You see, as an orthodox Christian, he was a confessed opponent of the racial viewpoint. For years, I considered Stöcker an honest social politician. That was precisely what bound me to him emotionally. Gradually, however, I began to doubt his sincerity on this score. He could not be moved to take sides against the Anti-Socialist Law, even though it constituted the most glaring injustice against workers. He toyed with the idea of replacing universal suffrage with some kind of nebulous electoral law based on social estates. He refused to take up the fight against the abomination that was Prussia’s three-class franchise. Above all, he strictly opposed taking even a single step on behalf of farm workers. For the coat seamstresses, he found the strongest words of support. After all, this also gave him the opportunity to whip up his listeners’ instincts against the “Jewish manufacturers of ready-to-wear clothing” at the same time. Yet with respect to the farm workers, who had even fewer rights and were in an even more miserable position, the motto was – oh, don’t touch the issue, don’t touch it! The Junkers would certainly not have been pleased to hear anything on that score!
He always had one eye cocked upwards. The great dream of his life was to “put conquered Berlin at the feet of the Hohenzollerns.” He wished to win the masses but by no means lose the favor of the court and the nobility in the process. In order to keep his position as court preacher, he made undignified concessions to the Kaiser and the church authorities. He needed the donations of the pious noblewomen for his City Mission. Therefore, he was not allowed to annoy their husbands by speaking up for farm workers and against the Anti-Socialist Law. – He attempted to carry on each shoulder a burden that might have been too heavy even for both together. This was a task that even this giant of a man, with his robust health and iron brow, failed to accomplish.
Wherever there was only an “either-or,” he strove for an “as well as.” This is what made him fail. “This tribune of the people shattered on an unrequited love for the powerful at the top” – this is how Stöcker’s biographer Walter Frank, who held him in great affection, summed up his life’s destiny.
Perhaps it is precisely because he came from the lower social strata, grew up in barracks as the son of a constable, that he was unable to resist the peculiar appeal of the court. When countesses young and old flocked around him adoringly, when princes invited him to their castles for baptisms and weddings, when the Regent of Brunswick wrote him confidential letters, when even the Empress ordered him to hold a private lecture, he was utterly pleased.
Of course, he was also happy when the applause of a people’s gathering thundered around him. Yet when faced with a decision (Top or bottom? For the lords or the servants?), he evaded the issue.
He sought to reconcile the irreconcilable, until eventually almost no one trusted him anymore. His biographer comes to his defense against the reproach of two-facedness. What may have appeared as such, he argues, was only the result of his two souls. One thing led to the other, however.
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