Adolf Stoecker

German politician, born in Halberstadt, C Germany. Protestant court preacher in Berlin (1874–90), he was appointed head of Berlin's Town Mission (1877) with the special task of winning over the proletariat for the Church. He founded the Christlich-Soziale Arbeiterparteien (1878) which, due to its monarchist nationalistic tendencies, drew no response from the working class. Because of his anti-Semitism, which he channelled into the Berliner Bewegung, he was much more influential with the middle classes. He served as member of the Prussian Abgeordnetenhaus (1879–98) and member of the Reichstag (1881–93, 1898–1908).

Adolf Stoecker (December 11, 1835 - February 2, 1909) was the court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm, a politician, and an anti-semitic German theologian. In fact, in 1878, he founded one of the first anti-semitic political parties in Germany, the Christian Social Party.

A staunch anti-semite, Stocker was a believer in Verjudung, the idea that German culture was being "jewified" and corrupted by the newly-emancipated Jews. Upset with the dislocating social effects brought on by rapid industrialization, he called for German society to rededicate itself to Christian faith and a return to Germanic rule in law and business.

In 1878, Stoecker founded the Christian Social Party to rival the Social Democratic Party of Germany. among these were that Jews renounce their ambition to rule Germany, that the Jewish press become more tolerant towards German culture, and that quotas be placed on the number of Jews in certain professions and universities.

Stoecker died on February 2, 1909 in Bozen Gries, Germany.