Karl Joseph Simrock, (born Aug. 28, 1802, Bonn—died July 18, 1876, Bonn, Ger.), German literary scholar and poet who preserved and made accessible much early German literature, either by translation into modern German (as with Das Nibelungenlied, 1827), by rewriting and paraphrasing (as with Das Amelungenlied, 1843–49), or by editing (as with Die deutsche Volksbücher, 18 vol. [1839–67]).
In his youth he studied law at Bonn and Berlin and attended lectures on literary theory by August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Karl Lachmann. He was removed from his judicial post in 1830 for a poem he had written praising France’s July Revolution of that year, and, following his father’s death shortly afterward, he retired to Bonn and devoted himself to the study of literature. He was made an honorary professor at Bonn in 1850.