Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg (1848-1911) was a well known anti-Semite who ran for election in 1881 as a member of the Conservative Central Committee, and continued in politics until his death in 1911. He saw what lay ahead. Agrarian prices were rising; the lot of the pig farmers was improving. The Hessian anti-Semitic movement could survive good agrarian times after 1900 if it moved away from its earlier radical attacks on the state. Liebermann negotiated with the BdL for support, and stood firmly for king and country. He waged a brand of anti-Semitic Mittelstand politics, promising to protect the Protestant Bürgertum culture against its enemies. Thus he was returned with over 70 percent of the vote in most elections. In fact, he lost only the urban areas of the district in 1907. This mattered very little in a district that was over 85 percent rural. Liebermann von Sonnenberg then was the recipe for continuing in office. He defended the barricades of the Protestant Bürgertum. Since his district had only a few Catholic and even less Socialist voters, this defense was enough to keep him in his seat. (from Electoral Politics in Wilhelmine Germany by Stanley Suval; University of North Carolina Press, 1985).

Long a foremost anti-Semite and member of the Deutsch Soziale Partei, which he represented in the Reichstag, Liebermann von Sonnenberg was a member of the Pan-German League as well. He was a fluent orator and an intensely emotional person. (from The Pan-German League, 1890-1914 by Mildred Wertheimer S.; Columbia University, 1924). Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg who had been a leader in the Berlin Movement founded the German Social Anti-Semitic Party, Deutsch-Soziale Antisemitische Partei, in Bochum, Westpahlia in 1889.

The ritual murder accusation occured on March 15, 1900, the dismembered body of Ernst Winter, aged 19, was found in the river in Konitz. The police charged a number of Jews on flimsy and insubstantial grounds. The first defendant, Israelski, was acquitted, but the crime was defined as ritual murder. Anti-Semites accused the authorities of shielding Jewish suspects and anti-Jewish riots broke out; the synagogue was attacked, and widespread agitation and unrest shocked the world. The anti-Semites naturally were unscrupulous in their desire to make capital of this opportunity. Liebermann von Sonnenberg, their political leader, said in a public address: "The Christians have not yet become accustomed to bear without a murmur the killing of Christian youths in an unnatural fashion by Jews within the city walls." Adolf Lewy and his son Moritz, butchers, were accused of the ritual murder of Winter on the prefabricated evidence of a petty thief, B. Masloff. Moritz was acquitted of the murder charge but sentenced to four years' imprisonment for denying that he was acquainted with the victim. The jury awarded Masloff the minimal sentence, one year, for perjury, and petitioned for his pardon. However, William II granted a pardon to Moritz but refused to give one to Masloff. The Jewish population of Konitz subsequently declined (many were economically ruined) to 257 in 1913.

This ritual murder case is still being discussed. A recent book, The Butcher's Tale, by Helmut Smith (2002), was reviewed in Booklist as follows:

The supposed ritual murder of a gentile child by Jews to consecrate the Passover matzo has been a blood libel used to spark anti-Semitic outrages for centuries. Smith, associate professor of German history at Vanderbilt University, has chronicled an episode that occurred in 1900 in the relatively enlightened East Prussian town of Konitz. Here, approximately 300 Jews, most of them comfortable with their German nationality, lived in a relatively tranquil coexistence with their gentile neighbors in a town of 10,000. When the remains of a murdered, dismembered boy was discovered, the facade was dropped. Mobs screamed for revenge against the Jews, Jews were attacked, and the army was called in to restore order. The real perpetrator of the murder was never found, although Smith provides compelling evidence that suggests the culprit. This is a disturbing and often downright frightening examination of how easily «civilized» societies can succumb to their prejudices and cross over into hysterical barbarism.