During the war years, Chamberlain was one of the "annexationists" who wanted the war to end with Germany annexing most of Europe, Africa and Asia to give the "Reich" the "world power status" he believed it deserved. As such, Chamberlain worked closely with the Pan-German League, the Conservatives and the "völkische" groups to mobilise public support for the maximum war aims he sought. Chamberlain was a founding member of the Independent Commission for a German Peace, and in July 1915 he signed the Address of the Intellectuals, a petition signed by 1,347 teachers, writers, professors, and theologians asking the government to win the war in order to annex as much territory as possible. Much of this propaganda including Chamberlain's essays in support of the maximum war aims had a very strong anti-Semitic character, as Chamberlain claimed that it was the entire German Jewish community who were supposedly seeking a compromise peace to end the war, and were preventing the full mobilization of Germany's power that would allow the "Reich" to win the war. In a letter to his friend Prince Maximilian of Baden, Chamberlain wrote: