The International Jew is a four-volume set ofantisemitic booklets or pamphlets originally published and distributed in the early 1920s by the Dearborn Publishing Company, an outlet owned byHenry Ford, an Americanindustrialist and automobile manufacturer.
The booklets were a collection of articles originally serialized in Ford'sDearborn Independent newspaper, beginning withThe International Jew: The World's Problem, published on May 22, 1920.
At the beginning of 1920, Ford's personal newspaper,The Dearborn Independent, was languishing in subscriptions and losing money. Ford and his personal secretary,Ernest G. Liebold, began to discuss a series of articles on theJewish question.[1]: 97 While it was Liebold who claimed to have come up with the titleThe International Jew, he turned to "the walking dictionary"William J. Cameron for most of the writing.[1]: 99,103 For 91 issues, the weekly paper announced a variety of stories featuring the supposed evilness of Jewish influence.
EditorE. G. Pipp left theIndependent in April 1920 in disgust with the planned antisemitic articles, which began in May; he was replaced by Cameron. While Ford did not personally write the articles, he expressed his opinions verbally to Cameron and Liebold. Cameron had the main responsibility for expanding these opinions into article form. Liebold was responsible for collecting more material to support the articles.[1]: 98–100
The most popular and aggressive stories were then chosen to be reprinted into four volumes calledThe International Jew.[2] The first volume was published in November 1920 as an anthology of articles that had been published in theIndependent from May 22 to October 2, 1920. The original print run of the first edition was estimated to be between 200,000 and 500,000 copies. Three additional volumes were published over the next 18 months.[1]: 145
Liebold never copyrightedThe International Jew and therefore had no control over anyone else publishing it themselves. The book was ultimately translated into 16 languages, including six editions in Germany between 1920 and 1922, and has remained in the public domain.[1]: 145
Jewish Jazz—Moron Music—Becomes Our National Music (Volume 3) – August 6, 1921
Following the publishing of an article in theIndependent that alleged Jewish control of New York banks that were holding Texas cotton farmers hostage financially,San Francisco lawyer and Jewish farm cooperative organizerAaron Sapiro sued Ford and Dearborn Publishing for libel in a $1 million lawsuit.[1]: 211
During the trial,William J. Cameron, the editor of Ford's "Own Page", testified that Ford had nothing to do with the editorials even though they were under his byline. Cameron testified at the libel trial that he never discussed the content of the pages nor sent them to Ford for his approval.[1]: 220–221 Investigative journalistMax Wallace doubted the veracity of this claim and wrote thatJames M. Miller, a formerDearborn Independent employee, swore under oath that Ford had told him he intended to expose Sapiro.[3]
According to political scientistMichael Barkun, "That Cameron would have continued to publish such controversial material without Ford's explicit instructions seemed unthinkable to those who knew both men. Mrs. Stanley Ruddiman, a Ford family intimate, remarked that 'I don't think Mr. Cameron ever wrote anything for publication without Mr. Ford's approval.'"[4]: 35
Ultimately, the libel suit led Ford to issue a retraction and public apology in which he indicated having been unaware of the nature of the remarks, both those published in theIndependent, and the subsequent pamphlets, and was "shocked" by the content.[1]: 238–240
Soon after the trial, Ford closed theIndependent on December 31, 1927.[1]: 255
Ford'sInternational Jew was translated intoGerman in 1922 and cited as an influence byBaldur von Schirach, one of theNazi leaders, who stated "I read it and became anti-Semitic. In those days this book made such a deep impression on my friends and myself because we saw inHenry Ford the representative of success, also the exponent of a progressive social policy. In the poverty-stricken and wretched Germany of the time, youth looked toward America, and apart from the great benefactor,Herbert Hoover, it was Henry Ford who to us represented America."[5][6]: 80
Praising American leadership ineugenics in his bookMein Kampf,[6]: 80 Adolf Hitler considered Ford an inspiration, and noted this admiration in his book, calling him "a single great man".[7]: 241 Hitler was also known to keep copies ofThe International Jew, as well as a large portrait of Ford in his Munich office.[6]: 80 [7]: 241
In June 1949, a 174-page, one-volume abridgement of the text appeared, titledThe International Jew, subtitled "The World's Foremost Problem", edited by George F. Green, who was editor of theIndependent Nationalist, a Britishfascist publication.[8][9] The book was sold in the United States by theChristian Nationalist Crusade.[10][11]
