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Paul Schiemann is a prominent Baltic German liberal politician, current Chairman of the DbDP (Baltic German Democratic Party) and a very influential person behind the government of Friedrich von Samson-Himmelstjerna, with whom he had established the party as one of the most influential opposition forces within the Duchy shortly after the Weltkrieg. Because of a severe illness, Schiemann does not actively participate in the government and mainly advises the Samson-Himmelstjerna administration from the background.
Schiemann is widely known as a cultural inclusionist; he opposes Germanization programs and the strict elitism which dominates the current society in the United Baltic Duchy. As a firm believer of federal and democratic values, he aims for the disposal of reactionary aristocratic hierarchies within the Baltics, with the eventual goal to establish a truly egalitarian "Baltic Federation". With aristocratic influence however more entrenched than ever, this will certainly be a difficult task, and compromises will have to be made.
History[]
Early Life[]
Carl Christian Theodor Paul Schiemann was born in 1876 in Mitau, Courland, then part of the Russian Empire, into a wealthy and conservative family; His relatives included Paul Schiemann, a a prominent supporter and historian of the German Empire. Schiemann was educated in the German Empire, for example in Greifswald, Marburg, Königsberg and Berlin, and underwent military training in the Imperial Russian Army in present day Lithuania and the Caucasus.
Political Views[]
Different to most of his family, his own political views were very liberal, making him an equally ardent opponent of Bolshevism, Syndicalism and far-right ideologies. Soon, he would use the media to proclaim his theses: After returning to the Baltics, he would edit several German-speaking liberal newspapers, among them the Revalsche Zeitung in Reval, Estonia, and alter the Rigasche Rundschau, the most important German newspaper in the Baltic governorates. 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. Schiemann also was one of the co-founders of the German Association (Deutscher Verein), an organization which aimed to preserve German culture in the Baltics in the wake of oppressive Russifiaction attempts by the Tsarist government.
Weltkrieg and Russian Revolution[]
During the Weltkrieg, Schiemann fought in the Russian army, although his brother fought for the Germans. His hope was, even though quite unrealistic, that noone oof the Great Powers would emerge as the winner, which would lead to the collapse of both the Entente and the Central Powers and would finally enable proper democratization options, as the old leadership would have been flushed away. This of course, did not happen; However, in 1917, the Russian Revolution would plunge Russia into anarchy and chaos instead; Schiemann deeply opposed this revolution, as it was of proletarian nature and only lead to violence, chaos and corruption.
After the October Revolution he left the army and returned to German-occupied Riga. However, due to his negative views towards the aristocratic-military order of the Livonian Knighthood, he was soon expelled from the city. After his expulsion, Schiemann went to Berlin where he worked for the newspapers Frankfurter Zeitung and Preussische Jahrbücher. While in Berlin, he published several anti-Bolshevik articles. It was also at this time that he joined the Baltic German Democratic Party, at this point exiled in Germany and still banned in the Baltics. This would not change until after the end of the war, when political liberalization would begin to set in in the newly formed United Baltic Duchy.
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