SPAHN, PETER. - German politician, b. 22 May 1846 at Winkel in the Rheingau, d. 31 Aug. 1925 at Bad Wildungen.
He entered the judiciary in 1874 as a judge at Marienburg, and through various grades reached the office of president of the Supreme Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main in 1910. In 1882 he began his parliamentary activity in the ranks of the Centre, and became one of its most representative figures. A member of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies from 1882 to 1900, of the Reichstag from 1884 to 1917, and of the Upper Chamber in 1917-18, he did not renounce political life after the abdication of William II and was a member, during the Weimar Republic, of the National Assembly that drafted the new Constitution, and then of the various parliaments that succeeded one another until his death. Besides holding political offices of particular importance (from 1912 to 1917 he was president of the Centre's parliamentary group), he took an active part in legislative work; from 1891 he was a member of the preparatory commission for the new civil code, of which he was also president; from Aug. 1917 to Nov. 1918 he was Minister of Justice, and in 1919, together with other delegates, he was commissioned by the Centre to negotiate with the Social Democrats for the conclusion of a modus vivendi on the allocation of the highest state offices.
Among his writings may be mentioned: Das Eherecht im Entwurf des bürgerlichen Gesetzbuches (1890); Die Verwaltung des Vermögens der Kirche (1891); Verwandtschaft und Vormundschaft nach dem bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch (1900).
Bibliography3 works
Silvio Furlani