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The Protocols' forgery status was converted into proof of authenticity

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tagsja-picks, category/causal-relationships
aliases@arendt_origins_1951, loc. 2636

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The Protocols’ forgery status was converted into proof of authenticity

Evidence

The fact that the Protocols were a forgery was irrelevant for propaganda purposes. The Russian publicist S. A. Nilus who published the second Russian edition in 190S was already well aware of the doubtful character of this “document” and added the obvious: “But if it were possible to show its authenticity by documents or by the testimony of trustworthy witnesses, if it were possible to disclose the persons standing at the head of the world-wide plot 
then
‘the secret iniquity’ could be broken
” Translation in Curtiss, op. cit. Hitler did not need Nilus to use the same trick: the best proof of their authenticity is that they have been proved to be a forgery. And he also adds the argument of their “plausibility”: “What many Jews may do unconsciously is here consciously made clear. And that is what counts” (Mein Kampf, Book I, chapter xi). — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2636

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

  • DEEPTHINKING: The totalitarian inversion where exposure of a forgery becomes its strongest evidence, and where plausibility (making latent intentions conscious) overrides truth — a mechanism of the ‘scapegoat’ narrative that is foundational to later analyses of the constructed enemy.
  • XREF: Directly reusable for Islamophobia readings: the logic that ‘the fact that it’s a forgery proves it’s real’ recurs in anti-Muslim conspiracy texts (e.g., fabricated quotes, out-of-context verses treated as self-evidently damning).
  • DEFINE: Defines the mechanism of the ‘unmasking’ trope — the alleged enemy’s own secret text reveals what they do unconsciously — as a core propagandistic form.
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