Bernhard Seeger was born to a
locksmith in
Roßlau. He attended the
gymnasium and then a teaching education school in
Köthen. In 1944, he joined the
Nazi Party. After doing his
Reichsarbeitsdienst in
Zerbst, he participated in
World War II as a soldier in the
Wehrmacht in 1944/45. He was imprisoned in a Soviet
prisoner of war camp from May through December 1945. After his return from the prison, Seeger completed a course for New Teachers. In 1946, he joined the
SED and the
Freie Deutsche Jugend. Between 1946 and 1952, he worked as a teacher in a village school. He was a
literary editor at the
Verlag Neues Leben in 1952/53 then a freelance writer in Stücken district of
Michendorf near
Potsdam. In 1954/55, he was a
reporter in
Vietnam then he was department manager to the secretary of the
Schriftstellerverband of East Germany. He became a writer again in 1957. In 1967, Seeger was incapable of writing for a long time because of a difficult accident. Since he already belonged to the SED's Bezirk of Potsdam leadership since 1964, he was a member of the SED's
Central Committee from 1967. Between 1953 and 1972, he was an unofficial informer of the
East German Stasi. Bernhard Seeger wrote
reportages,
narratives,
novels and
poems though best known for his
radio and
televised dramas. Seeger's party politic works dealt with the prominent problems of the building phase of the East German society, that of the East German critic highly praised work"
Herbstrauch" about the
collective farming of the East German agriculture in 1959/60 had strong influence of
Sholokhov's "New Land under the Plough". Bernhard Seeger belonged to the
Schriftstellerverband of East Germany since 1952 and the
Academy of Arts, Berlin between 1969 and 1991. He won the following awards: the 1956
Theodor Fontane Prize of the Bezirk Potsdam, the 1960
Erich Weinert Medal, the 1962
Heinrich Mann Prize and Literature Prize of the
Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB), the 1963 and 1967
National Prize of East Germany, the 1968
Johannes R. Becher Medal, the 1969 Order of the
Banner of Labor, the 1981 and 1983 Art Prize of the FDGB, the 1983
Vaterländischer Verdienstorden of East Germany as well as the 1987
Order of Karl Marx. ==Works==