Ulrich Fleischhauer

Ulrich Fleischhauer (14 July 1876 – 20 October 1960) (Pseudonyms Ulrich Bodung, and Israel Fryman) was a leading publisher of antisemitic books and news articles reporting on a perceived Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory and "nefarious plots" by clandestine Jewish interests to dominate the world.

Fleischhauer was born in Thamsbrück, Thuringia, Germany, the son of a Lutheran deacon. His career was at first grounded in the Imperial German Army where by 1918 Fleischhauer rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and regimental commander of a field artillery unit in Colmar. After suffering serious wounds, Fleischhauer retired from military service and received a government pension, although he continued to serve for some time as chairman of the National Federation of German Officers (Nationalverbandes Deutscher Offiziere).

After the army, Fleischhauer sought out something else to do full-time. The draw of the public policy arena attracted him. In the aftermath of the defeat of the German and Austria-Hungarian empires, a number of new political parties emerged, many arguing for pan-Germanism. Fleischhauer joined the German National People's Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei, or DNVP) and was a representative of the far right wing.

Intellectually, Fleischhauer was a disciple of Theodor Fritsch and through their common Völkisch movement circles he also developed friendships with a number of other revolutionary nationalists in secretive Aryan organizations such as the Thule Society. Fleischhauer was especially close to poet and political activist Dietrich Eckart, an early backer of Adolf Hitler.

Fleischhauer's connections to revolutionary nationalists led him to create an anti-Jewish publishing firm called U. Bodung-Verlag in Erfurt, Germany that over time became increasingly powerful. Its rise in influence corresponded with the popular successes of National Socialism during the later Weimar period, leading up to the establishment of the Third Reich.

On 1 December 1933, he founded Welt-Dienst or Weltdienst (World-Service, Service Mondial etc.) which served as an international antisemitic news agency and journalistic source for numerous other publications. For a nominal fee, subscribers to Welt-Dienst's twice monthly series of mimeographed information sheets received summaries of news stories and other developments worldwide which tended to discredit anyone and anything linked to Judaism and Jewish Bolshevism.

Fleischhauer's influence grew in 1934–1935 following his participation in Switzerland as a key defense organizer at the Berne Trial of distributors of the book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This notorious title had re-entered the headlines in June 1933 when a Swiss organization known as the Nationale Front began distributing it during a right wing demonstration. ^{[citation needed]}

In 1934, Dr. Alfred Zander, a Swiss Nazi, further inflamed public opinion by publishing a series of articles accepting The Protocols' description of a Jewish plot to take over the world as fact. Outraged, a group of leading Swiss Jews filed a lawsuit in the Amtsgericht (district court) of Bern on 29 October 1934 to censor The Protocols as "indecent writings" under a Bernese statute prohibiting the distribution of "immoral, obscene or brutalizing" texts.^{[citation needed]}