Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg (21 August 1848 - 17 November 1911) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 officer

Officer (armed forces)

An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...

 who became noted as an anti-Semitic politician and publisher. He was part of a wider campaign against German Jews that became a central feature of far right

Far right

Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...

 politics in Imperial Germany in the late nineteenth century.

Early politics

The foundation of the Christian Social Party

Christian Social Party (Germany)

The Christian Social Party was a right-wing political party in the German Empire, founded in 1878 by Adolf Stoecker as the Christlichsoziale Arbeiterpartei . The party combined a strong Christian and conservative programme with progressive ideas on labour, and tried to provide an alternative for...

 by Adolf Stoecker

Adolf Stoecker

Adolf Stoecker was the court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm II, a politician, and a German Lutheran theologian who founded one of the first Christian Social Gospel political parties in Germany, the Christian Social Party.-Life:Stoecker was born in Halberstadt, Province of Saxony.A staunch Protestant,...

 in 1878 helped to galvanise anti-Semitic activity in Germany and brought Liebermann von Sonnenberg, then an officer in the German Imperial Army, to politics. He came to the fore in 1880 when he was central to the organisation of a petition calling for the removal of the Jews from all public positions. The petition attracted as many 225,000 signatories.

Joining with Bernhard Förster

Bernhard Förster

Bernhard Förster was a nineteenth century German teacher...

, the brother-in-law of Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

, he set up the Deutscher Volksverein (German People's League) in 1881 to support the anti-Semitic agenda. The group struggled for support as it focused on a single issue that spawned a number of movements at the time and it declined further when Förster left for Paraguay

Paraguay

Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...

 in 1886 to set up his ill-fated Nueva Germania

Nueva Germania

Nueva Germania is a district of San Pedro Department in Paraguay. It was founded as a German colony on August 23, 1887 by Bernhard Förster, who was married to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, sister of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche...

 project.

Leadership

Following a June 1889 conference of anti-Semites in Bochum

Bochum

Bochum is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. It is located in the Ruhr area and is surrounded by the cities of Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Castrop-Rauxel, Dortmund, Witten and Hattingen.-History:...

 Liebermann von Sonnenberg set up his own political party, the Deutsch-Soziale Partei, which became the Deutschsoziale Reformpartei when it merged with Otto Böckel

Otto Böckel

Otto Böckel was a German populist politician who became one of the first to successfully exploit anti-Semitism as a political issue in the country.-Path to politics:...

's Deutsche Reformpartei in 1894. Active co-operation had actually started at the 1890 election

German election, 1890

The 8th German federal election of 1890 was held on 20 February 1890.-Results:- Literature :* Specht, Fritz / Schwabe, Paul: Die Reichstagswahlen von 1867 bis 1903. Eine Statistik der Reichstagswahlen nebst den Programmen der Parteien und einem Verzeichnis der gewählten Abgeordneten...

 when a joint list captured five seats in the Reichstag

Reichstag (German Empire)

The Reichstag was the parliament of the North German Confederation , and of the German Reich ....

. The two leaders however often found themselves in disagreement as Liebermann von Sonnenberg was basically a conservative

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

 whilst Böckel held a more radical world-view beyond his anti-Semitism, including a desire for land reform.

Liebermann von Sonnenberg also undertook anti-Semitic lecture tours although in 1892 he was forced to abandon one such tour after his credibility suffered a blow at the hands of Rabbi Benno Jacob

Benno Jacob

Benno Jacob was a Reform rabbi and Bible scholar.- Biography :Jacob studied in the Rabbinical Seminary and University of his native Breslau...

. Delivering a two and a half hour lecture on the Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

 he was confronted at its conclusion by Jacob, bearing a copy of the Talmud and demanding Liebermann von Sonnenberg read out the passages he had referred to in his lecture. When Liebermann von Sonnenberg admitted that he could not read even a letter of the Hebrew language

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 Jacob chided him for speaking about a book which he could not even read and delivered an impromptu lecture of his own refuting the arguments previously advanced. After this pattern was repeated a few more times Liebermann von Sonnenberg was forced to cancel his tour.

Conservatism

His conservatism proved a problem for Liebermann von Sonnenberg when he purchased the newspaper Antisemitic Correspondence from Theodor Fritsch

Theodor Fritsch

Theodor Fritsch, originally Emil Theodor Fritsche , was a German publisher and pundit. His anti-semitic writings did much to influence popular German opinion against Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

 and promptly lost most of the readership after he dispensed with Fritsch's attacks on leading German figures and organised Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

. Liebermann von Sonnenberg's only rhetoric in this vein was directed against Germany's Roman Catholic

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 population when he questioned their patriotism

Patriotism

Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...

 by suggesting that every Catholic had "his feet in Germany but his head in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

".

Reichstag

Liebermann von Sonnenberg was one of the candidates elected and he soon became noted for his attempts to introduce a bill to ban all Jewish immigration during every session of the Reichstag. His 1897 bill that sought to reintroduce denominational oaths in court cases was passed and represented the only occasion when a bill introduced by one of the anti-Semites was successful. He continued to represent his constituency of Fritzlar

Fritzlar

Fritzlar is a small German town in the Schwalm-Eder district in northern Hesse, north of Frankfurt, with a storied history. It can reasonably be argued that the town is the site where the Christianization of northern Germany began and the birthplace of the German empire as a political entity.The...

until his death in 1911.