Peter Spahn (politician)

Peter Spahn

Peter Spahn

Peter Joseph Spahn (born May 22, 1846 in Winkel , Rheingau ; † August 31, 1925 in Bad Wildungen ) was a German lawyer and politician at the center .

Life and work

Peter Spahn was the son of a Wagner. After graduating from high school in Hadamar in 1866 , Spahn studied law in Würzburg , Tübingen , Berlin and Marburg . In 1874 he was appointed magistrate in Marienburg in the province of West Prussia . In 1887 he became a judge at the Bonn Regional Court , in 1892 a judge at the Poznan Higher Regional Court and from 1896 at the Berlin Regional Court . In 1898 he became Reich judge in Leipzig, in 1905 President of the Higher Regional Court in Kiel , in 1910 he moved to Frankfurt am Main in the same position until 1917 . In 1899 he was President of the Catholic Day in Neisse .

Political party

Spahn was a member of the center . Already during the First World War, Spahn, like his son Martin Spahn, criticized the alleged “left-wing orientation” of the center because it was too strongly influenced by Matthias Erzberger .

MP

Spahn was a member of the Prussian House of Representatives from 1882 to 1888, 1891 to 1898 and 1904 to 1907. In 1918 he was a member of the Prussian manor house . From 1884 to 1917 he was a member of the Reichstag . He initially represented the Reichstag constituency of Königsberg 6 (Braunsberg-Heilsberg) and from 1890 the Cologne 4 constituency ( Bonn - Rheinbach ) in parliament. From 1895 to 1898 and from 1909 to 1911 he was Vice President of the Reichstag. On February 9, 1912, he won the runoff election against August Bebel as President of the Reichstag, but resigned after a few days. In 1912 he became parliamentary group leader of the center there. As chairman of the advisory commission in the Reichstag, he played a key role in drafting the BGB . He also had a decisive influence on the drafting of the new HGB and the constitution of Alsace-Lorraine.

In 1919/20 Spahn was a member of the Weimar National Assembly , where he was deputy chairman of the "Committee for the preliminary consultation of the draft constitution of the German Empire". Although he was a conservative monarchist in terms of his convictions, he advocated cooperation with the SPD and the acceptance of the Versailles Treaty . He then belonged to the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic until his death .

From 1924 his son Martin was a member of the Reichstag for the German National People's Party.

Public offices

From August 8, 1917 to November 28, 1918, Spahn was Minister of Justice of Prussia . He was the first Prussian minister to belong to the Center Party.

Honors

In 1898 he was supported by the University of Tubingen for his services to the new civil law and in 1909 by the University of Leuven for honorary doctorate doctorate.

Publications

• Relationship and guardianship according to the civil code for the German Empire . 1901.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fritz Specht, Paul Schwabe: The Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1903. Statistics of the Reichstag elections together with the programs of the parties and a list of the elected representatives. 2nd Edition. Carl Heymann Verlag, Berlin 1904, p. 4.
2. ^ Fritz Specht, Paul Schwabe: The Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1903. Statistics of the Reichstag elections together with the programs of the parties and a list of the elected representatives. 2nd Edition. Carl Heymann Verlag, Berlin 1904, p. 175.
3. ↑ Imperial Statistical Office (Ed.): The Reichstag elections of 1912 . Issue 2. (= Statistics of the German Reich. Volume 250). Published by Puttkammer & Mühlbrecht, Berlin 1913, p. 93
4. ^ [1] Scan from the Reichstag minutes of the 3rd session of the 13th Reichstag of the German Empire with announcement of the election results for the election of the President of the Reichstag of the German Empire

literature

• Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 1: Social politicians in the German Empire 1871 to 1918. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-86219-038-6 , p. 152 f. ( Online , PDF; 2.2 MB).
• H. Neubach: Peter Spahn (1846-1925). In: R. Morsey: Contemporary history in life pictures. From the German Catholicism of the 20th century . 1973, pp. 65-80.
• Siegfried Koß, Wolfgang Löhr (Hrsg.): Biographical Lexicon of KV. 3rd part (= Revocatio historiae. Volume 4). SH-Verlag, Schernfeld 1994, ISBN 3-89498-014-1 , p. 109 f.
• Erhard Zimmer: The history of the higher regional court Frankfurt. Kramer, Frankfurt 1976, ISBN 3-7829-0174-6 , pp. 141-143.

Web links

Commons : Peter Spahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Peter Spahn in the catalog of the German National Library
• Peter Spahn in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Peter Spahn in the online version of the Reich Chancellery Edition Files. Weimar Republic
• Newspaper article about Peter Spahn in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Spahn, Peter Joseph. Hessian biography. (As of March 18, 2020). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).