Gustav Simon

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For the German surgeon, see Gustav Simon (surgeon).
Gustav Simon
Civil Administration of Luxembourg
In office
2 August 1940 – 30 August 1942
DeputyHeinrich Christian Siekmeier [de]
Preceded byPosition created
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Personal details
Born
Gustav Johannes Simon

(1900-08-02)2 August 1900
Johann Wolfgang Goethe University
ProfessionTeacher
NicknameThe Toadstool of Hermeskeil
Gustav Simon (center) with family in the 1930s.
Gustav Simon (center) with family in the 1930s.

Gustav Simon (2 August 1900– 18 December 1945) was a Nazi Party official who served as Gauleiter of Gau Moselland from 1931 to 1945 and, from 1940 until 1942, as Chief of Civil Administration in occupied Luxembourg. In this position, he was chiefly responsible for the Holocaust in Luxembourg.[1]

Early years

Gustav Simon's father was a

völkisch College Group (völkische Hochschulgruppe) in Frankfurt, and was elected to the position of Second Chairman that year.[2]

Nazi Party career

In 1924, when the Nazi Party was banned after the failed

Old Fighters" ("alte Kämpfer") who would later automatically be decorated with the Golden Party Badge. Shortly after joining, Simon founded the Hochschulgruppe Frankfurt of the National Socialist German Students' League and in 1927, he was chosen by the majority of students to be President of the General Students' Committee. In addition, he had already founded a local NSDAP local branch (Ortsgruppe) in Hermeskeil in autumn 1926.[2] After completing his studies in May 1927, he was employed as a business teacher in Völklingen. Before a year was even out, though, he left the school and began working full-time for the Nazi Party at the invitation of Robert Ley, then the Gauleiter of the southern Rhineland.[5]

Beginning in 1928, Simon quickly rose in the Party hierarchy. In 1928 he became NSDAP

Nazi seizure of power, he was appointed the President of the Rhineland Landtag on 10 April 1933 and became a member of the Prussian State Council in July 1933. In 1934 came an appointment as a Prussian Provincial Councilor for the Rhineland and, in September 1935, he was made a member of the Academy for German Law.[7] Unlike most other Gauleiters, Simon did not belong to the SA or the SS; however, he was a member of the National Socialist Motor Corps (Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrerkorps, NSKK) being promoted to NSKK-Gruppenführer on 9 November 1935 and NSKK-Obergruppenführer on 30 January 1939.[2]

At the start of the

Wehrkreis (Military District) XII that included his Gau, which was renamed Moselland on 24 January 1941. On 16 November 1942, Simon was named Reich Defense Commissioner for the Gau. In this capacity, he had responsibility for civil defense, air defense and evacuation matters, as well as wartime rationing and suppression of black market activity.[8]

Simon had the reputation of a notoriously corrupt administrator. Considered by many as one of the least able and most arrogant of the Gauleiters, his jurisdiction was riddled with corruption and nepotism. Due to his short stature and toxic personality, he was derisively referred to as the "Toadstool of Hermeskeil."[9]

Chief of Civil Administration in Luxembourg

After the German invasion and conquest on 10 May 1940, the

Grand Duchy of Luxembourg first fell under the Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France, commanded by General der Infanterie, Alexander von Falkenhausen. Under this commander, Simon took over civil administration of Luxembourg on 25 July 1940. The military occupation status ended on 2 August 1940, when Simon was appointed Chief of Civil Administration (Chef der Zivilverwaltung, CdZ) by a decree from the Führer (Führererlass). His representative in this function was the Regierungspräsident (Government District President) of Trier, Heinrich Christian Siekmeier [de]. Their job was to give the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg – now the CdZ-Gebiet Luxemburg – German administrative structures, and to prepare it to become an integral part of the Greater German Reich.[10]

Political assimilation

On 6 August 1940, Simon ordered all police functions removed from the

German Labor Front. Finally, on 30 August 1942, Luxembourg was formally annexed to the Greater German Reich, becoming part of Gau Moselland. Simon ordered that all Luxembourger males born between 1920 and 1924 were subject to compulsory military conscription into the Wehrmacht. In protest, a general strike broke out the next day and was ruthlessly suppressed by Simon who declared martial law. He threatened striking workers with execution unless they returned to their factories, and 20 strike leaders were eventually executed at the Hinzert concentration camp. In addition, some 2,000 persons were arrested and 290 high school students who had participated were deported to “re-education” camps in Germany.[11]

Germanization

In addition to the political assimilation, Simon pursued a harsh and unrelenting policy of cultural

Germanization. On 6 August 1940, he ordered the closure of all French schools and banned the use of the French language and the Luxembourgish language. German was declared the exclusive official language for government, education, the media, law and the economy. All commercial signs, building inscriptions, advertising and printed matter, as well as all traffic, street and road signs were required to be in German. Violations were punishable by fine or imprisonment.[12]

