Adolf Stoecker Signed Royal Court Chaplain Kaiser Wilhelm Prussia German Royalty For Sale

LOT-P137.  For your consideration is an exceedingly rare and historically important original antique c.1900 royal presentation photograph / CDV / carte de visite of Adolf Stoecker, German court chaplain to Kaiser / Emperor Wilhelm I, hand-signed by Adolf Stoecker. Royal presentation CDV measures approximately 2.5 \" x 4.0\". Condition is original. Photograph is original. Autograph is manuscript hand-signed in black steel tip pen ink. Museum quality. One of a kind.  Guaranteed authentic. 

Adolf Stoecker (December 11, 1835 – February 2, 1909) was a German court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm I, a politician, leading antisemite, and a Lutheran theologian who founded the Christian Social Party to lure members away from the Social Democratic Workers\' Party.

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 a charismatic personality which made him one of Germany\'s best loved and most respected Lutheran clergyman. 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 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 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.

Together with another völkisch leader, the historian Heinrich von Treitschke, Stoecker launched the Antisemitic Petition in 1880 that was signed by a quarter of million Germans asking for Jewish immigration to Germany to be banned, Jews to be forofferden to vote and hold public office and Jews to be forofferden 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, 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 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 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.