Carl August Simon

Carl August Simon (born March 11, 1817 in Saarlouis ; † May 23, 1887 in Siena , Italy ) was a Prussian major general and fortress construction engineer .

Life

origin

Carl August Simon was the son of Thomas Simon and Susanna Auguste Walther (1788–1863), his younger brother was the 1848 revolutionary Ludwig Simon .

Military career

Simon attended the grammar school in Trier , where his father taught. After graduating, he joined the 1st Reserve Engineer Company of the Prussian Army in Luxembourg on March 18, 1834 as a one-year volunteer . For further training, he graduated from the United Artillery and Engineering School from October 1835 to September 1838 and was meanwhile transferred to the 7th Pioneer Department as Portepeefähnrich . After completing his training, in mid-October 1838 he advanced to the position of aggregated second lieutenant in the 3rd engineer inspection.

1839 Carl August was due to a pistol duel to imprisonment convicted, but soon pardoned, although the opponents died of his injuries.

On October 1, 1841, he was transferred to the 1st Reserve Pioneer Company and on December 17, 1842, he was assigned there. In 1844 he supported his brother in his beginning political activity by helping him to send a letter from Luxembourg, circumventing the Prussian censorship.

On January 4, 1845, Simon became an adjutant of the 7th Pioneer Division and on April 20, 1847 he came to Minden for fortification services . From there he went to the 2nd Reserve Pioneer Company in Mainz on October 1, 1849 . On May 30, 1850, he was transferred to the second engineer inspection and commanded to do fortification services in Cosel . As of mid-June 1850 Simon was in Torgau active and rose until early December 1852 Captain on. On January 23, 1855, he was appointed commander of the 2nd Company of the 3rd Engineer Division. On September 28, 1856 he came to Wittenberg for fortification services . This was followed from October 1858 as an engineer officer from the place in Cosel and at the end of August 1861 in Saarlouis. In Saarlouis he received on June 4, 1862 was promoted to Major , on 20 September 1866, the Lt. Col. to and on July 23, 1868 character as a colonel under award of the patent Simon on April 19, 1870. Inspector of 1 became his rank Appointed fortress inspection. In this position he received the character of major general on March 22, 1873, before he was put up for disposition on April 16, 1874 with the award of the Crown Order II. Class with pension .

He spent his retirement in Wiesbaden, partly also in Switzerland and Italy. He died in Siena on May 23, 1887.

At the end of 1883, Simon met Friedrich Nietzsche in Switzerland and became friends with him. When Simon died in 1887, Nietzsche said to his friend Franz Overbeck : The death of the “old, strict and devoted militaire is really a loss for me: he has so often, to use Kantisch, presented to me the“ Critique of Practical Reason ” that I am now, abroad, a good deal more abandoned and 'impractical' about it than before. He died in Siena at the age of 71 [recte: 70] . If things had been shifted a little, he might have become one of the most influential and highly placed military men in Germany at that time, he was part of the family of that talented revolutionary Simon . "

family

On March 28, 1861, he married the widowed Ida Schmalfuß, born in Cosel. Sutthoff (1826–1879), a daughter of the bailiff Friedrich Jacob Sudhoff. The couple had three daughters who may have been from his wife's first marriage.

literature

• Jens Fachbach: Ludwig Simon von Trier (1819–1872). 48er, exile, European. Bonn 2018, pp. 24–26 (with portrait).
• Giorgio Colli , Mazzino Montinari (ed.): Nietzsche correspondence. Critical complete edition. Berlin / New York 1975 ff., III. Abbot, Volume 1.
• Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldier leadership . Volume 9, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1941], DNB 986919780 , p. 171, no. 2807.