In stressing that the Protocols must be seen as a protest against the perceived ills of the modern world, Bronner offers a compelling explanation for the appeal of this particular antisemitic tract. What the Protocols do help us to understand, however, is the type of person to whom such a tract would be appealing, which Bronner refers to as 'the losers left behind by modernity.' He adds by way of explanation that: 'their plight demands explanation and their resentment needs confirmation: this is what works like the Protocols provide' (p. 124), he stresses that the antisemitism of the Protocols was a poison derived from a pre-modern worldview, and that its fanatical creators could never have foreseen 'the genocidal consequences of their blathering' that would be realized in Nazi Germany (p. While he acknowledges that the antisemitic pamphlet is 'part of a cumulative historical avalanche of antisemitic ideas' (p. In his book A Rumor About the Jews: Reflections on Antisemitism and the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion Stephen Eric Bronner reflects on Cohn's thesis, and cautions against taking the idea of the Protocols as a 'warrant for genocide' too far. In this way, Cohn attempts to offer an explanation of how the authors of the Protocols were directly responsible for helping to create an intellectual climate where genocide was seen as a viable solution to a perceived problem, namely the problem of European Jewry.

In the introduction to his book, Warrant for Genocide, Norman Cohn describes the notorious forgery, known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as having 'helped to prepare the way for the Holocaust,' by serving as an inspiration for Hitler and his followers.

Warrant for Genocide by Norman Cohn