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87-594: Stöcker is the name of the following personalities: Adolf Stoecker , German theologist, antisemitic politician Dean Stoecker , American billionaire, co-founder of Alteryx Diana Stöcker , German politician Helene Stöcker , German woman's lib activist and pacifist Hermann Stöcker , German footballer Horst Stöcker , German theoretical physicist See also [ edit ] Stocker Stockert Stecker (disambiguation) Stacker (disambiguation) [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with

174-491: A Social Democrat named Ewald before, despite having repeatedly spoken with him during Reichstag sessions. As Stoecker was repeatedly challenged by Bäcker's lawyers about various lies that he had told and contradictory statements that he had made over the years, Stoecker was put on the defensive more and more as he attempted to explain that he did not mean what he had said or he could not remember saying what he had said, making him appear dishonest and shifty. Stoecker's reputation

261-603: A charismatic personality which made him one of Germany's best loved and most respected Lutheran clergymen. As a theology student at the University of Halberstadt, Stoecker was already known as the "second Luther" as his writings and speeches defending the Lutheran faith were considered outstanding. After his ordination as a minister, Stoecker joined the Prussian Army as a chaplain. Stoecker came to national attention after delivering

348-483: A church mission in central Berlin that offered aid to the poorest families of the city. Stoecker was shocked by the extent to which the German poor and working classes had become estranged from Lutheranism and later wrote with horror: "During the years 1874–78, eighty percent of all marriages took place outside the church and forty-five percent of all children were not baptized". Furthermore, the staunchly-conservative Stoecker

435-425: A disreputable individual like Grüneberg, a swindler and blackmailer showed the "demagogic and unsavory" character of Stoecker, who for his all self-righteousness often associated with disreputable people. Much to Stoecker's fury, a group of Social Democrats, led by Johann Most , showed up to hijack the meeting as Most gave a speech denouncing the Lutheran church for being subservient to the state and declared that only

522-438: A flood between weak dykes". Stoecker believed that workers should not fight for higher wages and improve working conditions through strikes, but should deferentially ask "throne and altar" to improve working conditions and wages, a message that strongly limited his appeal to the working class. Stoecker's platform sounded very left-wing with its demand for an income tax, banning children and married women from working, making Sunday

609-525: A general denotation of a young or lesser noble, often poor and politically insignificant, understood as "country squire " (cf. Martin Luther 's disguise as "Junker Jörg" at the Wartburg ; he would later mock King Henry VIII of England as "Juncker Heintz" ). As part of the nobility, many Junker families only had prepositions such as von or zu before their family names without further ranks. The abbreviation of

696-872: A growing middle and working class. The Junkers held a virtual monopoly on all agriculture in the part of the German Reich lying east of the River Elbe. Since the Junker estates were necessarily inherited by the eldest son alone, younger sons, all well-educated and with a sense of noble ancestry, turned to the civil and military services, and dominated all higher civil offices, as well as the officer corps. Around 1900 they modernised their farming operations to increase productivity. They sold off less productive land, invested more heavily in new breeds of cattle and pigs , used new fertilisers , increased grain production, and improved productivity per worker. Their political influence achieved

783-574: A holiday; subsidies for widows and those too injured to work, taxes on luxury goods and a government-supported health system for all. However, at same time, Stoecker's platform called for bringing unions under state control, as Stoecker viewed the purpose of unions was to teach their members to be loyal to "throne and altar", not to improve the lives of their members. When Stoecker founded the Christian Social Party on 3 January 1878, he declared in his speech announcing his party: "I have in mind

870-506: A letter for having "incited rather than calmed greed, by having drawn attention to big individual fortunes and by proposing reforms that in light of the government's program were too extravagant". The American historian Harold Green noted that Bismarck seemed to have a problem with Stoecker's anti-Semitism only when it was directed against Bleichröder, and as long as Stoecker attacked Jews in general, instead of singling out Bleichröder, Bismarck did not have an issue with Stoecker. The letter from

