Walter Simons

Walter Simons (24 September 1861 – 14 July 1937) was a German lawyer and politician. He was Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic in 1920-21 and served as president of the Reichsgericht from 1922 to 1929. Early life Walter Simons was born on 24 September 1861 at Elberfeld (today Wuppertal) in the Prussian Rhine Province. His family were Huguenots who had come to the Rhineland after 1685. Walter's father was Ludwig Simons (1831-1905), a silk manufacturer. His mother was Helene Simons née Kyllmann (1842-1916). Walter Simons attended a Gymnasium at Elberfeld and attained the Abitur in 1879. He went on to study law, economics and history at Strasbourg, Leipzig and Bonn. Rudolph Sohm had an important influence on him. In 1882, he passed the Referendarexamen and then served in the military. In 1888, he passed the Prussian Assessorexamen and then served as an assistant judge at Bonn and Solingen. He married Erna Rühle (1870-1954) at Solingen in 1890. They had three sons and four daughters. Civil service career In 1893, Simons became Amtsgerichtsrat (judge) at Velbert. From 1897 to 1905, he was Landgerichtsrat at the Gemeinschaftliche Landgericht of Thuringia at Meiningen. In 1905, he went to Kiel where he worked at the Oberlandesgericht, but left that same year to work as a clerk at the Reichsjustizamt at Berlin.