Hugo Ferdinand Simon

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Hugo Ferdinand Simon, 1931

Hugo Ferdinand Simon (born January 15, 1877 in Schönbrunn near Schweidnitz , † August 20, 1958 in Evanston (Illinois) , United States ) was a German officer , secretary to Foreign Minister Rathenau , head of the reparations department in the Foreign Office, consul general in Chicago and professor of Constitutional Law from Northwestern University in Chicago-Evanston .

Life and career

Hugo Ferdinand was the son of Major Felix Simon. He was married to Hanna, nee Riehl. After graduating from high school in Glogau in 1896 , he began studying law at the Université de Lausanne in the summer semester of the same year . There he became a member of the Société d'Étudiants Germania Lausanne .

After studying in Lausanne , he worked in the military from 1897 to 1921. Simon entered the military as an avantageur , was promoted to secondary lieutenant in 1897 and came to the Thuringian Uhlan Regiment No. 6 in Hanau , then to the Regiment Königs-Jäger on Horseback No. 1 . In 1908 he was assigned to the General Staff and on March 22, 1910, he was promoted to Rittmeister here. From 1913 he was chief of the 4th Squadron in the Jäger Regiment on Horseback No. 10 in Angerburg .

When the First World War broke out , he was transferred to the General Staff of the Higher Cavalry Command No. 1 , and later Simon was First General Staff Officer of the 6th Cavalry Division . From 1915 to 1916 he was a major (from March 22, 1915) in the staff of the General Government of Warsaw , then in the Great Headquarters , from 1916 to 1918 in the High Command of the Bug Army and later in the Eichhorn Army Group . In 1918 he became chief of the general staff of the stage inspection no. 16. In February 1921 he was retired from military service as a lieutenant colonel wearing the uniform of the general staff . In parallel, he studied 1919-1921 Economics and Law and was after his dissertation was written at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin (now Humboldt University ) in July 1921, Dr. rer. pole. PhD.

Then in June 1921 he became a personal assistant to Reich Minister Rathenau in the Reich Ministry for Reconstruction on the basis of a private service contract with Minister Rathenau, then head of the ministerial office. He became Rathenau's travel companion to London , Paris and Cannes . In January 1922 Rathenau was appointed Foreign Minister. Simon left the ministerial office in April 1922 - two months before the assassination attempt on Rathenau - and switched to the diplomatic service of the Foreign Office . There he was promoted to lecturer in the Legation Council and from September 1922 was head of the Reparations Department in the Foreign Office. In 1924, Reich President Friedrich Ebert appointed him to the executive board of the Walther Rathenau Foundation at the Reich Ministry of the Interior alongside Arnold Brecht and Edwin Redslob . From 1925 to 1926 he worked at the German Embassy in London . He was one of the co-founders of the Walther Rathenau Society in 1927. From March 1927 he was appointed German Consul General in Chicago , whose office he held for six years. After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in Germany, he was put up for disposition in September 1933 and retired from the diplomatic service in 1934 at the age of 57. Since then he was until 1946 professor of constitutional law at Northwestern University in Evanston . After his retirement he worked as a writer at his place of residence in Chicago in the district of "Belmont Cragin".

Act

Due to his work as a personal assistant in the immediate ministerial area of Rathenau, Simon had internal knowledge of practically all the minister's projects and was familiar with all of his correspondence. In the winter semester of 1924/25 he gave lectures on Rathenau's reparations policy at the Berlin Administrative Academy , thus providing a detailed analysis of Rathenau's policy for the first time. He processed the series of lectures in the book entitled "Reparation and Reconstruction" , which was published in 1925. In it, Simon put his reflections on Rathenau's activities in larger international contexts, going back historically. Even today, his work can still be regarded as a well-founded, knowledgeable writing.

Awards

Publications

  • Revolution whither bound? New York, Farrar & Rinehart, inc., 1935.
  • From Walther Rathenau's life. Dresden 1927.
  • Reparation and reconstruction. Berlin 1925.
  • On the Polish industry - characteristics of the industrial development in old Poland. (Dissertation) Berlin 1921.
  • with Georg Bernhard: In Memoriam Walther Rathenau, June 24, 1922: memorial sheets, new dr. f. Harry Graf Kessler in December Weimar 1925.

literature

  • Biographical manual of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Volume 4: p . Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service, edited by: Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-71843-3
  • Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 2: L-Z. Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1931, DNB 453960294 (with portrait).
  • Herrmann AL Degener : Who's it 1935. 10th edition, Degener, Berlin 1935.
  • Dr. Hugo F. Simon Gives Dinner. In: The New York Times . December 14, 1933, p. 27.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hugo Simon, 81, Consul Fired by Hitler, dies . The Chicago Tribune , Aug. 21, 1958, p. 95.
  2. ^ Ranking list of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg Army Corps for 1914 , Ed .: War Ministry , Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Son , Berlin 1914, p. 416
  3. ↑ Ranking of the officers of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg Army Corps 1917 , Ed .: War Ministry , Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1917, p. 121
  4. ↑ Walther Rathenau Society eV, Berlin (ed.): The communications of the Walther Rathenau Society No. 15, p. 25. AVA - Akademische Verlagsanstalt Leipzig, Berlin 2005
  5. ↑ Walther Rathenau Society eV, Berlin (ed.): The communications of the Walther Rathenau Society No. 15, p. 34. AVA - Akademische Verlagsanstalt Leipzig, Berlin 2005
personal data
SURNAME Simon, Hugo Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, diplomat, university professor in the USA
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Schönbrunn near Schweidnitz , Lower Silesia
DATE OF DEATH 20th August 1958
Place of death Evanston (Illinois) , United States