Person attributes
Schumann was born in June 1886 in Clausen, Luxembourg, having his father's German citizenship. His father, Jean-Pierre Schuman (died 1900), a native of Lorraine and a French citizen by birth, became a German citizen when Lorraine was annexed by Germany in 1871, and he left to settle in Luxembourg, near his native village of Evrange.
Schumann received his secondary education from 1896 to 1903 at the Luxembourg Lyceum, followed by the Imperial Lyceum in Metz in 1904. From 1904 to 1910, he studied law, economics, political philosophy, theology and statistics at the universities of Berlin, Munich, Bonn and Strasbourg and received a law degree with honors from the University of Strasbourg.
In 1940, due to his experience in Germany, Schumann was called to become a member of the military government of Paul Renaud to be responsible for refugees. He held this position during the first Petain government. On July 10, he voted for the transfer of full power to Marshal Philippe Petain, who supported the armistice with Germany, but refused to continue to remain in the government. On September 14, he was arrested for acts of resistance and protest against Nazi methods. He was interrogated by the Gestapo, but the intervention of a German lawyer prevented his being sent to the Dachau concentration camp.
After the war, Schumann became very famous. Initially, he had difficulties due to the fact that in 1940 he voted for Petain and was one of his ministers. In September 1944, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, commander of the First French Army, invited him to become a political adviser on Alsace-Lorraine, soon the Minister of War Andre Diethelm demanded that "this Vichy product be immediately expelled.". Schuman was a former minister of Petain and a member of Parliament who voted to grant him full powers, and therefore, according to the decree of August 26, 1944, he was considered unfit to hold public office because he suffered from national humiliation. On July 24, 1945, Schumann wrote a letter to Charles de Gaulle asking him to intervene. De Gaulle responded positively, and on September 15, Schumann fully restored his civil rights, once again being able to play an active role in French politics.
