Simitis, Konstantinos (1936–)

Konstantinos Georgiou Simitis (generally known as Costas Simitis) was born in Piraeus, Greece, and studied law and economics in Germany and England. He began his academic career in law at the University of Marburg in 1959. He taught as an assistant professor at the University of Konstanz in 1971 and went on to become a regular professor of commercial and civil law at the University of Giessen. In 1977, he was appointed regular professor at the Panteion University of Athens.

Living in Athens as a lawyer, Simitis played a leading part in the founding of the Association of Political Research, also known as Alexandros Papanastasiou. In 1967, the association evolved into the antidictatorial organization Democratic Defense (Democratiki Amina), which was to participate in the founding of ...