By Alex Grobman, PhD
January 7, 2026
Part VII
Historian Shmuel Ettinger notes that in response to the economic crisis (1873–1879), the backlash against Jewish emancipation, and the Kulturkampf, a number of antisemitic writers emerged who blamed Jews for Germany’s problems. The Catholic journal Germania was the first to denounce Jews for their alleged role in creating this turmoil.
Otto Glagau, an antisemitic journalist and political writer, expanded these accusations. Historian Jacob Katz observed that Glagau was less concerned with Jews’ actual or imagined involvement in the financial crisis than with the prominent roles they assumed in banking, investments, and the stock market—and their rapid ascent in political, financial, and social life.
“No longer should we tolerate Jews pushing themselves everywhere to the foreground, to the head, seizing everywhere the leadership, the command. They push us Christians continuously aside, they press us to the wall, and they take away the air we breathe. In fact, they exercise domination over us, they possess a dangerous supremacy, and they exert an extremely unwholesome influence. … The whole history of the world knows no other example of a homeless, definitely physically and psychologically degenerate people, simply through fraud and cunning, through usury and jobbing [sneaky, deceitful conduct within the constraints of the law], ruling over the orbit of the world.”
Adolf Stöcker (1835–1909)
According to Ettinger, the German antisemitic movement was initiated by Adolf Stöcker, a Lutheran preacher at the Imperial Court in Berlin. In 1881, he founded the Christian Social Party (Christlichsoziale Arbeiterpartei, CSAP).
The party’s stated goal was to improve workers’ quality of life, but historian George Mosse notes that Stöcker also sought to ingratiate himself with the recently unified German state. His political activity was driven by what Mosse describes as “missionary zeal.” Initially, Stöcker addressed the plight of Berlin’s workers in an effort to draw them into his church.
Stöcker served as a member of the Prussian Diet from 1879 to 1898. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1881 and served from 1893 to 1908, with a brief interruption between 1893 and 1898.
His party appealed strongly to a dissatisfied middle class that embraced antisemitism as a cure-all for its grievances. Stöcker became the central figure of the so-called “Berlin Movement,” a sociopolitical phenomenon of antisemitic Christian and conservative state socialists that originated in Berlin but spread widely. Historian Richard Levy observed that Stöcker “put antisemitism on the map in Germany.”
Stöcker’s Rhetoric and Theology
At a party rally on September 19, 1879, Stöcker addressed disillusioned traders, artisans, merchants, and civil servants. Sociologist Paul Massing records Stöcker’s remarks urging German Jews to “be a little more modest.” While acknowledging Israel’s role in preserving monotheism until the advent of Christianity, Stöcker framed this achievement as a result of divine grace rather than Jewish merit.
He further claimed that ideas such as religious freedom and tolerance were alien to the Old Testament, citing biblical punishments as evidence. At the same time, he insisted that Christianity—not Judaism—had brought moral and social progress.
Stöcker accused Jews of falsely claiming credit for ideals such as equality, freedom, and family life, asserting that “Teutonic-Christian life” alone had corrected what he characterized as abuses within ancient Jewish society.
“What Shall Be Done?”
Stöcker posed the question rhetorically and answered that a “proper relationship” between Jews and German society had to be established. He warned that antisemitic hatred was already spreading and insisted that Jewish influence through capital and the press would otherwise lead to catastrophe.
He argued that Jews must abandon what he described as ambitions to dominate Germany and renounce claims that Judaism represented the religion of the future. Jewish Orthodoxy, he claimed, was obsolete, while Reform Judaism was no longer authentically Jewish. He called for the Jewish press to become “more tolerant,” accusing it of inventing scandals and suppressing criticism.
Political and Economic Proposals
Stöcker advocated sweeping legislative measures to curb what he called Jewish economic power, including:
- Eliminating the mortgage system
- Instituting new stock and stock-exchange regulations
- Reorganizing the credit system to restrain “big capital”
- Reintroducing a denominational census to measure disparities between Jewish capital and labor
- Limiting the number of Jewish judges in proportion to the Jewish population
- Dismissing Jewish teachers from grammar schools
If these measures were enacted, Stöcker claimed, “Germany will rise again.” If not, he warned that Germany would become “Judaized” and economically impoverished.
Popular Response and Official Pushback
Mosse notes that when Stöcker preached biblical sermons in 1880–1881, only a few hundred attended. When he attacked Jews, however, his rallies drew crowds of two to three thousand.
At a rally on June 11, 1880, he urged Social Democratic supporters to target the wealth of affluent Jews rather than rely on the impoverished Church to resolve Germany’s social problems.
Mosse concluded that Stöcker’s success revealed the depth of a Christian antisemitic tradition that could be mobilized not only in Germany but across Europe.
On December 29, 1880, Kaiser Wilhelm I admonished Stöcker, warning him not to foster unrealistic expectations and reminding him of his responsibility to preserve peace among all classes of society.
The year 1881 began amid turmoil and violence.
Author Bio
Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and serves on the advisory board of the National Christian Leadership Conference of Israel (NCLCI). He holds an MA and PhD in contemporary Jewish history from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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