957-431: A lunatic asylum because everything he had to say reflected an unbalanced mind. Victoria wrote that she was ashamed of her adopted country as men like Stoecker and Treitschke "behave so hatefully towards people of a different faith and another who have become an integral part (and by no means the worse) of our nation!" The Crown Prince of Prussia, Frederich, delivered a speech at a Berlin synagogue, where he called Stoecker

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1044-683: A monopoly on grain by storing it to drive up the price. As more money was profited, they were able to control political offices. Junkers were able to force people to continue paying more money for their product, while keeping who they wanted in office. Through the controlling of politics behind a veil, Junkers were able to influence politicians to create a law that prohibited collecting of debts from agrarians, thus pocketing even more money and strengthening their power. Defunct Defunct Supporting monarchism and military traditions, Junkers were seen as reactionary , anti-democratic , and protectionist by liberals and Socialists , as they had sided with

1131-571: A peaceful organization of labor and the workers.... It is your misfortune, gentleman, that you only think of your Social State and scornfully reject the hand extended to you for reform and help; that you insist on saying "we will not settle for anything less than the Social State". This way makes you enemies of the other social classes. Yes, gentleman, you hate the Fatherland! Your press shockingly reflects this hatred... you also hate Christianity, you hate

1218-410: A request that was refused. Stoecker's denunciations of the changes wrought by industrialization and urbanization appealed to the lower middle class, as he offered up an idealized, nostalgic vision of an ordered, rural society, where local craftsmen and small merchants did not have to compete with factories and large stores, of a simpler, better time now sadly gone. Stoecker's critique of modernity and of

1305-501: A sermon after the Siege of Metz in 1870, where he argued that Prussia's victories over France were the doing of God, and in 1874, Emperor Wilhelm I, who had been moved by Stoecker's sermons, had him appointed court chaplain in Berlin. Stoecker's position as a court chaplain gave him more power and prominence than his title of pastor would indicate, as everything Stoecker said was seen as expressing

1392-410: A speech delivered on 11 June 1880, Stoecker attacked an unnamed Orthodox Jewish banker to powerful people, by which he clearly meant Bleichröder, who he claimed had too much power and wealth. Stoecker stated the solution to poverty was to confiscate the wealth from rich Jews, rather than have an "impoverished" Church minister to the poor, and said that the banker was "a capitalist with more money than all

1479-576: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles Adolf Stoecker Stoecker was born in Halberstadt , Province of Saxony , in the Kingdom of Prussia . Stoecker's father was a blacksmith turned prison guard, and despite his poverty, Stoecker was able to attend university, which was unusual for a working-class man in the 19th century. An energetic and hardworking Protestant pastor who wrote widely on various social and political issues, Stoecker had

1566-516: The Berlin movement , which as an enthusiastic Stoecker reported: "His Imperial Majesty, the Kaiser agreed to receive delegates from the Berlin movement on the eve of his birthday, something that had never happened before in the case of a political party. I had the honor to deliver a speech...[after the address] the Kaiser aptly replied that there had been very strange developments during the past year; that both

1653-575: The Federal Administrative Court decided that the prince had no right to compensation for the disseized estates of the House of Hanover around Blankenburg Castle in Saxony-Anhalt . Other families, however, have quietly purchased or leased back their ancestral homes from the current owners (often the German federal government in its role as trustee). A petition for official rehabilitation of

1740-559: The Junkers dominated Prussian society. Stoecker was not a Junker, but he always had the most profound admiration for them. The purpose of the CSP was to win over the working classes to a Christian conservatism in which ordinary people would learn to accept that God had created an ordered society with the Junkers on top, and that to challenge the ordered society was to challenge God. Stoecker believed that

1827-731: The Soviet Union . However, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke formed the Kreisau Circle as part of the resistance to Nazi rule, and as World War II turned against Nazi Germany, several senior Junkers in the Wehrmacht participated in Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg 's assassination attempt of 20 July 1944. Fifty-eight of them either were executed when the plot failed, among them Erwin von Witzleben and Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort , or committed suicide like Henning von Tresckow . During

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1914-649: The conservative monarchist forces during the Revolution of 1848 . Their political interests were served by the German Conservative Party in the Reichstag and the extraparliamentary Agriculturists' League ( Bund der Landwirte ). This political class held tremendous power over industrial classes and government alike, especially through the Prussian three-class franchise . When German chancellor Leo von Caprivi in

