plaintiffs when he asserted that the whole Nazi campaign against
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
