SIMONS, WALTER
Publié le 22/02/2012
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SIMONS, WALTER (1861–1937), judge; served as President of the Supreme
Court (1922–1929). Born in Elberfeld (now in Wuppertal) to a family long
involved in silk weaving, he was raised in a pious Lutheran milieu. After eclectic
studies, he began a legal career in 1888 with the Prussian civil service.* He
served during 1897–1905 as a district judge in Meiningen and then became
regional court counsel at Kiel; within a year he transferred to the Justice Office
in Berlin.* Relocated to the Foreign Office in 1911 as a legal advisor, he did
his utmost in the war to avert unrestricted submarine warfare. In 1918 he participated
in the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations. Prinz Max* von Baden, acquainted
with his writings, invited Simons to direct the Chancellery office in
October 1918. A monarchist, he vainly tried to gain the abdication of the Kaiser
and the Crown Prince as prelude to forming a regency for the Kaiser's grandson.
Named director of the Foreign Office's legal department in December 1918,
Simons went to France as the peace delegation's secretary. In protest to the
Versailles Treaty,* he resigned in May 1919. Over the next year, as executive
director for RdI, he sponsored tight credit policies to restore industrial solvency
and attract foreign investment. Although he rejected party membership, he entered
the cabinet of Konstantin Fehrenbach* in June 1920; he was not a skilled
diplomat, and his eleven months as Foreign Minister were burdened by arduous
reparations* negotiations at London and Spa. The occupation of Du¨sseldorf,
Duisburg, and Rohrort resulted (8 March 1921) when Simons rebuffed a reparations-
payment scheme; the cabinet resigned in May as a protest to the London
Ultimatum (see Reparations).
Simons became president of the Supreme Court in October 1922, and the
issue of judicial reform consumed his tenure. Acting President of the Republic
upon the death of Friedrich Ebert,* he received serious appraisal as Ebert's
successor. A devout Protestant,* he was also president of the Evangelical Social
Congress. Insisting that the authority of law took precedence over the authority
of the state, he resigned from the Court in 1929 when President Hindenburg*
refused to act against the government after it had ignored a Court decision. He
thereafter taught international law at Leipzig. Among his publications is a biography
of his friend Hugo Preuss,* the Constitution's* principal author. In
1929 he became chairman of the German Society for International Law. His
Christian convictions precluded his embracing the Third Reich.
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