2001-455: The surname Stöcker, Stoecker . If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stöcker&oldid=1067828601 " Categories : Surnames German-language surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description

2088-532: The " camarilla " around him urging the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany , personified by men like Hindenburg's son Oskar and his West Prussian "neighbour" Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau , who played a vital role in the Osthilfe scandal of 1932/33. Many World War II field marshals were also members of the Junkers, most notably Gerd von Rundstedt , Fedor von Bock , and Erich von Manstein . Many Junkers used forced labourers from Poland and

2175-598: The "Bleichröder affair" and because Stoecker had failed to win the working class from the SPD, instead attracting support from an already-conservative Mittelstand . In 1882, Stoecker attended the world's first anti-Semitic international congress in Dresden . Stoecker was condemned most forcefully by Frederich, the Crown Prince of Prussia and his British-born wife Victoria. In 1882, Wilhelm agreed to receive Stoecker and other leaders of

2262-576: The "Jewish press". Prince Wilhelm wrote that to dismiss Stoecker would be to strengthen the Social Democratic and the Progressive parties, who the prince claimed to be both controlled by the Jews. Prince Wilhlem called Stoecker the victim of the "ghastly and infamous slanders of the damned Jewish press" and wrote "poor Stoecker" had been "covered with insults, slanders and defamation". He went on, "Now, after

2349-571: The "shame of the century" and promised that if he became Emperor, he would fire Stoecker as court chaplain, leading to enthusiastic cheers from the audience. In 1880, Stoecker attacked the Chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck indirectly when he singled out Gerson von Bleichröder , the Orthodox Jew who served as Bismarck's banker, though not by name as the author of the problem of poverty in Germany. In

2436-467: The 1890s reduced the protective duties on imports of grain, these landed magnates demanded and obtained his dismissal; and in 1902 , they brought about a restoration of such duties on foodstuffs as would keep the prices of their own products at a high level. "Junker" acquired its current and often pejorative sense during the 19th-century disputes over the domestic policies of the German Empire. The term

2523-514: The Aryan race was doomed. Stoecker seems to have regarded Jews as both a race and a religion as he stated in a speech: "Race is, without a doubt, an important element in the Jewish Question. The Semitic-Punic type is, in all areas, in work as well in profit, in business as well in earnings, in the life of the state as well in worldview, in its spiritual as well as its ethical effects—so different from

2610-551: The Crown Prince Frederich attacked anti-Semitism in an 1880 speech as a "shameful blot on our time" and said on behalf of himself and his wife Victoria with clear reference to Stoecker: "We are ashamed of the Judenhetze which has broken all bounds of decency in Berlin, but which seems to flourish under the protection of court clerics". The British-born Crown Princess Victoria in a public letter said that Stoecker belonged in

2697-746: The German courts have upheld the land reforms and rebuffed claims to full compensation, confirming the legal validity of the terms within the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (Two Plus Four Agreement) (and incorporated into the Basic Law of the Federal Republic ), by which expropriations of land under Soviet occupation were irreversible. The last decisive case was the unsuccessful lawsuit of Prince Ernst August of Hanover in September 2006, when

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2784-460: The Germanic morals and philosophy of life, that reconciliation or amalgamation is impossible, unless it takes the form of a sincere rebirth from the depths of the conscience from the upright Israelites". In another speech, Stoecker stated: "The Jewish Question, insofar as it is a religious question, belongs to science and the missionaries; as a racial question, it belongs anthropology and history. In

2871-458: The Germans. Levy wrote that Stoecker understood the resentments and fears, the sense of victimization held by the "little people" of the mittelstand , as he explained that the "Jewish Press" and "Jewish capital" caused all their problems. Typical of the sense of victimization that Stoecker encouraged was a speech from 1879 where he declared: "If modern Jewry continues to use the power of capital and

2958-588: The Jewish Progressives and Social Democrats in Berlin!...O dear Grandpa, it is disgusting to observe how in our Christian-German, good Prussian land, the Judenthum , twisting and corrupting everything, has the cheek to attack such men, and in the most shameless, insolent way to seek their downfall"." Impressed with his grandson's arguments, the Emperor kept Stoecker on. In November 1887, at a Christian Social event at

