Paul Schiemann

Carl Christian Theodor Paul Schiemann was born in Mitau in Courland, then part of the Russian Empire.

Between 1907 and 1914, he published more than 600 articles and often was involved in heavy polemics with the conservative part of Baltic German society.

In 1919, Paul Schiemann returned to Riga, now capital of the fledgling Republic of Latvia (declared on 18 November 1918) and again became editor of the Rigasche Rundschau.

During the buildup to World War II, Schiemann came under pressure from Baltic German society to abandon his uncompromising defence of the minorities, in particular the Jews.

Schiemann declined to do so, and was one of the few voices of authority in the Baltic German community that argued for the rights of Jews.

In October he also resigned his seat in the Latvian parliament due to declining health and left Latvia to settle in Vienna.

During the late 1930s he was quite unwell, but with war looming and minority rights becoming worse, he refused to leave his country in 1939 - and campaigned for other Baltic Germans to remain, where he felt their country needed them, and not to heed Hitler's call for "repatriation" of the Baltic Germans to the Reich.

Some authorities believe that this was perhaps due to the high regard that his political opponents still held him in - but more likely his drastically failing health had much to do with it.

During the last two years of his life, and despite suffering from severe tuberculosis, Schiemann hid a young Jewish girl, future film critic Valentīna Freimane in his house.