Wilhelm Hasenclever (19 April 1837 – 3 July 1889) was a German politician. He was originally a tanner by trade but later became a journalist and author. However, he is most known for his political work in the predecessors of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In 1869 and 1870, Hasenclever was a representative for the General German Workers' Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, ADAV) in the Reichstag (parliament) of the North German Confederation. From 1871 on, he was the last president of the ADAV, until it merged with the Social Democratic Workers' Party (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei, SDAP) to form the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, SAP). From 1874 to 1888 he was again a social democrat representative in the Reichstag of the German Empire that had been formed in 1871: Originally for the ADAV, later for the SAP. Hasenclever was member of the party board there as well. Together with Wilhelm Liebknecht, he also founded the party paper Vorwärts, the official newspaper of the SPD until the 1990s. Life and career Wilhelm Hasenclever was born in Arnsberg, the son of a self-employed tanner. The family had protestant roots and had migrated to the catholic Arnsberg. After visiting secondary school up to the "Sekunda" (equivalent to today's Mittlere Reife, a diploma of secondary education below the full-blown Abitur), he learned the tanning trade from his parents. In 1857/58 he was forced into a year of military service; in 1859, another period of military service with the Prussian army in Düsseldorf and Cologne followed. In between and afterwards, Hasenclever – like many artisans of the time – took to the road, taking on various short-term jobs and visiting most member states of the North German Confederation, Switzerland, northern Italy and southern France. His experiences, which made him aware of the problems of the proletariat, greatly influenced his later political stance. Early journalistic and political work Through work in sports clubs, Hasenclever discovered his love of writing and holding speeches. In 1862/63 he became editor for the democratically oriented newspaper Westfälische Volkszeitung in Hagen. As a journalist, he became aware of the writings of the socialist Ferdinand Lassalle, in particular Lasalle's programme for the working class. This became the foundation of the first German social democrat party, with subgroups in most states of the Confederation: the General German Workers' Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, ADAV), founded on 13 May 1863 in