One of my spare-time minor fascinations has been radio broadcast 78,
"Zion," Doob pp. 283-85. This speech begins:
 
"If or when one mentions the Protocols alleged to be of the Elders of Zion,
one is frequently met with the reply: Oh, but they are a forgery.
 
"Certainly they are a forgery, and that is the one proof we have of their
authenticity. The Jews have worked with forged documents for the past 24
hundred years, namely ever since they have had any documents whatever."
 
But why fascination? Because it's sometimes seemed possible to me that that
line about forgery being the proof of authenticity is a link forward from
Pound to Derrida, and that that link in turn might be connectible to the
chain backward from Pound to Fenollosa.
 
Wrong. It appears that all we have here is a bit of influence study. The
likely source:
 
 "To what extent the whole existence of this people [Jews] is based on a
continuous lie is shown incomparably by *The Protocols of the Wise Men 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
consciously 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
contexts as well as their ultimate final aims."
 
That's _Mein Kampf_: p. 307 of the Ralph Manheim translation.* I suppose
it's possible that by 1943 the idea was in general circulation in the Axis
world. Oh, why can't we ask Professor Heidegger?
 
Jonathan Morse
 
* Houghton Mifflin 1943? I've ripped this quote off from Gordon Fisher of
list H-Antisemitism, but he doesn't specify the edition he used.