3045-522: The Jews and stated in a speech: "Already a hatred for the Jews—which the Evangelical Church resists—begins to blaze up here and there. If modern Judaism continues, as it thus far has, to use the force of capital as well the power of the press, to ruin the nation, it will be impossible to avoid a catastrophe in the end". Though Stoecker professed to be speaking with "full Christian love" for the Jews, it

3132-611: The Jews did not begin to "show respect" to the Germans, which they allegedly did not. Stoecker fed the sense of victimization as with his speech "The Lousy Press" in which he argued to his supporters that the media was controlled by rich Jewish capitalists who disliked people like them and that the economic decline of the Mittelstand was being ignored because of the "lousy press". Stoecker's speeches usually consisted of reading various out-of-context statements from Social Democratic newspapers, to be followed by statements like "Gentleman, that

3219-599: The Junkers owned most of the arable land in Prussia. Being the bulwark of the ruling House of Hohenzollern , the Junkers controlled the Prussian Army , leading in political influence and social status , and owning immense estates worked by tenants. These were located especially in the north-eastern half of Germany (i.e. the Prussian provinces of Brandenburg , Pomerania , Silesia , West Prussia , East Prussia , and Posen ). This

3306-478: The Mansion House under the grounds his speech was going to be a threat to public order. When Stoecker spoke at an alternative venue, Social Democratic emigres showed up to disturb the speech, forcing Stoecker to flee from the stage and to sneak out via the backdoor, behavior that led many to condemn the "second Luther" as a coward. In 1884, Stoecker sued a Jewish newspaper publisher, Heinrich Bäcker for libel after

3393-911: The Nazi regime by the Soviet Military Administration and the SED, with many of them being arrested, brutally beaten and interned in NKVD special camps ( Speziallager ), while their property was plundered and the manor houses demolished. Some were executed. Many women were raped . From 1952 these individual farms were pressured by a variety of means to join together as collectives and incorporated into Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften ("agricultural production comradeships", LPG) or nationalised as Volkseigene Güter ("publicly owned estates", VEG). After German reunification , some Junkers tried to regain their former estates through civil lawsuits, but

3480-542: The Nazi regime. Junker (Prussia) The Junkers ( / ˈ j ʊ ŋ k ər / YUUNG -kər ; German: [ˈjʊŋkɐ] ) were members of the landed nobility in Prussia . They owned great estates that were maintained and worked by peasants with few rights. These estates often lay in the countryside outside of major cities or towns. They were an important factor in Prussian and, after 1871, German military, political and diplomatic leadership. The most famous Junker

3567-599: The SPD, and Stoecker's foray into politics was secretly supported by the government, which hoped that Stoecker might be able to win the working class from the Social Democrats. In 1879, Stoecker gave speeches blaming all of Germany's problems on the Jewish minority. In his speech "Our Demands on Modern Jewry", delivered in Berlin on 19 September 1879, Stoecker in the words of the American historian Richard Levy "put antisemitism on

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3654-461: The Social Democrats represented the working class, which prompted loud cheers from the working-class audience. Most led the audience out of the meeting hall, all behind him, while Stoecker was left fuming, as his would be supporters had been taken away by Most. The German chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck , brought the first of the Anti-Socialist Laws later in 1878 with the aim of crushing

3741-728: The advance of the Red Army in the closing months of the war and subsequently, most Junkers had to flee from the eastern territories that were turned over to the re-established Republic of Poland with the implementation of the Oder–Neisse line according to the Potsdam Agreement . After World War II, during the communist Bodenreform (land reform) of September 1945 in the Soviet Occupation Zone , later East Germany , all private property exceeding an area of 100 hectares (250 acres)

3828-448: The capitalist system alienated workers from the proper, God-intended course, and what was needed were social reforms to hold off revolution. Through Stoecker advocated social reforms, the main emphasis of the CSP was on winning workers over to loyalty to "the throne and altar", as Stoecker argued that misery of the workers was caused by a materialistic, atheist world view that had torn the working class from its proper reverence for God and

