Otto Seeger

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Otto Seeger (born July 18, 1900 in Woltersdorf , Jerichow I district , Province of Saxony ; † December 24, 1976 in Brandenburg (Havel) -Plaue ) was a German politician ( KPD / SED ), trade unionist and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Life

Seeger, son of a shipbuilder, was the oldest of four children. Since his father's earnings were insufficient, Seeger had to leave the elementary school in Weseram prematurely in 1910 in order to support the family financially through work. Seeger initially did unskilled work as a pipelayer in the state powder factory in Kirchmöser . From 1915 to the beginning of 1918 he completed an apprenticeship as a plumber .

Shortly before his 18th birthday, Seeger had to undergo military training and was deployed as a recruit in Belgium in the last months of the First World War . Immediately after his return from Belgium in February 1919, Seeger joined the USPD in Plaue (Havel) , and at the end of 1920 he joined the KPD with its left wing. At first Seeger worked as a cashier in the party, from 1922 he headed the KPD local group.

From 1922 to 1930 Seeger worked in the German Railway Workers' Association (DEV) / Union of Railway Workers in Germany (EdED). He was a member of the local administration of Kirchmöser and a delegate of various trade union congresses of the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) in Brandenburg. In 1924 he also became a member of the Association of Proletarian Freethinkers. Seeger also worked as a sports warden in the Plau workers' sports club. From 1925 until his dismissal in 1932, he worked in the Reichsbahn repair shop in Brandenburg-West, where he was also a member of the works council for EdED. At the same time, he headed the KPD operating cell there and in this function published his own company newspaper. From 1928 Seeger became involved in the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO), for which he won a works council mandate and took on several functions. From 1929 to 1933 Seeger was a city councilor in Brandenburg (Havel) , a member of the Oberbarnim district assembly and the Brandenburg provincial assembly . From 1932 to 1933 he was secretary of the KPD sub-district of Brandenburg (Havel).

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, Seeger illegally continued his work for the KPD. He was at the head of the party organization for the Brandenburg (Havel), Belzig and Rathenow area . He helped organize meetings , print and distribute leaflets and the Rote BZ , the local newspaper of the KPD Brandenburg. Seeger was arrested in Brandenburg on May 9, 1933 and taken to Oranienburg concentration camp on June 20 . In August 1933 he was transferred to the Oranienburg court prison and then to the Berlin-Moabit remand prison . The Berlin Court of Appeal sentenced him to one year and nine months' imprisonment for “preparation for high treason”, which he had to serve in Tegel prison and in the Emsland camp in Oberlangen an der Ems . After his discharge in May 1935, he worked as a locksmith and car welder in the Opel works in Brandenburg, which was later responsible for the production of the trucks that were essential to the war effort . Seeger was there again active in the resistance. On August 22, 1944, he was arrested again in connection with the Gewitter campaign . He was imprisoned in the satellite camp of Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Berlin-Haselhorst and had to work for the Siemens cable factory.

After the war ended in 1945, Seeger joined the FDGB , and in 1946 the SED. He was initially a city councilor in Plaue (Havel) and from 1945 to 1947 chairman of the KPD and SED district committee for Westhavelland in Rathenow. From 1947 to 1948 he was an organizational instructor in the SED state committee in Brandenburg.

In 1948/1949 he acted as head of department and organization secretary in the FDGB state board of Brandenburg. From 1949 to 1951 he was the chairman of the regional association of IG Eisenbahn Brandenburg and Greater Berlin. He was then from March 1951 to 1955 chairman of the central board of IG Eisenbahn, then from 1955 to 1959 deputy chairman. Until he left the management, Seeger represented IG Eisenbahn in the administrative committee of the International Federation of Transport Workers of the World Trade Union Confederation . Seeger was a member of the FDGB federal executive committee and was temporarily a member of its presidium and from 1959 to 1963 deputy chairman, until 1968 a member of the central revision commission of the FDGB.

Awards

literature

  • Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla. KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p. 845.
  • Friederike Sattler: Economic order in transition. Politics, organization and function of the KPD / SED in the state of Brandenburg during the establishment of the central planned economy in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945–52 . Lit, Münster 2002, p. 960.
  • Andreas Herbst : Seeger, Otto . In: Dieter Dowe , Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke (Hrsg.): FDGB-Lexikon. Function, structure, cadre and development of a mass organization of the SED (1945–1990). Berlin 2009.
  • 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 , pp. 293-294, 362, 668-669 (short biography).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to Baumgartner, Hebig (1996) and Sattler (2002), Seeger did not die until January 1, 1977.
  2. ^ New Germany , October 7, 1957, p. 5.
  3. ^ President Wilhelm Pieck awarded high honors , In: Berliner Zeitung , August 17, 1960, p. 2.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Seeger, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPS / SED) and trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Woltersdorf , District Jerichow I , Province of Saxony , Kingdom of Prussia , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1976
Place of death Plaue , Brandenburg (Havel) , GDR