Joseph Reinach (30 September 1856 – 18 April 1921) was a French Democratic Republican Alliance politician who served as a deputy from 1889 to 1898 and 1906 to 1914 and as Mayor of Digne-les-Bains from 1919 to 1921.
Biography[]
Joseph Reinach was born in Paris, France in 1856, the son of a German-Jewish banker. He became a lawyer in 1887 and attracted the attention of Leon Gambetta through his writings, and he served in the Chamber of Deputies for Digne from 1889 to 1898. He supported better treatment for the insane, for the establishment of a colonial ministry, for the taxation of alcoholic beverages, the reparation of judicial errors, freedom of theatre and the press, the abolition of public executions, and anti-corruption measures. He was best known as a champion of Alfred Dreyfus' cause during the Dreyfus affair of the 1890s, writing a history of the case that was published in 1905. He died in 1921, outliving his son, the Egyptologist Adolphe Reinach, who was killed in World War I in August 1914.