Walter Simons

Walter Simons (1861 to 1937) was a German lawyer, judge and politician who presided over the Reichsgericht, Germany's highest court, from 1922 to 1929. Born in Elberfeld into a Huguenot family, he studied law, economics and history, passed the Prussian state examinations and served as a judge at Bonn, Solingen, Velbert and Meiningen. From 1905 he worked in the Reich Justice Office and then the Foreign Office, where he advised on international law, took part in the Brest-Litovsk negotiations and was commissioner general of the German delegation at Versailles until he resigned because he opposed signing the treaty. He was Foreign Minister in the Fehrenbach cabinet from June 1920 to May 1921. Appointed president of the Reichsgericht at Leipzig in 1922, he also served briefly as acting head of state after Friedrich Ebert's death in 1925 and resigned in 1929 after a dispute over appointments at the Reichsbahn. He was also an honorary professor of international law at Leipzig.