Benedict Waldeck

Benedikt Franz Leo Ignatz Waldeck was a left-leaning deputy in the Prussian National Assembly and later in the Second Chamber of the Landtag of Prussia. He is considered one of the leading left-wing liberals in Prussia during the German revolutions of 1848–1849. In May 1849 he was arrested in Berlin for high treason, but was acquitted in December. Waldeck is an important figure in German constitutional history and in the 1860s he became one of Otto von Bismarck's most important domestic political opponents.