JOACHIM II. (1505-1571), surnamed Hector, elector of Brandenburg, the elder son of Joachim I., elector of Branden burg, was born on Jan. 13, 1505. He became elector of Branden burg on his father's death in July 1535, and undertook the gov ernment of the old and middle marks, while the new mark passed to his brother John. He was twice married, his second wife being Hedwig, daughter of Sigismund, King of Poland. Joachim made repeated attempts to make peace between the Protestants and the emperor Charles V. at Frankfort in 1539, and elsewhere. In 1542 he led the German forces on an unsuccessful campaign against the Turks. With Maurice, elector of Saxony, he persuaded Philip, landgrave of Hesse, to surrender to Charles after the imperial victory at Miihlberg in April and pledged his word (which Charles failed to honour) that the landgrave would be pardoned. He supported the Interim, which was issued from Augsburg in May 1548, and took part in the negotiations for the Treaty of Passau (1552), and the religious peace of Augsburg (1555). In domestic politics he consolidated the power of his house by treaties with neighbouring princes, and secularized the bishoprics of Brandenburg, Havelberg and Lebus. In 1539 he
allowed free entrance to the reformed teaching in the electorate.
He took the communion himself in both kinds, and established a new ecclesiastical organization in Brandenburg, but retained mucn of the ceremonial of the Church of Rome. His position was not unlike that of Henry VIII. in England, and may be partly ex plained by a desire to replenish his impoverished exchequer with the wealth of the Church. By his lavish expenditure on public build4igs he piled up a great accumulation of debt, which was partly discharged by the estates of the land in return for important concessions. He secured the archbishopric of Magdeburg and the bishopric of Halberstadt for his son Frederick in 1551; on Fred erick's death in 1552, the sees passed to his brother Sigismund. Joachim died at Kopenick on Jan. 3, 1571, and was succeeded by his son, John George.
See Steinmiiller, Einfiihrung der Reformation in die Kurmark Brandenburg durch Joachim II. (1903).