John Sieg

John Sieg ( born February 3, 1903 in Detroit (USA ), † 15 October 1942 Berlin) was a journalist and resistance fighter against National Socialism in Germany. He belonged to the core of the " Red Orchestra ".

Life

John Sieg was born in the U.S. but lived from 1912 after the death of his father by his grandfather in Germany. In 1920 he was naturalized in Germany. The early 1920s was his training as a teacher. In 1924 he returned to the United States. There he worked until 1928 in automotive factories and studied at evening colleges. As of February 1928, he worked 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 newspaper run by Adam Kuckhoff The deed. After joining the Communist Party in the same year he worked in the arts section of the newspaper with the Red Flag. Here he also met Wilhelm Guddorf and Martin know way. From March to June 1933, he was imprisoned by the SA. After discharge, he worked in the communist resistance in Berlin- Neukölln and here was the focal point of various groups. Since the mid- 1930s, he had close contacts with Arvid Harnack and Adam Kuckhoff. He participated in leafleting and political information exchange. From 1937 he worked at Deutsche Reichsbahn, most recently as a train dispatcher at Pape S-Bahn station.

Along with Herbert Grasse, Otto Grabowski and others he gave the illegal newspaper out The domestic front and was, together with Wilhelm Guddorf and Adam Kuckhoff the organizational center of the Berlin group of the Red Orchestra.

He was arrested on October 11, 1942 along with his wife. The interrogations in the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht -Straße drove him on 15 October 1942 suicide: he hanged himself in his cell; in the spring of 1942, he had friends said he was determined in the case of arrest to commit suicide, to betray anyone.

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

Honors

• In June 1972, a street was named after him in the development area Frankfurter Allee Süd in Berlin- Lichtenberg.
• Front of the house Jonasstraße 5a in Berlin -Neukölln, a stumbling block has been moved