Peeter Kann

Peeter Kann (9 January 1883 – January 1943) was an Estonian military officer, jurist and judge. A veteran of the Imperial Russian Army, the First World War and the Estonian War of Independence, he served as military prosecutor of Estonia and reached the rank of colonel. In December 1920 he was elected to the Supreme Court of Estonia, where he remained until the Soviet occupation in 1940; from 1923 he chaired the Criminal Department, later served as deputy chairman of the court, and acted as chief justice in 1940. Arrested by the NKVD after the Soviet occupation of Estonia, he died in the Gulag in January 1943.

Early life and education Kann was born in Hellamaa Parish on the island of Muhu, then part of the Governorate of Livonia in the Russian Empire. He attended the parish school in Hellamaa, later studied at Kuressaare city school and Kuressaare Gymnasium, and read law at Saint Petersburg University from 1904 to 1911.

During the unrest associated with the 1905 Russian Revolution on Saaremaa, Kann was imprisoned in Kresty Prison in Saint Petersburg from 1908 to 1910.

After Estonian independence was declared and the Defence League was re-established, Kann was appointed commander of the Tallinn and Harju County Defence League and commandant of Tallinn on 11 November 1918. During the Estonian War of Independence he also served as a brigade commander in the 2nd Division and later as assistant commander of the 3rd Division. He was promoted to colonel in 1919. He also chaired the higher ecclesiastical court of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church from 1936 to 1940. Cross of Liberty I/2 (1920) Lāčplēsis War Order, 3rd class Order of the Cross of the Eagle, 2nd class (1929) Order of the White Star, 2nd class (1938) Order of Polonia Restituta, 3rd class Order of the Three Stars, 2nd class Order of St. George, 4th class several other Imperial Russian decorations, including the Orders of St Anna and St Stanislaus

Personal life Kann married Marta Amalie Anna Pollakse in 1921. His brother Nikolai Kann was an educator and politician.

Selected works