Gerhart Seger

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Gerhart Seger

Gerhart Seger (born November 16, 1896 in Leipzig , † January 21, 1967 in New York , NY ) was a social democratic politician, publicist and pacifist . From 1930 to March 1933 he was a member of the Reichstag . Due to the rejection of the Enabling Act by the Social Democrats, he was among those MPs who were persecuted, arrested and sent to a concentration camp by the Nazi rulers . In 1934 he fled to Prague, where he wrote a sensational report on his experiences in the Oranienburg concentration camp . A little later he emigrated to the USA, where he was politically active for life and became known as a speaker.

Life

Seger came from a tailor's family and learned the profession of stone printer in Leipzig . He was the son of the long-time Leipzig SPD functionary and Reichstag deputy Friedrich Seger . Already in his youth he joined the Socialist Workers Youth . During the First World War he was a soldier. In 1917 he joined the USPD . In 1919 Seger sat in on the subjects of journalism and art history at the University of Leipzig . In 1920/21 he worked as a lecturer at the Volkshochschule in Kiel and in 1921 became editor of the USPD newspaper Die Freiheit in Berlin.

After the merger of the USPD and MSPD (1922) Seger was a member of the SPD and became editor of the people's newspaper for South West Saxony in Plauen . A year later he gave up this position in favor of a full-time position as Secretary General of the German Peace Society . In 1928 he became editor of the Volksblatt für Anhalt in Dessau , until he was elected to the Reichstag in 1930 for constituency 10 ( Magdeburg ).

Memorial plaque on the Volksblatt printing house in Dessau

After the transfer of power , in March 1933, Seger was one of the first members of the Reichstag to be taken into " protective custody " by the National Socialists . At first he was in the court prison in Dessau before he was transferred to the Oranienburg concentration camp on June 14, 1933 with other political prisoners. He was one of the few who managed to escape in December 1933. In exile in Prague , he wrote down his Oranienburg report. With a preface by Heinrich Mann , this report about the beginning of the National Socialist era attracted international attention. In retaliation, the Gestapo took Seger's wife and young daughter hostage in early 1934. Only protests from abroad led to the family's release from prison and made it possible for them to leave the country.

Seger and his family emigrated to the USA in October 1934. There he participated in the founding of the German Labor delegation . He worked as an editor for their New York organ, Neue Volkszeitung . He also wrote for other German-language newspapers and gave lectures on the National Socialist regime . On November 3, 1934, the Deutsche Reichsanzeiger published the third expatriation list of the German Reich through which Seger was expatriated . Seger stayed in America after the war and worked as a freelance journalist since 1950 . He was best known for his lecturing activities, in the USA alone he gave more than 11,000 lectures.

Awards

Fonts

  • Oranienburg: First authentic report by a refugee from the concentration camp. With a foreword by Heinrich Mann. Carlsbad, 1934.
  • Travel diary of a German emigrant. Zurich, Europa-Verlag, 1936.
  • Art and Historical Materialism. An example of a new approach to art. Leipzig 1920.
  • Proletarian youth and theater. A guide for the working youth by Gerhart Seger. Berlin 1921.
  • The spiritual liberation of the working class. Comments on Gerhart Seger's educational work. Leipzig 1922.
  • The workshop of the mind. Berlin 1922.
  • What is historical materialism? Attempt a systematic representation. Berlin 1923.
  • Workers and Pacifism. Leipzig 1924.
  • (Ed.): The Quidde case. Facts and documents. Compiled and introduced by Gerhart Seger, Secretary of the German Peace Society. Berlin 1924.
  • Workers / War / League of Nations. Hamburg 1925.
  • A defensive republic? Berlin 1926.
  • Germany - a second Switzerland? Neutralization as a war prevention. A foreign policy proposal by Gerhart Seger. Dessau 1929.
  • With Siegfried K. Marck: To be or not to be? New York 1943.
  • Life in Germany. Grand Rapids 1955.
  • Dictatorship - War disaster. New York 1956.
  • USA Munich undated
  • Come along to Germany. Minneapolis 1966.

literature

Web links

Commons : Gerhart Seger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Rudloff, Mike Schmeitzner: Such pests also exist in Leipzig . P. 72
  2. ↑ A supplementary report on this topic was recently published by Seger, cf. Horst Klein: Memories of Gerhard H. Seger (1896–1967) of his life after his escape from the Oranienburg concentration camp . In: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Volume III / 2014
  3. ↑ Michael Hepp (Ed.): The expatriation of German citizens 1933-45 according to the lists published in the Reichsanzeiger . tape 1 : Lists in chronological order. De Gruyter Saur, Munich / New York / London / Paris 1985, ISBN 978-3-11-095062-5 , pp. 5 (reprinted 2010).
personal data
SURNAME Seger, Gerhart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German social democratic politician (USPD, SPD), Member of the Parliament and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH November 16, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 1967
Place of death New York City