Wachtmeister was born on the family estate Nääs outside Nyköping in Södermanland County on 24 December 1932.

[2] Wachtmeister studied mining and metallurgy at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and graduated in 1957.

[1] Prior to the election in 1998, Wachtmeister organised the short lived and unsuccessful Det nya partiet (The New Party).

In 2010 he was associated with the political party Sweden Democrats as a "general advisor" to their leader Jimmie Åkesson.

[3] When asked in 2009 he expressed his intention to vote for the Liberal People's Party in the 2010 Swedish general election.