Wilhelm Joachim von Hammerstein

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

In 1860 he entered the forestry service of Mecklenburg-Schwerin under the forester Carl Hermann von Gloeden, who, next to his brother-in-law Friedrich Bernhard Maassen, significantly influenced his political views.

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.

With the acceleration of industrialization in the empire, the wealth of the aristocracy gained from agricultural property and production increasingly lagged behind the rapidly growing capital assets.

He welcomed the fact that as a result of the Waldersee Assembly on 28 November 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.

After protests by the DFP and SPD in the Reichstag, who accused the Minister of Justice of mild persecution - in order to intentionally let Hammerstein escape - the latter sent a detective commissioner Wolff to southern Europe.