Wilhelm Joachim von Hammerstein

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm Joachim Baron von Hammerstein (born February 21, 1838 in Retzow (Müritz) , † March 16, 1904 in Charlottenburg ) was a Prussian politician of the German Conservative Party and editor-in-chief of the Kreuzzeitung newspaper .

Life

Wilhelm Joachim von Hammerstein, a descendant of the Gesmold barons von Hammerstein , finished high school in Lüneburg in 1856 and studied forest sciences in Tharandt and Eberswalde . In 1860 he joined the Mecklenburg-Schwerin forestry service under the forester Hermann von Gloeden , who, along with his brother-in-law Friedrich Bernhard Maassen , had a decisive influence on his political views. Two years later he was appointed "Forstjunker" and after the death of his father in 1863 he managed the inherited estate in Schwartow / Pomerania. In 1864 he married Charlotte von Gloeden, b. Maaßen (1824–1904), the widow of his mentor von Gloeden, and thus became the stepfather of the later nude photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden .

The constituency administrative district Köslin 1 (Stolp - Lauenburg - Bütow) sent him to the Prussian House of Representatives in 1876 , where he became a member of the German Conservative Party and soon belonged to the leaders of the extreme right. He was a member of the House of Representatives until his resignation in 1895. In 1881 he was elected to the German Reichstag and in 1884 took over the chief editor of the Kreuzzeitung.

With the acceleration of industrialization in the empire , the wealth of the nobility gained from agricultural property and production increasingly lagged behind the rapidly growing capital assets. As a clerical conservative, Hammerstein therefore advocated social policy measures in order to influence “the masses” and to use them as a means of pressure against “upper-class liberal pursuit of profit”. From 1884 to 1887 he worked closely with Eduard von Ungern-Sternberg at the newspaper .

Hammerstein advocated the revision of the May laws in the Prussian Kulturkampf . He welcomed the fact that as a result of the Waldersee Assembly of November 28, 1887, at which Kaiser Wilhelm II called for “action against the neglect of the masses” in order to “counter the impending danger from social democracy and anarchism ”, the Evangelical Church aid association was founded. Its Evangelical Church Building Association built around 70 Protestant churches over the next 40 years, including the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin and the Ascension Church (Jerusalem) .

The attitude of the Kreuzzeitung under Hammerstein, which turned more to the German Center Party than to the cartel parties ( German Conservative Party , German Reich Party , National Liberal Party ), and thus also its own, was received ambiguously among the conservatives. For tactical reasons, the cartel parties voted for their constituency candidates for the elections on February 21, 1887, thereby gaining an impressive 220 seats. Hammerstein therefore attacked the Bismarck government in 1889 , which, in his opinion, called the monarchy into question through a cartel-friendly policy. For this reason, Hammerstein left the party leadership. When the emperor also presented himself as non-partisan in a decree in the Reichsanzeiger and thus disavowed the hyperloyal Kreuzzeitung, Hammerstein was no longer re-elected in 1890. In a replacement election for the constituency of Herford-Halle, however, he moved back into the Reichstag in 1892 and maintained the mandate in the new election in 1893. On November 11, 1895, Hammerstein resigned from his seat.

Hammerstein affair

On July 4th, 1895, the Kreuzzeitung's committee suspended its editor-in-chief Hammerstein for dishonesty. He had been bribed by a paper supplier Flinsch and had given him inflated bills for it. He forged the signatures of Counts Kanitz and Finckenstein . He therefore resigned his mandates in the Reich and Landtag in the summer of 1895.

When the Ministry of Justice opened an investigation, Hammerstein fled with his family and 200,000 marks via Tyrol and Naples to Greece, where he arrived on October 7th. After protests by the DFP and SPD in the Reichstag, who accused the Minister of Justice of mild persecution - in order to let Hammerstein escape on purpose - the latter sent a detective inspector Wolff to southern Europe. Wolff found Baroness von Gloeden and her son Wilhelm in Taormina and Hammerstein alias “Dr. Heckert ”on December 27th in Athens. He arranged for his deportation and arrested him on arrival in Brindisi . In April 1896 Hammerstein was sentenced to three years in prison.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mann, Bernhard (edit.): Biographical manual for the Prussian House of Representatives. 1867-1918. Collaboration with Martin Doerry , Cornelia Rauh and Thomas Kühne. Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1988, p. 165 (handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties: vol. 3); for the election results see Thomas Kühne : Handbook of elections to the Prussian House of Representatives 1867–1918. Election results, election alliances and election candidates (= handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 6). Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5182-3 , pp. 252-255.
  2. ^ Fritz Specht, Paul Schwabe: The Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1903. Statistics of the Reichstag elections together with the programs of the parties and a list of the elected representatives. 2nd Edition. Carl Heymann Verlag, Berlin 1904, p. 136; Carl-Wilhelm Reibel: Handbook of the Reichstag elections 1890-1918. Alliances, results, candidates (= handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 15). Half volume 1, Droste, Düsseldorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-7700-5284-4 , pp. 695-699.
  3. ↑ Hammerstein, Wilh., Freiherr von . In: Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon 1894–1896, supplement volume 1897, p. 528.
personal data
SURNAME Hammerstein, Wilhelm Joachim von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hammerstein-Gesmold, Wilhelm Joachim von; Hammerstein, Wilhelm Joachim Baron von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, Member of the Bundestag and forester
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Retzow (Müritz)
DATE OF DEATH March 16, 1904
Place of death Charlottenburg