Edwin Magnus

Edwin Magnus (born March 17 ^{. Jul} / 29. March  1888 ^greg. In Liepaja ( Courland Governorate ); † 9. September 1974 in Vienna ) was a German-Latvian politicians ( DbRP ).

Magnus was the son of a bank director. He attended high school in Libau and then studied law in Moscow. In 1908 he was awarded a gold medal. He completed his studies with a doctorate. From 1908 to 1911 he was a legal assistant in Moscow and from 1911 in Riga . During the First World War he served as an officer in the Russian army.

After the February Revolution he (together with representatives of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council) became a member of the commission that decided on the fate of the inhaled “ counter-revolutionaries ”. He managed to get most of them (mostly Baltic Germans ) released. After the formation of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic , he became a volunteer in the Baltic Army in 1919 . After the capture of Riga in May 1919 he became city governor there.

In 1918 he was one of the founders of the Latvian People's Council ( Latvijas Tautas padome ), which was formed on November 17, 1918 and the day after proclaimed independence from Russia. From July 14, 1919 to December 8, 1919 he was Minister of Justice in Ulmani's 2nd cabinet . He took part in the Russian-Latvian peace negotiations as a representative of banking and industrial interests.

In 1920 he was a founding member and from 1920 to 1932 chairman of the German-Baltic Reform Party. For this he was a member of the Constituent Assembly and city councilor in Riga. From January 24, 1928 to December 1, 1928 he was again Minister of Justice in Ulmani's third cabinet. From 1933 to 1938 he was Latvian Ambassador to Vienna.

During the Second World War he lived in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. A naturalization in Germany ran into difficulties, as he was classified as a "mixed race II degree" according to the National Socialist racial ideology. After the war he moved back to Vienna.

literature

• Mads Ole Balling: From Reval to Bucharest. Statistical-Biographical Handbook of the Parliamentarians of the German Minorities in East Central and Southeast Europe 1919–1945, Volume 1, 2nd Edition . Copenhagen 1991, ISBN 87-983829-3-4 , pp. 143 .