Pyotr Rachkovsky

Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky (Russian Пётр Иванович Рачковский; * 1853, † 1910) was head of the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana. He is suspected to be the forger of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or to have given their forgery in order.

Activity

From 1884 to 1902 Rachkovsky headed the international department of the secret police, the Okhrana, which had its seat in Paris. He was primarily concerned with monitoring the numerous Russian emigrants who had fled abroad from prosecution and tackle. To this end, he organized a vast network of spies, which stretched back to Russia itself. He also influenced French journalists, so they reported positively about the Czarist Empire.

Protocols of the Elders of Zion

1921 Rachkovsky was supported by the Polish Countess Catherine Radziwill, who lived in exile in New York, called the initiator of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery, who wants to prove the existence of a Jewish world conspiracy. His subordinate Matvei Golovinsky should have carried out the forgery in Paris in French. In this information, the French Count Alexandre du Chayla assisted in his 1921 published also memories. Here and throughout the process Berner 1935, he testified that Rachkovsky was behind the forgery. This history of the logs that keep many researchers to be correct, is questioned lately by the Italian literary scholar Cesare G. De Michelis and the German historian Michael Hagemeister, who believe that the original text was in Russia.