Additionally, on 31 January 1941, Simon issued orders that Luxembourgers with non-German or foreign given names were required to adopt the German version of that name or, if no such form existed, to select a German given name. Likewise, those whose surname had been of German origin but had later been changed to a non-German form, were required to resume the original surname.[13]

Jewish persecution and genocide

There were estimated to be about 3,500 Jews in Luxembourg at the beginning of the Nazi occupation and Simon immediately began the process of attempting to make the area

ghettos or extermination camps in the east. Nearly all were forcibly removed in eight transports between October 1941 and September 1943. It is estimated that of the 634 deported, only 36 survived. In total, about 1,945 of Luxembourg's Jews perished by the war's end.[14]

Capture and death

Simon fled Luxembourg on 9 September 1944, ahead of the advancing

U.S. Army that entered Luxembourg City without a fight the next day. On 25 September 1944, Simon was made commander of the Nazi militia, the Volkssturm, in Gau Moselland. However, in spring 1945, the Allied offensive continued and the Gau's capital, Koblenz, fell on 19 March. Simon fled eastward and, when the war ended in May, he went into hiding in Upsprunge, a community in Salzkotten, Westphalia, using his mother's maiden name of Woffler and posing as a gardener. On 10 December 1945, he was seized by British Captain Hanns Alexander and a detachment of soldiers. The next day he was taken to a British Army prison in Paderborn where he unsuccessfully tried to kill himself by cutting his wrists.[15]

Following his death on 18 December 1945, several contradictory rumors persisted about the place and the circumstances of Simon's end. The stories, however, can be grouped into two fundamental versions:

In any event, Simon's body was taken to the prison in

Grund, a neighbourhood in the capital, where it was photographed by the press, and then buried. Simon's premature death thwarted any trial. The murder version has been investigated in studies based on both British and Luxembourgish archival documents.[18] Thomas Harding
revealed that his great-uncle, Hanss Alexander, was believed by his family to have been involved in the murder:

Gustav Simon had been alive when Hanns picked him up from Paderborn prison, and that he did not hang himself, as Hanns had written in his field report. Instead, Hanns had then been joined by seven Luxembourg partisans, Captain Leone Muller among them, taken Simon to a forest outside of Paderborn and executed him. Having sworn an oath never to reveal what took place, Hanns was alleged to have covered up the murder, presenting the 'official version' at the press conference the next day in Luxembourg. This alternative account is bolstered by various inconsistencies with the official version: why, for instance, if Simon had committed suicide in prison on 18 December 1945, was a death certificate not issued until 8 February 1946, a full two months after his death? Equally, how could a man who was 1.6m high possibly hang himself from a bedpost that was 1.4m high? Even if such a feat was technically possible, how could the guard posted outside his door on suicide watch, for twenty-four hours a day, not have noticed what was taking place inside the cell? Finally, if the suicide had taken place, why had so many people come forward saying that the official version was untrue? According to this unofficial account, the murder was motivated either by Luxembourg collaborators, who did not want Simon to reveal their identities in court or by partisans, angry at Simon's treatment of the Luxembourg nationalists and Jews.[19]

See also

References

  1. ^ G. Hausemer (2006): Luxemburger Lexikon. Das Großherzogtum von A-Z. Luxembourg, Editions Binsfeld, p. 397.
  2. ^ a b c Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 247.
  3. ^ Paul Dostert: Luxemburg zwischen Selbstbehauptung und nationaler Selbstaufgabe, ISP 1985, p.70
  4. ^ Hans Peter Klauck: Gustav Simon, der Satrap aus Saarbrücken, Gauleiter des Mosellandes [1]
  5. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 248.
  6. ISBN 978-1-932-97021-0
    .
  7. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 248–249.
  8. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 250, 257.
  9. ^ Orlow 1973, p. 320.
  10. ^ Paul Dostert: Luxemburg zwischen Selbstbehauptung und nationaler Selbstaufgabe, ISP 1985
  11. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 250–257.
  12. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 250, 252.
  13. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 255.
  14. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 251.
  15. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 258, 261.
  16. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 262–263.
  17. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 263–264.
  18. ^ A. Schaack (2009): Le suicide du Gauleiter face aux légendes historiques: La mort du Gauleiter Gustav Simon. In: Die Warte 2009, Nr. 10 (19. März), pp. 2-3.
    Spang, Paul: Gustav Simons Ende. In: Hémecht. Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte. Revue d'histoire luxembourgeoise 44 (1992) 3, S. 303-317.
    P.J. Muller (1968): Tatsachen aus der Geschichte des Luxemburger Landes. Luxembourg, Vlg. "De Frendeskres" u. Impr. Bourg-Bourger, p. 410.
  19. ^ Thomas Harding: Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz. London: William Heinemann, 2013, p. 219. & pp. 314-315.

Sources

External links
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