3915-538: The capitalist system under the guise of very nationalist and anti-Semitic message appealed to the Mittelstand , which was suffering very badly from the economic changes caused by the Industrial Revolution and felt their interests to be ignored by all of the existing parties. Traditionally, for over 1000 years, Jews were despised social outcasts, a people living in poverty and seen as accursed forever, and Jewish emancipation in Prussia in 1869 had been followed by

4002-560: The court of territorial princes . These families were mostly part of the German medieval Uradel and had carried on the colonisation and Christianisation of the northeastern European territories during the Ostsiedlung . Over the centuries, they had become influential commanders and landowners, especially in the lands east of the Elbe River in the Kingdom of Prussia. As landed aristocrats,

4089-470: The emperor only attracted more attention to Stoecker, and more people continued to join the CSP. Teachers and army officers were overrepresented in the CSP, and in 1881, Stoecker renamed his party the Christian Social Party, as very few workers had joined his movement, and the Worker's part of the title was offputting to his mostly lower middle-class supporters. Bismarck ended his support for Stoecker in 1881 after

4176-595: The ethical disruption of the peoples among who the Jews have lived". In another speech, Stoecker linked his Christian work with his political work, saying: "I found Berlin in the hands of the Progressives—who were hostile to the Church—and the Social Democrats—who were hostile to God; Judaism ruled in both parties. The Reich' s capital city was in danger of being de-Christanized and de-Germanized. Christianity

4263-466: The evangelical clergy taken together". Bleichröder complained to Bismarck that Stoecker's attack might lead him to leave Germany for another nation that would be more welcoming to him, and as Bleichröder's skills at banking had made both him and Bismarck very rich men, Bismarck was worried about losing his banker. Bismarck saw the attack on Bleichröder as an attack on himself and seriously considered banning Stoecker from speaking, but he declined as Stoecker

4350-618: The extermination of one of them" and it was the responsibility of "the Germanentum ...to settle once and for all with the Semites". Like everybody else in the völkisch movement, Stoecker was deeply influenced by the claim of the French writer Arthur de Gobineau that there was an ancient Aryan master race responsible for everything good in the world, of which the modern Germans were the best representatives, but Stoecker rejected Gobineau's conclusion that

4437-546: The form of which this question appears before our eyes in public life, it is highly complicated social-ethical, political-economic phenomena.... This question has arisen and developed—under the influence of religion and race—differently in the Middle Ages from how it is today, different also in contemporary Russia from how it is with us. But the Jewish Question—always and everywhere—has to do with economic exploitation and

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4524-486: The gospel of God's mercy. They [the Social Democrats] teach you not to be believe. They teach you atheism and these false prophets". Stoecker followed his speech by presenting a former tailor who had been imprisoned for fraud, Emil Grüneberg, whom Stoecker had met while he was in prison, who proceeded to give a violently anti-Socialist speech. The American historian Harold Green commented that Stoecker associating with

4611-505: The grounds that the publisher had been persistently attacked by Stoecker. Bäcker won a moral victory, as even through the court had convicted him, Stoecker had been exposed on the stand as a man who was caught up in so many lies as to destroy his reputation. The judges had given a convoluted and tortured ruling in the libel trial that seemed to suggest that they wanted to acquit Bäcker but had convicted him only because to acquit Bäcker would confirm his claims against Stoecker, which would damage

4698-573: The house of Field Marshal Alfred von Waldersee , Prince Wilhelm stood next to Stoecker, praised him as the "second Luther", declared his support for the CSP as bringing about the spiritual regeneration of Germany and urged men to vote for the CSP. In 1888, when the Emperor Wilhelm died, Frederick succeeded to the throne, but as he was already dying of throat cancer, he did not dismiss Stocker as he had promised. Bismarck threatened to resign if Stoecker were dismissed, but Frederick ordered that Stoecker

4785-741: The imposition of high tariffs that reduced competition from U.S. grain and meat. During World War I , Irish nationalist MP Tom Kettle compared the Anglo-Irish landlord class to the Prussian Junkers, saying, "England goes to fight for liberty in Europe and for junkerdom in Ireland." Their political influence extended from the German Empire of 1871–1918 through the Weimar Republic of 1919–1933. It

