We mourn the death of Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Spiros Simitis and look back on decades of trustful cooperation.
Since 1978, Spiros Simitis has published his most important publications with Nomos Verlag. He founded the Research Center for Data Protection, whose research results we were allowed to edit. With the commentary on the Federal Data Protection Act, continued with Gerrit Hornung and Indra Spiecker called Döhmann, he set standards in terms of content and style.
With him, we are losing a contact person who accompanied the developments of the publishing house, critically scrutinized them and always supported them. His infectious optimism and his intellectual and human integrity created a basis that supported everything. Spiros Simitis had the rare gift of accepting and giving trust. His joie de vivre was infectious, the congruence of thought and action, talent and vocation, heart and mind alive in every conversation.
We will miss these conversations. Never meandering aimlessly out of intellectual hubris, but always full of esprit. Gladly, in true Socratic style, he would ask questions, tie in linguistically brilliantly with the answers, and then gently (and as, tongue-in-cheek, occasionally planned) steer his interlocutor in his tracks. And where it did not seem possible for him to explain something theoretically, he told about what he had experienced. He spoke then of people, never about them. Even if a slight mischievousness brought a smile to his face from time to time. This smile will be missed not only by us.
We are not only losing a friend of the publishing house, but we are all losing a friend of man, who always used his charisma for this. We will all miss his confidence in reason and peacefulness, especially in these times.
Our thoughts are with his wife and family.