Otto Hammann

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Otto Hammann (born January 23, 1852 in Blankenhain ; † June 18, 1928 in Fürstenberg / Havel ) was a German lawyer and press officer in the Foreign Office from 1894 to 1916.

Family and studies

His ancestors in Swabia can be traced back to the year 1545 through a coat of arms. His great-great-grandfather Johann Wolfgang Hammann was the founder of the Wallendorf porcelain factory ( Wallendorfer Porzellan Manufaktur) in 1764.

As the son of Eduard Hammann, a landowner, and his wife Luise Theuss, he attended the lyceum in Eisenberg and the grammar school in Weimar. He then studied law in Heidelberg, Jena and Leipzig. On April 7, 1873, he passed the 1st legal exam. In January 1874 he obtained his doctorate as Dr. jur.

Hammann, together with his former friend, the architect Bruno Schmitz , and his wife Lucia Schmitz, got involved in one of the most prominent sex scandals in the empire: after the death of his first wife Erna, née. von Bönninghausen, whom he had married in 1879, Hammann began an affair with Lucia Schmitz, the granddaughter of the painter Bonaventura Genelli . This finally got divorced in 1902.

In mid-October 1903 Hammann declared under oath before the Royal Prussian District Court that the couple had given "excesses of passion" since the day of their divorce, but that normal sexual intercourse and an "immissio penis" had never taken place. This was intended to secure an agreement between the divorced couple to provide financial security for their two daughters. Schmitz had made sexual abstinence from his ex-wife up to a possible remarriage a prerequisite for the payment of 200,000 marks.

A few months after the trial, in April 1904, the couple married. On January 21, 1909, Hammann had to answer in the Reichstag before the commission for the Reich budget for the affair. Lucia Hammann died in autumn 1917.

Legal service, military service, and writing

In the grand ducal justice service in Weimar he worked from February 10, 1874 to February 19, 1875 as a trainee lawyer. He completed a year of voluntary military service from April 1, 1875 to March 31, 1876 with Leibregiment 100 in Dresden. He was promoted to Second Lieutenant of the Reserve in June 1877 and Premier Lieutenant of the Reserve in 1885.

In the years 1877 to 1893 he devoted himself to writing and correspondence in newspapers, working from June 15, 1885 to January 1, 1894 in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior in the literary office as editor for the latest communications . Hammann had first dealt with fiction , so he turned to more and more political publications, where he led a correspondence, worked for some time in the editorial office of the Deutsches Tageblatt and then wrote articles for domestic and foreign newspapers.

He worked for the Schlesische Zeitung , the Münchner Allgemeine Zeitung , the Hamburger Korrespondenz and for the Pester Lloyd . In June 1892, Chancellor Leo von Caprivi noticed him and offered him a position as a press officer in the Foreign Office.

Beginning at the Foreign Office

On January 1, 1894, he took the position in Department IA, which was responsible for political tasks and which had previously been held by Rudolf Lindau , Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter and Constantin Rößler . His journalistic freedom of movement was, however, severely restricted by instructions from the Reich Chancellor and the responsible State Secretary. He developed a distant relationship with the influential Friedrich von Holstein .

There were no press conferences back then; Contacts with the press were maintained through personal conversations and the collection of newspaper reports from the domestic and foreign press. He had excellent connections to Arthur von Huhn as a representative of the Kölner Zeitung and August Stein from the Frankfurter Zeitung . On October 29, 1894, Clovis zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst took over the office of Chancellor.

Rise and crisis under Bülow

A change to the office of Reich Chancellor occurred when Bernhard von Bülow took office on October 17, 1900. From now on Hammann received direct speaking and access rights at von Bülow. This also resulted in a dispute with von Holstein, who did not want to tolerate a "side cabinet". The conflict in government escalated during the Morocco crisis in the spring of 1905.

Holstein demanded from Hammann that a harsh article against France should appear in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung . Hammann refused, however, to adopt such a bellicose tone, since the emperor's trip to Tangier would set clear signals that would spread sufficient public unrest. Bülow supported Hammann in this attitude, which further increased tensions with Holstein.

Holstein now demanded the post of director in the cabinet of the political department in the Foreign Office and thus of press work. Since Holstein was burdened with other problems and as a result submitted his resignation on April 5, 1906, this directive was no longer effective.

Restrictions, censorship and parting

In 1909 Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg became Chancellor of the Reich, which meant that the importance of press work in the Foreign Office decreased again. On May 3, 1909, he was charged with perjury in connection with the Schmitz divorce affair before the Berlin district court and was therefore temporarily suspended from his position. After his acquittal on July 6, 1909, he was able to continue his work.

Contacts with the press and the public decreased, and the disruptions for Hammann increased in his work. State Secretary Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter made his own representations and the Reichsmarineamt carried out propaganda with its own people. With the beginning of the First World War , censorship was introduced, information from abroad was omitted and the war press office was under the close supervision of the Supreme Army Command.

On April 12, 1915, he was appointed Director of Department IV for News and New Facilities. Four months later, he took on the position of Deputy Prussian Plenipotentiary to the Federal Council. He could no longer fulfill these tasks, which is why he retired with effect from April 1, 1917.

In 1916 he had already taken over the chairmanship of the supervisory board of the news agency Transocean GmbH . In addition, he wrote down his memories and wrote writings on contemporary history that describe in great detail certain historical details and references to people.

Fonts

  • The German noblemen and their special rights , Donaueschingen 1888
  • What now? On the history of the socialist workers' party in Germany , Berlin 1889
  • The Communist Society , Berlin 1891
  • The new course - memories , Berlin 1918
  • On the prehistory of the World War , Berlin 1918
  • About the Kaiser - Memories from the years 1906-09 , Berlin 1919
  • The misunderstood Bismarck. 20 years of German world politics , Berlin 1921
  • Pictures from the last imperial era , Berlin 1922
  • German world politics 1890-1912 , Berlin 1925
  • Records , in: Archive for Politics and History 3 (1915), pp. 541–553

credentials

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stefan Appelius : adultery affair around 1900 - passion, excesses and a horned architect , under SPON

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hammann, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH Blankenhain
DATE OF DEATH June 18, 1928
Place of death Fürstenberg / Havel