4872-413: The judgement of the court, which is unfortunately far too much under Jewish control, a veritable storm of indignation and anger has broken out in all the levels of the nation". Prince Wilhelm called Stoecker "...the most powerful pillar, the bravest, most fearless fighter for Your Monarchy and Your Throne among the people!.... He has personally and alone won over 60, 000 workers for you and your power from

4959-425: The junker dominated East was thus Ostelbien or East Elbia. They played a prominent role in repressing the liberal movement in Germany. Junker is derived from Middle High German Juncherre , meaning "young nobleman" or otherwise "young lord" (derivation of jung and Herr ), and originally was the title of members of the higher edelfrei ( immediate ) nobility without or before the accolade . It evolved to

5046-475: The land was often owned by small independent farmers or a mixture of small farmers and estate owners, and this system was often contrasted with the dominance of the large estate owners of the east. Before World War II, the dividing line was often drawn at the river Elbe which was also roughly the western boundary of Slavic settlement by the Wends in the so-called Germania Slavica prior to Ostsiedlung . The term for

5133-559: The latter had run an article, "Court Chaplain, Reichstag Candidate and Liar". Because Stoecker was a court chaplain, Bäcker was prosecuted by the Prussian state for libelling a public official but he waged such a vigorous defense that his claim that Stoecker was a dishonest man was true that he effectively put Stoecker on trial. As a witness, Stoecker was humiliated on a daily basis, as Bäcker's lawyers presented many examples from his speeches of him telling lies and having committed perjury in another court case when he testified that he never seen

5220-416: The map in Germany", as his status as one of Germany most respected and best loved Lutheran clergymen made hatred for the Jews eminently respectable in a way that it never had been before. It was only after Stoecker started to attack the Jews that the meetings of the CSP began to be well attended, but most of Stoecker's followers came from the Mittelstand (lower middle class), rather than the working class and

5307-624: The most autocratic monarch in the world, the Russian Emperor and the least authoritarian President of a Republic, the American Chief of State had been assassinated, that authority was in terrible danger everywhere and it necessary to be fully aware of this." In 1883, Stoecker attended a conference of evangelical Protestants in London, where the Lord Mayor forbade the "second Luther" from speaking at

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5394-409: The opinion of Wilhelm. As early as 1875, Stoecker began to attack Jews in racial terms in his sermons. As a good Lutheran, Stoecker was impressed with Martin Luther's 1543 book On the Jews and their Lies , and throughout his life, Stoecker always held that to be a good Christian meant hating the Jews. Defunct Defunct Besides working as a court chaplain, Stoecker also served as the head of

5481-414: The poor. In September 1879, Stoecker's speech "Our Demands on Modern Jewry" caused a sensation and attracted much media attention, as it was widely assumed that Stoecker was speaking on behalf of Emperor Wilhelm I when he blamed all of Germany's problems on "Jewish capital" and the "Jewish press". Stoecker, in particular, complained that 45,000 Jews living in Berlin were "too large a figure" and that Germany

5568-506: The power of the press to bring misfortune to the nation, a final catastrophe is unavoidable. Israel must renounce its ambition to become master of Germany. It should renounce its arrogant claim that Judaism is the religion of the future, when it is so clearly of the past...Every sensible person must realize the rule of this Semitic mentality means not only our spiritual, but also our economic impoverishment". Though Stoecker did not call for violence, he implied that violence would be acceptable if

5655-410: The prestige of the monarchy, as Stoecker was the court chaplain. By 1885, Emperor Wilhelm, though an anti-Semite himself, had wanted to fire Stoecker, who had become a liability to the monarchy after the Bäcker libel case but kept him only after his grandson, Prince Wilhelm (the future Wilhelm II) had written him a letter on 5 August 1885 praising Stoecker and claiming that had been attacked unjustly by

5742-512: The rise of a number of poor Jewish families to the middle class. At the same time that Jews were joining the middle class, the fortunes of the Mittelstand had gone into decline, and Stoecker's anti-Semitic speeches appealed to what he called the "little people", as the Mittelstand' s men and women who felt it was unfair and unjust that the traditionally-despised Jews were getting ahead both socially and economically while they were falling behind. Jews were seen as outsiders in Imperial Germany, and

