John Sieg

John Sieg (February 3, 1903 – October 15, 1942) was an American-born German Communist railroad worker, journalist and resistance fighter, who publicized Nazi atrocities through the underground Communist press and fought against National Socialism in the German Resistance. He was a key member of the anti-fascist resistance group that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Gestapo.

Biography

John Sieg was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of a mechanic. After the death of his father in 1912, he lived with his grandfather in Germany and became a German citizen in 1920.

In the beginning of the 1920s, Sieg went to school to become a teacher, but when his grandfather died in 1923, he had to quit. He returned to Detroit and met his future wife, Sophie, in 1924, while working as a college intern. He stayed in the United States until February 1928, when Sieg and his wife returned to Germany and he became a freelance author in Berlin.

Legacy

A street in an area of new construction on Frankfurter Allee-Süd in Berlin-Lichtenberg was named after John Sieg on June 22, 1972.