Gustav Simon - Simon's Death

Simon's Death

When the war ended, Simon went into hiding using his mother's maiden name in Upsprunge, a community in Salzkotten, Westphalia, where he posed as a gardener. On 10 December 1945, he was seized by Captain Hanns Alexander and local soldiers and taken to a British Army prison in Paderborn.

About his death there have been since late 1945 – and there still are – many rumours that contradict each other as to where and under what circumstances Simon met his end. The stories, however, can be grouped into two fundamental versions. The official version has it that Simon died in Paderborn, as the registry office there put on the death certificate. Simon is said to have hanged himself shortly before he was to have been handed over to Luxembourg. It does stand out, though, that the registration number 66/1946 was only written in February 1946, some two months after the date of Simon's death.

The second – and to this day unofficial – version has it that Simon died in Luxembourg. After the British Occupation Administration agreed to hand him over, he was to have been taken by car by two Luxembourgers from Paderborn to the Luxembourgish capital (also called Luxembourg) so that he could be brought to book before a court there. Shortly before reaching Luxembourg, at Waldhaff, there was an incident provoked by Simon in which he was killed. Simon's body was nonetheless taken to the prison in Grund, a neighbourhood in the capital, where it was photographed by the press, and then in the end buried. His premature death thwarted any trial. To suppress the whole business, the media, among them the agency DANA (Deutsch-Amerikanische Nachrichtenagentur) and the Tageblatt, were furnished with information by the British Captain Hanns Alexander, about the "suicide in Paderborn".

This so-called second version is merely a fiction, as has been proved by studies based on both British and Luxembourgish archival documents.