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Court Preacher Adolf Stöcker Introduces Antisemitism to the Christian Social Workers’ Party (September 19, 1879)

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Official hatred has ceased. [ . . . ] But in the Jewish press there breathes a hatred against Christianity that deserves to be abominated. Because articles are unsigned in our journals and newspapers, it may be objected that it is impossible to confirm that anti-Christian essays emanate from Jews. We know that there are enough [Christian] writers in the papers who perform the lamentable office of defaming their churches. But it is a fact that the worst Berlin newspapers are in the hands of Jews and that on their staffs the Jewish element predominates. Wholly convincing, however, is the circumstance that the religious arguments among the Jewish factions are scarcely ever mentioned, the intolerance of Jewish orthodoxy is never touched upon, the literary attacks against Jews are never discussed. Orthodox Jewry is never attacked. It can reject secular schools and threaten common-law couples with excommunication. And yet not a single liberal paper takes notice. If the same should surface in Christian meetings, the press rabble will fall upon them with open howls of rage. Our holy things are constantly dragged in the dust, while the synagogue is protected by the silent agreement of all the liberal newspaper writers. Just show us one article in the liberal press that handles Yom Kippur or the Talmud school in unworthy fashion. Yet this year the Tageblatt derided Lent, and the Berlin Jewish press pulled to pieces the conference of Augustinians. Only Christianity must put up with these indecencies. A Jewish city alderman of Berlin recently spoke in public about our church matters, which do not concern him, to the effect that there “were real inquisitors who would like nothing better than to consign dissenters to the pyre.” Who gave him the right to sow discord among the Christian population and to stir up hate? This intolerance is unbearable.

As recently as 1873, the newspaper of the Reform [Jews] wrote: “The Jewish press is all too disfigured by tastelessness and spitefulness. A defamatory, bitter, and cutting tone makes itself felt on every page. These shortcomings have done a disservice to the public, which now delights in spicy stories.” How much worse has the Jewish press become since then! Where can one find even a trace of such heedlessness in the Lutheran or conservative press? Where is a Jewish holiday or the kosher laws held up to scorn? The simplest sense of decency must forbid the violation of a people's sacred possessions. These constant attempts to undermine the fundamental beliefs, the morality, the national honor of a nation are criminal and shameful. From time to time, the Social Democratic press has been even nastier. Yet more destructive, because it is less coarse and more effective, is one of Berlin's most widely read organs.* Unless this well of poison is stopped up, an improvement in our situation is unthinkable. In 1816, Benzenberg** was already writing: “Perhaps the glory of Germany will perish from the Jews.” If the Christians continue to yield to the effects of the Jewish spirit that de-Germanizes and de-Christianizes them, this prophecy will certainly come true. Perhaps, after this period of decline – and this is our hope – the glory of Germany will again go forth. We would really have to be a nation without honor if we could not break these chains of an alien spirit and instead allowed ourselves to be totally Jewified.



* Stoecker refers once again to the Berliner Tageblatt, a well-respected left-liberal newspaper that opposed militarism and the policies of Bismarck. It was part of the publishing empire being built by Rudolf Mosse (1843–1920), a Jew from eastern Prussia who introduced to Germany the mass-circulation daily. The German Right, and the antisemites in particular, used the "BT," as it was called, as an example of how Jews undermined traditional German values.
** Johann Friedrich Benzenberg (1777–1846) was an early leader of the liberal movement in Prussia.

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