5829-407: The rising generation of pastors and has put his mark on them for decades to come as he did". Stoecker's insistence that Jews were a race, not a religion, and that Jewish "racial traits" were so repulsive that no proper Christian could ever love a Jew and to love Christ was to hate Jews, had a major impact on the Lutheran church well into the 20th century, and helped to explain the Lutherans' support of

5916-434: The social order created. The message was rejected by most German workers as not addressing their main concerns. The German working class mostly wanted a higher standard of living and democracy, not to be told that it was their duty as Christians to accept their lot. Stoecker's hostility to unions and strikes limited his appeal to the working class. Stoecker called unions "the threatening danger which moves through our time like

6003-424: The socio-economic success of the Jews seemed to be turning the traditional social order upside down just as at the same moment that many Mittelstand families were sinking into poverty. Stoecker's speech "Our Demands on Modern Jewry" was full of a sense of victimization, as he accused Jews of behaving with outrageous arrogance to Germans, and he demanded that newly middle class Jewish families should "show respect" to

6090-424: The title is Jkr., most often placed before the given name and titles, for example: Jkr. Heinrich von Hohenberg. The female equivalent Junkfrau (Jkfr.) was used only sporadically. In some cases, the honorific Jkr. was also used for Freiherren (Barons) and Grafen (Counts). A good number of poorer Junkers took up careers as soldiers ( Fahnenjunker ), mercenaries, and officials ( Hofjunker , Kammerjunker ) at

6177-518: The worship of the old gods) and too deferential to the Junkers , and some of the Christian Socials, led by Friedrich Naumann , broke away because of his anti-Semitism. Stoecker's position as court chaplain from 1874 to 1890 made him one of the most influential Lutheran clergymen of the entire 19th century, and in 1891, the theologian Reinhold Seeberg called Stoecker "the most powerful church leader for pastors". After his death in 1909, Pastor Johannes Haussleiter wrote, "Nobody has so lastingly influenced

6264-495: Was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck . Bismarck held power in Germany from 1871 to 1890 as Chancellor of the German Empire . He was removed from power by Kaiser Wilhelm II . Many Junkers lived in the eastern provinces that were annexed by either Poland or the Soviet Union after World War II . Junkers fled or were expelled alongside other German-speaking populations by the incoming Polish and Soviet administrations, and their lands were confiscated. In western and southern Germany,

6351-491: Was a wish for murder!", "Gentleman that was truly murder!", or "That was mass murder!". As the crowd would become more and more angry, Stoecker would present his usual caveat, "Don't think I present all this out of hatred. I don't hate anyone!", which the American historian Jeffery Telman observed was "highly ironic" since Stoecker would whip up his supporters into a state of fury. Though Stoecker professed to be motivated only by "Christian love", he always blamed anti-Semitism on

6438-599: Was always counterbalanced with a violent attack on Judaism as when he warned in a speech that one should not allow "Jewish newspapers to attack our belief and for the Jewish spirit of Mammonism to sully our people". As one of the first leaders of the Völkisch movement , Stoecker attacked the Jews as a "race" and said in a speech at the Prussian Landtag in 1879 that all Jews were "parasites" and "leeches", an "alien drop in our blood" and stated that battle between Germans vs. Jews

6525-536: Was dead as a public force; with it went loyalty to the King and love of the Fatherland. It seemed as if the great war [with France] had been fought so that Judaism could rule in Berlin.... It was like the end of the world. Unrighteousness had won the upper hand; love had turned cold". Together with another völkisch leader, the historian Heinrich von Treitschke , Stoecker launched the Antisemitic Petition in 1880 that

6612-638: Was expropriated, and then predominantly allocated to 'New Farmers' on condition that they continued farming them. As most of these large estates, especially in Brandenburg and Western Pomerania , had belonged to Junkers, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany promoted their plans with East German President Wilhelm Pieck 's slogan Junkerland in Bauernhand! ("Junker land into farmer's hand!"). The former owners were accused of war crimes and involvement in

