1. Gustav Simon 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.
21 Facts About Gustav Simon
1. 2.
Gustav Simon then decided to work towards obtaining his abitur, and meanwhile he was employed as a railway assistant in Hermeskeil and as a customs broker from 1920 to 1922.
3.
Gustav Simon passed his abitur, and studied economics and law at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main from 1922 to 1925, planning to become a teacher.
4.
In 1923, while still a student, Gustav Simon was a member of a volkisch College Group in Frankfurt, and was elected to the position of Second Chairman that year.
5.
In 1924, when the Nazi Party was banned after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Gustav Simon joined the National Socialist Freedom Party, a Nazi front organization.
6.
Shortly after joining, Gustav 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.
7.
In 1933 Gustav Simon published a Nazi newspaper, the Coblenzer Nationalblatt and served as its editor-in-chief.
8.
Unlike most other Gauleiters, Gustav Simon did not belong to the SA or the SS; however, he was a member of the National Socialist Motor Corps being promoted to NSKK-Gruppenfuhrer on 9 November 1935 and NSKK-Obergruppenfuhrer on 30 January 1939.
9.
At the start of the Second World War, Gustav Simon was made a member of the Defense Committee for Wehrkreis XII that included his Gau, which was renamed Moselland on 24 January 1941.
10.
On 16 November 1942, Gustav Simon was named Reich Defense Commissioner for the Gau.
11.
Under this commander, Gustav Simon took over civil administration of Luxembourg on 25 July 1940.
12.
The military occupation status ended on 2 August 1940, when Gustav Simon was appointed Chief of Civil Administration by a decree from the Fuhrer.
13.
On 6 August 1940, Gustav Simon ordered all police functions removed from the Luxembourg gendarmerie and entrusted to German police units.
14.
On 23 October 1940, Gustav Simon issued proclamations dissolving the Parliament and Council of State.
15.
Gustav Simon ordered that all Luxembourger males born between 1920 and 1924 were subject to compulsory military conscription into the Wehrmacht.
16.
In protest, a general strike broke out the next day and was ruthlessly suppressed by Gustav Simon who declared martial law.
17.
Gustav Simon threatened striking workers with execution unless they returned to their factories, and 20 strike leaders were eventually executed at the Hinzert concentration camp.
18.
Additionally, on 31 January 1941, Gustav 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.
19.
Gustav Simon fled Luxembourg on 9 September 1944, ahead of the advancing US Army that entered Luxembourg City without a fight the next day.
20.
On 25 September 1944, Gustav Simon was made commander of the Nazi militia, the Volkssturm, in Gau Moselland.
21.
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.