
Max Simon
* 6 January 1899 –
Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland)
† 1 February 1961 –
Lünen (Unna, North Rhine-Westphalia)
Starting in 1943, Max Simon commanded the 16th
Simon came from a Prussian lower middle-class family. He began his long military career as a non-commissioned officer in the Reichswehr’s calvary. In 1931, he joined the Nazi Party and in 1934 the SS. After his transfer to the newly created concentration-camp inspectorate, he was initially Kommandant of the guard troops in Sachsenburg. In 1937, he took over command of the 1st SS Totenkopf (‘death’s head’) ‘Upper Bavaria’ Regiment in Dachau. Between 1939 and 1940, he led the 1st SS Totenkopf Infantry Regiment, then fought in France and on the Eastern Front until 1941. He was one of the most important officers in the Totenkopf Division, known for excesses of violence and a fanatic fighting spirit. In 1947, a military court in Padua sentenced Simon to death for crimes committed in Italy. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment; after serving seven years, Simon was released.
- Nationality
- German
- Formation
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1917-1919 German Army
1919-1929 Reichswehr
1934-1945 Politische Bereitschaften and SS Totenkopf units; Waffen-SS - Army branch
- Deutsches Heer Waffen-SS
- Joined the NSDAP
- 1931
- Armed force
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Waffen-SS
- Unit
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3. SS-Panzerdivision "Totenkopf"
16th SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’
XIII SS-Armeekorps - Years of service
- 1917-1929 / 1933-1945
- Rank
- SS-Gruppenführer
- Offensive
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Austrian Anschluss
Occupation of Czechoslovakia
Invasion of Poland
Western Front
Invasion of Soviet Union
Eastern Front
Occupation of Italy 1943-45
Fighting in Germany in war’s final phase - Confirmed Massacres
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As Kommandeur, Max Simon was responsible for all massacres perpetrated by his division: Pisa, San Rossore, Lago di Massaciuccoli, Sant 'Anna di Stazzema, Bardine di San Terenzo, Valla, Vinca, Laiano di Filettole, Camaiore, Massa, Bergiola Foscalina, Fosse del Frigido, Monte Sole, Casalecchio di Reno, San Cesario sul Panaro, and Vignola.
- Post war period
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Trial before a British military court in Padua; death sentence 1947. Commuted to life imprisonment in 1951 and incarceration in Werl military prison. Early release in 1954.
1954-1960: Trial on account of Brettheim events of 1945
Training and war experience
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Career as a young soldier: First World War and cavalry
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Civil service employment and Nazi Party membership
Theodor Eicke, Kommandant of Dachau, assigned Simon to the concentration camp’s newly established inspectorate. A form of training especially conceived for camp personnel was developed here: the so-called Dachau School. The personnel were meant to be distanced and disciplined while at the same time treating prisoners with utmost severity and an absence of any allowance. Many of the later battalion and company commanders of the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division 'Reichsführer-SS' went through this training.
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Military career and concentration camp deployment
Eicke left no doubt that Simon corresponded in every respect to his ideal picture of the ‘political soldier’ who tied ‘extraordinary severity’ with ‘inner heartfulness’. The mix of such severity with paternal care for the soldiers indeed constituted Simon’s personality. The mix guaranteed that Simon’s men would be prepared to ‘go through fire’ for him.
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Kommandeur of the 1st SS Totenkopf Infantry Regiment on the Eastern Front
Participation in massacres of civilians
Under his command, the ‘Reichsführer-SS’ division lost thousands of men at the front. The division murdered appr. 2,000 Italian civilians, mainly women and children; it is presently viewed as by far the most violent division among the occupying forces in Italy.
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With the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’ in Italy
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After the Italian deployment
The postwar years
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The 1947 trial before the British military court in Padua
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The Brettheim trial of 1954

Sources
The main sources for reconstructing Max Simon’s biography are his personnel files as an SS officer and documents produced by both the defence and prosecution for his trials. The study of Franz Josef Merkl, mentioned in the literature list, cites source material from 30 archives located throughout Europe. For the personnel files, see Bundesarchiv in Berlin (German Federal Archives in Berlin), R 9361-III/194365; R 9361-III/556921; R 601/2389. For documents related to the investigations and trials see the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen in Ludwigsburg (Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg) and Bundesarchiv in Koblenz (German Federal Archives in Koblenz), the state archives in Augsburg and Nuremberg, the National Archives in Kew (London), and the U.S. National Archives in College Park (Maryland).
Literature
Carlo Gentile,
Franz Josef Merkl, General Simon, Lebensgeschichte eines SS-Führers. Erkundungen zu Gewalt und Karriere, Kriminalität und Justiz, Legenden und öffentlichen Auseinandersetzungen, Augsburg, Wißner, 2010.
Authorship and translation
Author: Carlo Gentile
Translated from German by: Joel Golb
© Project ‘The Massacres in Occupied Italy (1943-1945): Integrating the Perpetrators’ Memories’
2023