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 ranks, attained the office of president of the Supreme Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main in 1910. In 1882 he began his parliamentary career 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 withdraw from political life after the abdication of Guglielmo II and, during the Weimar Republic, belonged to the National Assembly that drafted the new Constitution, and subsequently to the various parliaments that succeeded one another until his death. In addition to holding political offices of particular importance (from 1912 to 1917 he was president of the Centre parliamentary group), he took an active part in legislative work; from 1891 he belonged to 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 charged by the Centre with negotiating with the Social Democrats for the conclusion of a modus vivendi concerning the assignment of the highest state offices.
Among his writings are: Das Eherecht im Entwurf des bürgerlichen Gesetzbuches (1890); Die Verwaltung des Vermögens der Kirche (1891); Verwandtschaft und Vormundschaft nach dem bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch (1900).