6699-534: Was in contrast to the predominantly Catholic southern states such as the Kingdom of Bavaria or the Grand Duchy of Baden , where land was owned by small farms, or the mixed agriculture of the western states like the Grand Duchy of Hesse or even the Prussian Rhine and Westphalian provinces. Junkers formed a tightly knit elite. Their challenge was how to retain their dominance in an emerging modern state with

6786-423: Was one of "race against race", as the Jews were "a nation unto themselves" with nothing in common with Germans, but instead were linked to the other Jewish communities around the world as "one mass of exploiters". Though Stoecker was very vague about the exact solution to the "Jewish Question" he wanted, in one of his pamphlets, he wrote "the ancient contradiction between Aryans and the Semites... can only end with

6873-519: Was said that "if Prussia ruled Germany, the Junkers ruled Prussia, and through it the Empire itself". A policy known as Osthilfe ("Help for the East") granted Junkers 500,000,000 marks in subsidies to help pay for certain debts and to improve equipment. Junkers continued to demand and receive more and more subsidies, which gave them more money in their pockets, thus resulting in political power. Junkers exploited

6960-412: Was signed by a quarter of million Germans asking for Jewish immigration to Germany to be banned, Jews to be forbidden to vote and hold public office and Jews to be forbidden to work as teachers or attend universities. The ultimate intention of Stoecker and Treitschke was the disemancipation of German Jews, and the Antisemitic Petition was only the planned first step. In response to the Antisemitic Petition,

7047-454: Was so badly damaged that despite the fact it was Bäcker who was on trial, the judge, in a revealing Freudian slip , opened a session of the court with the remark: "I hereby reopen the proceedings against the defendant Stoecker", only to be reminded that it was Bäcker who was on trial. The libel case attracted much media attention, and though Stoecker won the case, the judge gave Bäcker the lightest possible sentence of three weeks in prison, under

7134-660: Was taking in far too many poor Jewish immigrants from Russia and Romania. He argued that Jewish immigrants from the Russian empire and Romania should be "sunk on the high seas", rather be allowed to settle in Germany. As early as 17 October 1879, the Board of Trustees of the Jewish community in Berlin had complained to the Prussian Ministry of the Interior that Stoecker should be silenced as his hate speeches were inciting violence against Jews,

7221-485: Was to avoid speaking on political matters in public. After a reign of 99 days, Frederick died and was succeeded by his son, Wilhelm II, who kept Stoecker on as court chaplain. Stoecker had long attacked the National Liberal Party as a "Jewish" party, and in 1890, Wilhelm II was informed by the leaders of National Liberals that they would not vote for his bills in the Reichstag unless he were to sack Stoecker. It

7308-460: Was to win the support of the National Liberals, not objections to Stoecker's anti-Semitism, that caused Wilhelm II to dismiss Stoecker as court chaplain in 1890. The Christian Social Party failed, as many of the younger and more radical völkisch leaders from the Mittelstand found Stoecker too tame, too Christian (some of the völkisch activists rejected Christianity and wanted to bring back

7395-449: Was too popular and his position as court chaplain made him unassailable as he had the Emperor's support. Bismarck complained that Stoecker "was attacking the wrong Jews, the rich ones committed to the status quo rather than the propertyless Jews... who had nothing to lose and therefore joined every opposition movement". In December 1880, under pressure from Bismarck, Wilhelm I formally admonished Stoecker for his attack on Bleichröder in

7482-619: Was used by sociologists such as Max Weber and was even adopted by members of the landed class themselves. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was a noted Junker, though his family hailed from the Altmark region west of the Elbe. After World War I many Prussian agriculturists gathered in the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP). The term was also applied to Reich President Paul von Hindenburg , lord of Neudeck in West Prussia, and to

7569-493: Was worried about the way that the poor and the working class were voting for the "godless" Social Democratic Party (SPD), and to counter the growth of the SPD, he founded the Christian Social Worker's Party (CSP) in 1878. Though strongly critical of capitalism and demanding some social reforms like an income tax and reducing working hours, Stoecker was hostile to unions and supported the existing social structure in which

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