Paul Schiemann grew up in a Baltic German family in Latvia. After completing his law degree at the University of Greifswald in 1902, he went to Estonia to work as a theater critic and journalist. He returned to Latvia five years later.
In 1919 he became editor-in-chief of the Rigasche Rundschau newspaper. Schiemann was involved in drafting the first constitution of the independent Republic of Latvia in 1922. He was a convinced democrat and an opponent of dictatorial regimes in Europe. When proponents of National Socialism took over the Rigasche Rundschau in 1933, Schiemann had to leave the newspaper.
During the German occupation of Latvia, Paul Schiemann and his wife Charlotte hid the Jewish woman Valentīna Freimane. She lived in the Schiemanns’ house in Riga from the spring of 1943 to the summer of 1944. Paul Schiemann was 67 years old and severely ill. Valentīna Freimane helped him to write his memoirs.
Paul Schiemann was posthumously honored as Righteous Among the Nations in 1999.