Max Simoneit

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Johann Max Simoneit (born October 17, 1896 in Arys , East Prussia , † February 2, 1962 in Cologne ) was a German military psychologist with the rank of captain in the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht .

Life

Simoneit was the son of a postman and went into the First World War as a volunteer in 1914 . He was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class . After he had passed the teacher examination in 1918 , he completed a degree in psychology at the Albertus University of Königsberg in addition to teaching . Simoneit was promoted to Dr. phil. doctorate , gave up the teaching profession and was from the beginning of October 1923 to 1927 research assistant at the psychological-pedagogical department of the University of Königsberg.

Simoneit had been married since 1922, and the marriage resulted in two daughters. At the time of the Weimar Republic he was a member of the German State Party and DNVP . In 1941 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

Military psychologist

Simoneit joined the Reichswehr in 1927 as an army psychologist . From 1930 he headed the central testing station for officer candidates , the psychological laboratory at the Reichswehr and Reich War Ministry. From 1934 to 1942 Simoneit published the magazine "Soldatentum" . In 1941 he implemented the first diploma examination regulations for psychologists in Germany. After the sons of many prominent National Socialists and officers had been classified as unsuitable for the officer's career by the assessment bodies, Wehrmacht psychology was abolished in December 1942. In the meantime, he had in 1942 at the University of Göttingen with Scripture contributions to characterology of will habilitation and was, although he said Nazism faced distant, in the 1942 NSDAP occurred. He then worked at the Army Administration Office of the High Command of the Army (OKH), where he had no special function until the end of March 1943 and then worked as a psychological unskilled worker until the end of February 1944.

Use in World War II

During the Second World War , Simoneit took part in the French and Balkan campaigns as an officer in the Wehrmacht and was also deployed on the Eastern Front. After Operation Overlord , another war effort followed in Normandy . On July 7, 1944, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross because, as head of a Wehrmacht company, he succeeded in pushing the US troops out of Montebourg . In June 1944 he was treated in hospitals for a war injury until he recovered at the end of February 1945. After that he was employed again at the Army Administration Office of the OKH.

post war period

After the end of the war, Simoneit was an Allied prisoner of war and was interned in the Neuengamme internment camp . In 1947 he was one of the founders of the professional association of German psychologists in Hamburg . After a trial chamber procedure , he was classified as exonerated in the context of denazification in 1948 . He joined the SPD and became local chairman of the party in Silberstedt . He resigned from this post in 1949 because he was being expelled because of his military publications - his SPD membership was suspended until August 1951.

Many of Simoneit's writings were placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone and in the GDR .

Although he was the supervisor of many later professors ( Robert Heiß , Philipp Lersch , Johannes Rudert , Kurt Gottschaldt , Peter R. Hofstätter , Udo Undeutsch ), attempts to pursue a university career failed in the post-war period . Instead he was employed as a teacher again. At the end of June 1954 he was appointed Ministerialrat a. D. retired from teaching. In the Bundeswehr he met with rejection. He then ran his own research institute in Cologne and prepared psychodiagnostic reports.

Addicted to alcohol, he died on February 2, 1962 in the “guard room of the psychiatric university clinic in Cologne”.

His estate is stored in the psychology-historical research archive of the Distance University in Hagen .

Fonts (selection)

  • The path of art to school . Lötzen 1919
  • The Masurian Lakes and in the Oberland , 1st edition. Lötzen 1927.
  • Defense Psychology (1933)
  • Defense ethics. An outline of their problems and principles (1936)
  • Main ideas about the psychological investigation of the offspring of officers in the Wehrmacht (1938)
  • Chance and fate in military action . Bernard & Graefe, Berlin undated ( field post ).
  • Immortal soldiers. About the overcoming of death through the spirit (= soldier and statesman. Series of publications of the action , edited by Franz Riedweg , volume 3). With 17 shots of death masks. Nibelungen Verlag, 1940.
  • The Wehrmacht psychologist . Office for Vocational Education and Management in the German Labor Front, Berlin 1939.
  • German soldiery 1914 and today , 2nd edition. Junker & Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1943.
  • Characterological Symptoms (1953)

Web links

Another source

Max Simoneit's estate in the Psychology History Research Archive (PGFA) at the Distance University in Hagen

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Masurian Report ( Memento of the original from January 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.masuren-report.de
  2. ↑ Karl Heinz Bönner: The life of Dr. phil. habil. Max Simoneit , in: History of Psychology , Issue 9, 1986, p. 7.
  3. ↑ Karl Heinz Bönner: The life of Dr. phil. habil. Max Simoneit . In: History of Psychology , Edition 9, 1986, pp. 17f.
  4. ↑ Karl Heinz Bönner: The life of Dr. phil. habil. Max Simoneit , in: History of Psychology , Issue 9, 1986, p. 19.
  5. ↑ Karl Heinz Bönner: The life of Dr. phil. habil. Max Simoneit . In: History of Psychology , Edition 9, 1986, p. 22.
  6. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-s.html
  7. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1947-nslit-s.html
  8. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1953-nslit-w.html
  9. ^ Rudolf Sponsel: Critical to the German Wehrmacht Psychology
  10. ↑ Karl Heinz Bönner: The life of Dr. phil. habil. Max Simoneit . In: History of Psychology , Edition 9, 1986, p. 24.
  11. ↑ Psychology- historical research archive - personal holdings
personal data
SURNAME Simoneit, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Simoneit, Johann Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German military psychologist and officer
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Arys , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH 2nd February 1962
Place of death Cologne