John Victory

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Portrait photo
Name of the street after John Sieg, June 1972
Stolperstein , Jonasstrasse 5a, in Berlin-Neukölln

John Sieg (born February 3, 1903 in Detroit , USA ; † October 15, 1942 in Berlin ) was an American-German journalist and resistance fighter against National Socialism in Germany. He belonged to the core of the " Red Chapel ". Pseudonym Siegfried Nebel .

Life

John Sieg was born in the USA, but lived with his grandfather in Germany from 1912 after his father's death. In 1920 he was naturalized in Germany. In the early 1920s he trained as a teacher. In 1924 he returned to the USA. There he worked in automobile factories until 1928 and studied at evening colleges. From February 1928 he lived as a freelance author in Berlin. In the same year he married the secretary Sophie Wloszczynski (May 14, 1893 - May 13, 1987). From 1929 he published articles in the journal Die Tat , headed by Adam Kuckhoff . After joining the KPD in the same year, he worked in the features section of the newspaper Die Rote Fahne . Here he met Wilhelm Guddorf and Martin Weise . From March to June 1933 he was imprisoned by the SA . After his release he worked in the communist resistance in Berlin-Neukölln and became the focal point of various groups. He had close contacts with Arvid Harnack and Adam Kuckhoff since the mid-1930s . He took part in leaflet campaigns and exchanged political information. From 1937 he worked for the Deutsche Reichsbahn , most recently as a dispatcher at the Papestrasse S-Bahn station .

Together with Herbert Grasse , Otto Grabowski and others, he published the illegal newspaper Die Innere Front and, together with Wilhelm Guddorf and Adam Kuckhoff, belonged to the organizational center of the Berlin groups of the Rote Kapelle.

He was arrested along with his wife on October 11, 1942. The interrogations at the Gestapo headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse drove him to suicide on October 15, 1942 : he hanged himself in his cell; as early as the spring of 1942 he had told friends that if he was arrested he would commit suicide so as not to betray anyone.

Sophie Sieg, who was also arrested in October 1942, was transferred to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in June 1943 without a trial , from which she was liberated by the Red Army on April 30, 1945.

Honors

literature

  • Hans Coppi junior , Jürgen Danyel, Johannes Tuchel : The Red Orchestra in the resistance against National Socialism . Hentric, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-89468-110-1 .
  • Alfred B. Gottwaldt : Inner front. Memories of John Sieg, railway assistant and resistance fighter. In: Railway history. No. 26 (February / March 2008), pp. 57-59.
  • Regina Griebel, Marlies Coburger, Heinrich Scheel: Recorded? The Gestapo album for the Red Orchestra . Audioscop, Halle / S. 1992, ISBN 3-88384-044-0 .
  • Gert Rosiejka: The Red Chapel. "Treason" as an anti-fascist resistance. results, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-925622-16-0 .
  • Helmut Schmidt (Ed.): John Sieg. One in a million speaks. Dietz Verlag Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-320-01392-0 .
  • Ursel Hochmuth : Illegal KPD and the >> Free Germany << movement in Berlin and Brandenburg 1942-1945. Biographies and testimonials from the resistance organization around Saefkow, Jacob and Bästlein . Hentrich & Hentrich, Teetz 1998, ISBN 3-933471-08-7 .
  • Win, john . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945. 2., revised. and strong exp. Edition. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
  • Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz : Railway trade unionists in the Nazi state. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration (1933–1945) (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration. Volume 7). Metropol, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-86331-353-1 .

Web links

Commons : John Sieg  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ bda-koepenick.de
  2. ^ John Victory Street. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
personal data
SURNAME Win, john
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nebel, Siegfried (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American-German journalist and resistance fighter against National Socialism in Germany
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Detroit , USA
DATE OF DEATH October 15, 1942
Place of death Berlin