Wilhelm Sponneck

Who was Wilhelm Sponneck?

Wilhelm Carl Eppingen Sponneck was a Danish nobleman and Minister of Finance. In 1863, he accompanied 17-year-old Prince Vilhelm of Denmark to Greece where Vilhelm had just been elected king. Sponneck served as advisor to the king for a few years.

Sponneck graduated as a student of Sorø Academy in 1832 and took a law degree in 1836. He was employed in the Danish customs service and rose to a leading position in the 1840s after publishing a 600-page work about customs services. The king appointed him member of the Constitutional Assembly in 1848. The same year, he was appointed Finance Minister, an office he occupied in a total of five cabinets. He was first a supporter of the Unitary State with Holstein but during the First War of Schleswig he switched to a pro-Danish policy, and in 1850 he enacted a temporary law removing the customs differences between Denmark and Schleswig, and later the same year, he enacted a similar law abolishing the Danish-Schleswig customs border altogether. In 1850-51, he tried to introduce the income tax, a proposal rejected by Parliament. Sponneck's proposal to introduce stamps was more successful and the first Danish stamps were issued in 1851.